Beyond Beauty
On the surface, the notion that “everyone is beautiful” seems like a harmless, all-inclusive phrase that can do nothing but empower women who must contend daily with all-too-restrictive beauty standards. However, this idea serves to further trap women in an obsession with their physicality and simply widens the net for personal care companies to manipulate consumers into a damaging reliance on their products.
A critical view on this idea is essential to understanding how women remain confined by feminine ideals under the guise of being freed from them. Even though “everyone is beautiful” seems uplifting, it maintains attractiveness as the all-important standard of a woman’s worth. Whereas, say, five years ago, ads were populated only by thin white women, now models of all shapes, sizes, and colors fill the screen; Aeries’ latest #aeriereal campaign features models of various sizes and claims, “No retouching. Body positivity. Girl Power,” while the skincare company Glossier announces, “Beauty inspired by real life.” The soap and shampoo brand Dove has a statement that takes the cake: on its website Dove states that it is “the home of real beauty. For over a decade, we’ve been working to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety…Beauty is not defined by shape, size or color – it’s feeling like the best version of yourself. Authentic. Unique. Real.”
[pullquote]Even though ‘everyone is beautiful’ seems uplifting, it still maintains attractiveness as the all-important standard of a women’s worth.[/pullquote]
By using modern feminist language of body positivity, Dove and companies like it transition to more individualistic measures of appearance that nevertheless have to be discovered and maintained, thus manufacturing a cycle of insecurity that can only be temporarily eased by more and more purchases. Therefore, this apparently positive framework continues to instill shame in women, and it is this shame that corporations prey upon, albeit with more subtle marketing strategies than in the past. This obsession with authenticity and the connection between beauty and identity proves that Dove’s goal of anxiety-less beauty is impossible; in fact, beauty is anxiety and these brands rely on women’s endless self-policing of their appearance. In the past, women felt the need to buy products because they did not look a certain way; now, those “impossible beauty standards” have been replaced by achievable ones that still require these products to realize.
In the past, women felt the need to buy products because they did not look like a certain way; now, those ‘impossible beauty standards’ have been replaced by achievable ones that still require these products to realize.
Some may still ask where the harm is in this type of marketing – after all, is it not great that women of all shapes, sizes, and colors now have the opportunity to see themselves represented and valued where they had historically been excluded? While I do not deny the power in representation, I do push back against the suggestion that a woman’s value primarily lies in her physical looks because a perpetual focus on the external leads to a weaker sense of self that severely affects how women interact with the world. In this internet age, this stress is particularly acute for women —at any moment, a candid picture or Snapchat could be taken of you that you want to look good for, or you may want to commemorate an event online, requiring a perfect photo opportunity that shows you at your best angle. The constant maintenance of an image is not just a modern problem for women; in Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse, one of the main characters, an older woman named Mrs. Ramsay who represents the Victorian ideals for women, spends so much time existing for others that “there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent” and makes people question whether there was anything behind her “beauty and splendor”: they wonder, “[is] there nothing? nothing but an incomparable beauty which she lived behind, and could do nothing to disturb?”. Although highly regarded for her beauty and sensibility, her emptiness still resonates with women today. How much of our days are spent worrying about how we look for others? Is it possible to divorce our sense of self from our “look” to solidify and define this sense without clothes, makeup, or hairstyles? Constantly maintaining a presentation for others is exhausting and distracts from meaningful self-improvement, whether this is the performance of “the best version of yourself” as Dove claims or the adherence to conventional beauty standards.
[pullquote]Is it possible to divorce our sense of self from our “look”, to solidify and define this sense without clothes, makeup, or hairstyles?[/pullquote]
A debate over whether or not every woman is beautiful is not the point. A focus on appearance upholds a destructive preoccupation with appearance and allows companies to continue to foster a dependence on their products. We should not expand the definition of beauty, for we must do away with the value of beauty. Rather, we should expand the definition of womanhood to extend beyond the body, beyond the upkeep of an image that only serves to diminish instead of empower.
Sienna Ruiz ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at sienna.ruiz@wustl.edu.