The beauty myth that we have all been part of propagating is that beauty is objective. That we can all agree on what is beautiful, and hence that we can label people as beautiful or not, in an objective, binary, universally agreed way.
This is a lie, and a very damaging lie.
Where it began for me
I intuitively felt for the majority of my life that beauty was a big deal. My parents were a (thankful) deviation from society with very little emphasis put on appearance in our house. Despite them being so progressive and feminist on this front, they could not protect their children from the harsh outside world. Sadly, no parents can, when there are other parents out there teaching their children the very opposite: that appearance matters a lot and that what is beautiful is governed by certain rigid parameters.
My first recollection of self-awareness of the I-am-not-beautiful virus was when I was 7. I was at a school dance, dancing happily in a circle of my friends. I was looking at my friend Samantha, with her blonde hair and rosy cheeks. The disco lighting was bouncing off her skin, coloring her pink, blue, green so effortlessly. I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror. The happiness of being at the dance seeped away quickly – I was disappointed by the small dark girl that looked back. I thought of my complexion, stubborn and unchanging with the lights, and I thought to myself “I am not beautiful like Samantha. I can never be”.
The seed for this line of thinking had been planted even longer ago when I was 4 years old and in India, and I saw other children being appreciated for being light-skinned. And the insult that triggered me to carry out one of the most violent acts I’ve been involved in, when I was just 4 years old, was a friend calling me a “black witch”. I pushed her off the roof of the house where we were playing. Thankfully, she was fine, though the relations between our families were never quite the same after that incident. That the term “black witch” is an insult that a 4 year old can detect, with that choice adjective, is very telling… not of the horrible person I was, but of the horrible society I was raised in, which incidentally is global society.
Beauty and racism
In her book “The history of white people”, Nell Irvin Painter spends considerable time talking about beauty and aesthetics and the perceived inferiority of non-white people. I think the reason she dwells on it so much is because she recognizes that to strip away the honor of being beautiful for men and women who do not look like the average of the white population is a grotesque crime.
Assertions of beauty are fundamental to racism. Racism assumes inferiority of one group to another, and there are 2 main pillars of characteristics that are deemed most important: 1. Intelligence and 2. Beauty
How we all propagate damaging myths
We talk about beauty as if it is objective, as if we should all be able to agree on it, like we’re agreeing that the earth is round and the sky is blue.
When in reality, we can’t agree on it, and agreement should NOT ever be the goal.
In years 12-13 in “high school” in the UK in my class of 600 people, there was a girl who was proclaimed the most beautiful Indian girl in the school. I was baffled how 6 months in, I hadn’t seen her. One day in the cafeteria, my friend pointed her out. “Oh her?!” I said. Turns out I’d seen her many times before and it never occurred to me that she was the one. Quite the contrary, I had considered her “below average”.
A realization occurred to me: perhaps beauty is subjective.
But another small thing occurred in me, an adjustment to see her as more beautiful than I naturally thought of her. To agree with the herd, to enable assembling into the herd.
Herds should never really be organized on joint views on who is beautiful. But they are – the whole herd of humanity is trying to be at times, with Hollywood and MTV and beauty contests as the “certification standards” institutions. It’s absurd, if you think about it, to have defined “standards” asserting what everyone should find pleasing to look at.
Myths do not die with formal education, but with those brave enough to point them out
Fast forward 10 years from high school and I’m in a team room with my colleagues and we’re talking about dating. “Trouble is he’s everyone’s perfect guy” I say about one of the dates I’ve been on, “you know, tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed”. I look around for the inevitable nodding heads, the agreement.
“That’s not everyone’s perfect guy” says one of my colleagues, “That’s not my perfect guy”.
I stop, startled.
Weeks and months and years later, I still think of her comment. Of how deep and true it was, and how it woke me up from my participation in propagating the damaging myth that beauty is objective.
In many of the “elite” institutions I’ve been a part of, there’s a massive emphasis on appearance, and appearance is a gate to who you partner with. I’d become socialized to this toxic way of thinking myself.
It was one of the reasons so many of us living in the Bay Area were struggling with dating. We’d go on tons of dates and not be enthusiastic about anyone. One of the most important evaluative criteria was looks. There was a certain understanding on what might be considered “presentable”. Firstly, good luck finding that needle in a haystack of a ‘perfect’ person. Secondly, whilst you’re so busy evaluating the person’s appearance, you miss fully listening to what they’re saying. And whilst we’re both so worried about our appearance on the date, we stop expressing ourselves authentically.
When I was recounting the magic of our first date to my partner, I said “You really listened”. He was somewhat surprised, “Well of course. You always listen if you’re trying to get to know a person. Listening is something you do in your life in general” he said.
I thought back to the many dates before him where I felt looked at, but not listened to. And then I thought about what he said and it seemed so obvious in its truth.
“When you want to judge someone, you look.
When you want to know someone, you listen”
Actions for a better world
When you describe someone you think is beautiful, describe them honestly. Appreciate their flaws which you find endearing. But also describe them honestly in terms of the honesty that that is your opinion. It is not necessary or required that anyone else agree with you.
Diversity in opinions on who looks beautiful is so important in illuminating the diversity in the world in a positive light.
Maybe a face you find comfort and home in, like the wrinkly face of a cuddly grandmother, is far more beautiful to you than the symmetrical sculpted face of an unknown model with their no-fat frame?
To allow such an evolution in what you mean when you say “beautiful” relies on breaking away from the view that beauty must be objective and universally agreed upon. We need to speak of things and people not as “beautiful” but “beautiful to me”.
Beyond beauty
And finally some day (not holding my breath for this day!), we may graduate past beauty even being a pillar that is so important, and comparing people on their appearance will be pretty meaningless.
The next part of my spiritual awakening and growing up journey is to really understand these words: In “America the Beautiful” they quote an African woman who is answering the question, “Do you like your body?” She says, “My body? … Look at this tree [points to tree on one side]. That’s a beautiful tree. Look at that tree [points to tree on other side]. It’s a beautiful tree. You don’t say this tree is prettier than that tree, or this tree is uglier than that tree. You are a tree. I am a tree. Love your tree. Love your tree.”
