A Feminist Concept of Beauty

"Feminists of every sort have critiqued patriarchal imposed concepts of beauty for decades—in fact millennium if we really dig into history. Some have proposed alternate concepts of beauty, as this is an important part of redefining what it means to be a female human being. It is understood, more or less, that the current idea of female beauty is inherently flawed, dehumanizing, and sexist to say the least, while also often being racist, ableist, classist, and ageist. Deconstructing these concepts answers the question: What is wrong with the type of beauty that is enforced on females? The other side to this coin is, of course, what is an acceptable beauty to aspire to? Furthermore, should females be concerned with beauty in the first place? Is putting any sort of obligation onto a female to be attractive automatically oppressive? Obligation is, yes, but have we that right?

I would argue Yes.

However, is there any part of the human reality which seeks to feel beautiful? Is there any reason a female would want to be beautiful in her own right, for her own reasons, and in her own way? It’s important in the course of taking away bad concepts of beauty to offer something in its place, I think.

There’s a loud, annoying sexist discourse about feminists being ugly. Of course, the emergence of this narrow-minded interpretation of a movement to reject oppressive definitions of beauty would make sense, since feminists openly denounce beauty as something that any human should feel obligated to attain, especially to a degree that appeases the eyes of men—aka the holy boner. But on the outskirts of this valid feminist critique of beauty as an aim is still the question of whether or not a human being may find fulfillment in beauty. After all, beauty can include art and magnificent landscapes in nature. It can also include the emotional warmth of love and kindness.

So, then, what I’d like to inquire is whether or not it would be worthwhile to propose a concept of beauty that is NOT destructive to self-actualization. I mean, if we are to deconstruct the damaging ideals of beauty placed on women, would it be helpful to pair this analysis with a proposed alternative? Something fulfilling, something that allows females to feel good and fully human in an aspiration of some sort of beauty? If the hierarchy of gender is to be thrown in the rubbish bin, what would we propose stand it its place? What kinds of women would we like to see on the covers of magazines? How can we practice in our daily lives a fulfilling pursuit of human dignity that allows for any desire to feel beautiful?

I have my own ideas, but I’d love to hear other perspectives. Some great writers have already tackled this to some degree.

My ideas are based on health, happiness, ability, and completeness.

Health

Health is key. A healthy body and psychology is absolutely beautiful. Fat, thin, short, tall, with long straight hair or frizzy curly hair, we can be healthy and that can be beautiful. No beauty can flow from hurting our bodies or mental well-being. Therefore, a feminist pursuit of beauty would start by requiring health as an absolute must. Health is different for each person. Some women are thin, others stocky. Some women have curves, others are more bony, and yet others are soft and round. If her body and mind is healthy, then she is beautiful. We have a right to this form of beauty and a right to reject any forms of beauty which violate this first right. That means, without question, that starving models are not beautiful (duh) and plastic surgery is not either. The body is most beautiful when whole. So, feminists, eat well, honor your anatomy, get exercise (because it’s good for you, not because it’s good for boners), pursue emotional fulfillment and balance, and be gorgeous that way! We also need to embrace each other in our differences and allow for an understanding that health is different for each individual. No shaming a woman for what her natural body is in its healthy state, even if it is different from a norm.

Happiness

Yes, many men like a smiling woman, but a smiling woman likes to have that smile even more. It’s hard to smile when hungry, depleted of respect, down-trodden, and despised for your natural form. Squeezing into a push-up bra, toddling along in stilettos, and ripping hair off our bodies doesn’t make us smile easier. Blasting away calories at the gym, sweating our asses literally off, is more likely to end in tears. Instead, find what it is about life that gives you joy, whether it be the pursuit of knowledge, spending time with people who love and respect you, growing a garden, running a marathon, traveling, and the list goes on and on. When we feel that we have respected and honored our right to feel joy, we will experience a feeling of beauty, beauty in our lives and our actions. Our lives are our blank canvasses. Paint something beautiful there. Yeah, it will result in smiles, and many men will love that, but won’t we love sporting that smile even more? Turn the eyes inward and ask that question: Where do I find joy in life? It’s hard to remember, sometimes, because we get wrapped up in believing that joy is secondary to compliance. Our voices have been shut down and shut off, and that faint whisper is often ignored in favor of playing a role already set out for us, with parameters that are familiar and therefore easier to identify and attain (or not).

But for each and every one of us, there is an individual desire for the things in life that bring us joy. That is where we will find our beauty. If, at any moment, you find yourself fitting into the girdle of restricting femininity, then likely you are drowning out your inner voice. Having a great a**, for example, doesn’t make you one iota happier, but will probably spare you the ridicule of not appeasing male desire while also throwing you into the vortex of becoming a male sexual object. It may, on some level, make you happier to know that you won’t have to be bombarded with messages that your a** is out of line, and this may result in some relative peace, but this is not the kind of peace I’m talking about. Conforming only ensures less backlash for breaking the mold. Being confronted with that backlash is heart-breaking (to say the least), but following the rules merely to avoid that backlash is anything other than hearing your own needs and pursuing your own joys.

Ability

“Form follows function,” says Porsche, although I think that catch phrase is directed at men. I suggest we hijack it and implement it in our concept of beauty as well. That means no high heels, no corsets, not anything that debilitates the full functioning of our physical potential. Beauty should never require a bird to clip its wings so that it cannot fly and instead remain as a domesticated, caged thing. Our bodies are magnificently capable, and why shouldn’t they be? Swap the heels for some running shoes, or the corset for something easy to move in. Throw out any concept of beauty designed to make us less physically able to utilize the power of our bodies. A body that can run, jump, duck, and maneuver is a powerful, beautiful body. If it’s your thing, learn to fight. Or to dance. Or simply to walk without the threat of falling over. The other day, I was in a store looking for snow boots. Amazingly, there is this idea that most women would like to walk in snow in heels (high hell snow boots abounded), as though slipping on ice and breaking a tailbone is less important than the need to attract a mate. Here’s the thing for the heterosexual female who would like to attract a mate:

If a male isn’t attracted to you because you have committed yourself to a life of health, happiness, and ability, then what you’re accepting is a man who lacks the capacity to be aroused by you unless you are unhealthy, incapable, and debilitated. Let me utter this again: If a man doesn’t want you because you have decided to put health, happiness, and ability at the top of your beauty priorities, he is saying that he wants you to be unhealthy, unhappy, and disabled so that he will find you attractive. Can you say, “******** off!” loud enough in response to that sentiment? Of course, this will have you labeled a feminazi, but then you can always say “******** off!” yet again. It is interesting to note that no other species in all of existence has a situation in which the females must limit their potential in order for the males to desire them. Have you ever seen a mare starve herself so that a stallion would want her? Have you ever heard of a lioness feigning that she cannot procure food for herself or propping her body into a contorted form so that she can scarcely walk in order to attract the desire of a male? The female wolf, in her purely natural state, is fierce, powerful, capable, and whole—and the males fight to the death for the opportunity to mate with her. Human males in a patriarchal society are basically saying that they are, for some reason, rendered impotent when faced with a female in her natural state, and that it is our job to fix this situation. Whether it be through social conditioning or some sort of inherent biological reality, the fact remains that a great number of males cannot be aroused by a female who doesn’t primp, prime, cut, mold, and plaster herself into an image that is not her.

This would be a great topic for the so-called masculinist movement arisen as an answer to feminism. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for them to ask themselves why they don’t want a woman in her natural state, why this condition of a female renders them essentially impotent. It might be equally good to ask why the state of impotence is so existentially critical to the male psyche that he must displace this discomfort onto the entire female class, so that she may bridge the gap between what is natural and what is required to make up for his lack of arousal. But again, this is not our problem. It’s sad to realize that a pursuit of health, happiness, and ability may condemn us to a life without intimacy with males, if that is something a female truly desires. It’s sobering to wake up and realize that we are constantly asked to compromise our own sanity in order to meet our emotional needs in relation to males. To choose true beauty, many of us will sadly reflect that we may be opting out of male affection. But, again, what we are otherwise accepting is an affection that says: be unhealthy; be unhappy; be disabled—then I will desire you. Oh, ******** off.

Completeness

To directly answer the issue of objectification, I suggest another element to this concept of beauty that involves connecting our entire bodies to each and every part of itself, mind included. We’ve been cut into breasts, legs, butts, and mid-drifts. We see ourselves in these pieces, buying clothes that accentuate certain parts of ourselves, which would conversely negate the beauty of the whole being as a complete unit. I suggest committing to an interpretation of our appearance that doesn’t leave any part of ourselves from the equation, all the way up to our intellect and psychological selves. We don’t need to highlight individual pieces of ourselves in order to be beautiful. We don’t need to take one part of our body and contort it, and it alone, into something more important than the rest of ourselves. Our breasts needn’t be a focal point, because we have an entire being to offer ourselves. Instead of pinching at an inch of fat around our belly button, remember that this belly button is just one piece of an entire being. We are not walking breasts, legs, butts, and tummies. We’re fully formed human beings with mental and emotional capacity, and no one part of us will improve or negate the full creature that we are. Though this particular point is more abstract as a concept and therefore less tangible to implement, I would suggest a mental reconfiguration that constantly attempts to reappoint each piece of ourselves back into the integrated whole. Because of our social conditioning, we’ve learned to view ourselves in pieces. Whenever we find ourselves looking at our bodies in this way, we need to re-group, re-center, and re-integrate the rest of ourselves back into the full picture. We became these fragmented parts through a life of continual objectification, to the point that we learned to view ourselves this way as well. And of course it would make sense if we felt weak or powerless when we see ourselves in all these pieces, like a shattered mirror. We’re unable to see the whole creature standing before us, with each and every piece of itself just one part of a complete—and powerful—whole. Take back our bodies. Undo this objectification that whittles us down to pieces of a human, and put that human back together. From this reference point, we may begin to derive strength, confidence, and beauty."
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