F*** the Beholder, You Are Beautiful

All of the recent press around Fifty Shades of Grey has been reminding me of one (of many) of the reasons I hate both that book and the whole Twilight series. Beyond the crappy writing and lack of personality for the main character, both books share this really annoying habit where the female lead has men falling at her feet but continually thinks herself unattractive. This drives me more insane than even the “Inner Goddess” crap (I mean really, your response to something is that your Inner Goddess gets in a lotus position? If such a thing existed, my Inner Goddess would be more along the lines of Inner Sakura. She’d alternatively want to beat the crap out of people and jump their bones. Maybe eat some chocolate too).

To me, this comes across as a really horrible manifestation of the pervading habit of girls to say/think they’re not as pretty as they are.

Let’s start with a common example. Go back quite a few years in your memory, and think of the movie Mean Girls.  Sure, it seems funny when Regina traps Cady into admitting she’s pretty and acting like it’s a horrible thing. I’m not going to lie, I laughed. The problem is that behind that funny scene is a truth. Women are judged for admitting they are attractive. Even if a woman is stunningly beautiful, she is immediately condemned in our minds. Saying you’re “hot” or “beautiful” is tantamount to having a huge ego. Thus women have learned to downplay how they talk about their attractiveness.

I was playing around on imdb.com the other day, and I found this quote from one of my favorite actresses, Gemma Arterton: “In comparison to many actresses I think I’m really average – when I got the Bond film Quantum of Solace there was this big hoo-ha about me not being hot enough, I have to say I agree – I don’t think I’m in that realm.”

BEAUTIFUL, DAMNIT

Personally, I find Gemma stunningly beautiful, but even she feels the need to negatively compare herself to others. This is a common response from women – maybe I’m hot/pretty/beautiful, but not as hot/pretty/beautiful as someone else.

There are two issues at work here. One, again, is the culture that women shouldn’t admit they’re crazy attractive. If you don’t believe me yet that this is a thing, I have more examples for you. We laud the girl that “doesn’t know she’s beautiful.” Not only are there songs about it (here’s looking at you, One Direction), there are movies, cartoons, and of course books. The whole idea of a book like Fifty Shades of Grey making the main character not know her own beauty worth is that then, as readers, we can “relate.” Because of course if you’re a girl, you don’t know you’re attractive, and that makes you hotter.

WTF WORLD!?

The bigger problem is the second issue in play – insecurity. A lot of times the reason women won’t celebrate their attractiveness is because they genuinely don’t believe it. They are falling into the trap of comparing themselves to others, and they don’t like the comparison. You’ll find people are much more willing to own up to being “pretty” than “beautiful,” because pretty is less threatening. And if you have even a hint of insecurity (which you probably do), saying you’re “beautiful” opens up the floodgates for criticism. Which WILL happen. We have tons of articles about all our beautiful celebrities, and then minutes later we’ll condemn them for bad makeup, poor clothing choice, or messed up hair. So for girls that don’t think they measure up to that level, how are they supposed to feel confident enough to declare their beauty?

I’m not saying that everyone falls into the traditional “beauty” standards. I’m also not saying they should. The whole issue with beauty is that it’s a question of perception. What I find attractive is not the same thing you find attractive, EVEN WHEN COMPARING TRADITIONALLY ATTRACTIVE EXAMPLES. Get past the idea that you should be thin, blond, big-eyed, and pouty-lipped.

What I am saying, is that women shouldn’t be afraid to celebrate their own beauty. I know it’s hard. Trust me, I know. Some people suggest things like picking favorite features and feeling confident in those. That’s not a bad idea, depending on how you go about it.

When I was younger I decided I really liked my lips because everyone told me that plump lips are good, and if nothing else you can absolutely say my lips are plump. In a world where beauty is subjective, that seemed like the easiest, concrete reason to like a feature. Then one day I was hanging out with a then ex-boyfriend in the middle of the night, and we randomly got on the topic of my good features, and to my shock my lips were not one of them, because, as he told me, “they’re not that great.” That was a huge blow to the confidence scale for awhile. Since I had picked this feature because of other people’s opinion, suddenly having a bad opinion threw me for a loop. If people didn’t like the features I thought they should like, how could I be confident about any of them?

So trust me when I say I know the struggle. It feels like it should be better to underestimate your beauty than to overestimate it, and have people disagree.

But that’s stupid. You need to remember first of all that your beauty does NOT determine your worth as a person. And second, since beauty is subjective STOP trying to live up to someone’s standards. Figure out what you like about how you look, and for the love of all that’s holy, BE CONFIDENT IN IT.

I think books like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight teach us to not believe in our own beauty. They tell girls to base their confidence solely on what some guy (Edward, Christian) says about it, when they should be teaching them to celebrate their beauty no matter what.  I’d rather teach girls to be confident in who they are, and yes, their physical appearance is part of that. You should know you’re beautiful in some way, but you should also know it’s only one part of what makes you, you. Beauty should never be your everything, but you also shouldn’t downplay what you like about yourself just because of other people’s opinions.  

For the record, I like my lips again. Not because I think I should like them, but because they’re soft, expressive, and I love that I can wear almost any lip color and still work it. I’d like them more if they wouldn’t turn blue so easily, but that’s another matter. And maybe there are people that think “they’re not that great,” but I don’t see how that changes the things I like about them. Maybe they’ll never be as plump as Angelina Jolie’s lips, but I don’t see why I should care about her. In fact, I don’t see why I need to even give you reasons for why I like them or anything else about myself. I don’t justify liking my car, or my excessive love of Taco Bell, so why need to justify what I like about my appearance?

 

I want you to know what things about yourself you find beautiful and rock it with the same confidence and faith as anything else you truly believe. It might not feel easy, but the more you can declare to yourself “I’m hot/pretty/drop dead gorgeous/beautiful” (feel free to use your preferred descriptive) the more confident you’ll feel saying it, and that is its own kind of beauty.