I’m happy to see so many articles circulating about women, body image and worth. I am passionate about working to change the current cultural paradigm around women and girls’ value being first in their appearance. Any and all discussion therein is positive to me. That said, every time I turn around I see another (well-meaning, it seems) article about how ridiculous the idea is that we are all beautiful. Stop using the word with little ones, they say. “Beauty” is the problem. I’m an intelligent woman. I understand the message. It goes, “Everyone isn’t the same kind of awesome. This is just more focusing on beauty when we should be honoring other things. We are more than appearance and appearance doesn’t matter.” But here’s my bottom line: I could go my whole life and never receive another mandate of what I am allowed to do with, think about, say about my own damn body and I would still be exhausted by them. I think sharing experience and perspectives is wonderful. But when we take our (current, typically evolving) beliefs and apply them strictly to everyone we both miss the opportunity to grow in an unexpected way, as well as disregard another’s truth. Myself? I’m a bit of a hippie. I believe in beauty everywhere. I value beauty. To me it looks like everything. When I look around the room I’m sitting in right now I see things I’ve collected because I thought they were beautiful. Photos from beautiful experiences. I think about what it means to love someone, the way you find yourself marveling at things like an odd birthmark that takes on this secret meaning. Everything about them becomes divinely beautiful. When I pick words for what I want for my life, “beautiful” is the first one that comes to mind. I want to live a beautiful life… which I see as being rich with experiences good and bad. Beauty is in beginnings and endings. In lightness and in the dark. In people it is often evidence of their inner life that shows up on the outside. Sure. But I’ve never, ever in my life loved someone in any way without marveling at their outside person (or in spite of it somehow). I believe people are whole beings, not fragments to be sorted. There are so many ways to be beautiful. The idea that it can be boxed in to a list of ideals is so short-sited to me. Beauty for me has a broad definition, and for it I cast a wide net. I am a rose colored glasses, manifest it if you feel it, glass half full type of broad. For me, fully loving myself in the way I feel I deserve (in the way I hope to show my daughter) means viewing myself with that same lens. To notice and marvel at beauty everywhere in the world around me and extend that to my mirror. I wake up everyday thankful for every part of myself and my journey… as they all lead me home. Where it turns out the ugliness in all of that have always been the most beautiful parts. And here’s the kicker: I don’t think you have to agree with me. If you’re the type of woman who just rolled with me so far, nodding along and perhaps drifting off in your head a bit as you were reminded of the beauty around you: awesome. You would probably enjoy going on a hike with me. We’d wax poetic about silver linings and dawn after darkness. The world needs people like us weirdos. I’m into being one of them. But perhaps you just rolled your eyes. I get that too. You’re into (insert anything else under the freaking sun). You want to be defined by (insert a characteristic of utmost importance to you) and that alone. I AGREE! What is primarily important to me isn’t rather or not we all get together and “kumbaya” on some “we are all beautiful” stuff. But rather that we get to define ourselves. What I know for sure: The worth of an individual woman is much more complex than a quip about insides verses outsides. It is defined by only her, informed by her character, her actions and her values. In the effort to redefine what a woman is allowed to be, the last thing we need is more perimeters for it. To confine a woman’s value to the circumference of her thighs, length of her skirt or application of her eyeliner is to cage her. To tell her any other way she might contribute to the world comes second to the way she physically presents is to distract from the real purpose of her person. These criteria are dying out. But they don’t need replaced either. No, the answer to dismantling unrealistic beauty standards is not as simple as saying “everyone is beautiful,” and it’s not as simple as saying “beauty is frivolous and unimportant.” The answer is empowering individual women to self-define and self-govern. To stop imposing upon one another any ruler, new or old, with which we are allowed to measure ourselves. I spent most of my life and a truly sad amount of energy hating my body. It dictated my actions and narrowed my participation in my life. No matter how much I told myself it wasn’t important, I could not dissect myself and honor myself at the same time. What I wanted was approval, but it wasn’t until I found it in myself that I felt free. I believe I am beautiful for all that I am and all that I’m not. By my own definition, not subject to others’ input or agreement. That is but one story of a woman and her journey to self-define. Regardless of the words I choose, my worth is defined by me. I believe you deserve the same. The path forward is not about the “new” anything. It’s in realizing that women, like men, are diverse and marvelous and peculiar. Ferocious and strong. Quiet and ravishing. Brave and faithful and on and on. The gifts we have to offer the world are as diverse as we are. Moving forward is not about changing what we are reduced to, but expanding the possibilities. So I’m allowed to be beautiful. And you don’t have to agree. We get to tell our stories and use our own words to do so. We don’t need a new “right” way to be a woman, just the freedom to define ourselves. iamerinbrown/2014/08/in-defense-of-beautiful/
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 06:40:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015