Exploring Feminine Beauty Amid Society
One man’s introductory exploration of phenomena
As my step-father and I cut the radiated hair from my mother’s dying head, she begrudged the loss of what had always been one of her defining features: long, thick, black hair that had since aged to mostly white. I thought to the many times I’d grown frustrated with her apparent vanity. I would’ve given anything for her to be sitting, healthy, in front of her mirror, all day if desired, rather than seeing this cancer ravage her entire body, soon ending her life.
As we did so, she said, “I guess I don’t have to worry about taking care of that anymore.” I cried a few silent tears, trying to keep it a playful mood. Hers was a hard-lived life of painful, abused struggle, of which she’d soon finally be relieved — sometimes the irony of death. Relief she’d nearly taken upon herself in prior years. But aside from this, it verified for me the tragedy of living in a society and culture that did not clearly value and thus encourage her beauty as it naturally was, that made her feel she had to make it up as she went.
My mother was a beautiful woman by all measures physical and spiritual. She’d easily spend an hour each morning in front of her vanity mirror, applying make-up to her face and styling her hair — all to look “presentable.” She was neither pretentious nor vain; she believed she had to do so to be accepted, to feel like the beautiful woman she was, not trusting or believing in her natural beauty.
It drove me nuts. In my earlier years when I visited on weekends I was always waiting for her to go do whatever it is we had planned. Ten minutes, twenty, sixty, and more — in front of the mirror. In my later teen years I felt sorry for her, as I couldn’t understand her need to do this, despite my consistent reproach, my reassurance that she was beautiful as she was — without all the makeup and hours of her life wasted on what I thought then to simply be vanity.
I understand it now to be a direct result of the societal messages we give our girls and women. So many distorted, misogynistic, and financial profit-driven messages falsely defining feminine beauty based on over-sexualized, -stylized, and artificial influences. In short, selling a constant flood of messages that state diverse, dignified, natural beauty is incomplete, full of flaws to be masked — not beautiful.
Yes, there is an element of feminine styling rooted in truly enjoying making one’s self up, in having fun with a unique expression of one’s self. The difference seems to be in the root motivation for doing so. A strong sense of self and beauty no matter how made up, with an appreciation for and desire to artistically express one’s self physically? Or a struggling sense of self while seeking — consciously or not — extrinsic reinforcement of beauty and worth. I realize it’s not such a simple binary, but it’s the best I can do right now to acknowledge the complexities inherent to this exploration. Hence this humble, sincere attempt to write through this and discuss it with others, that I may learn.
When our daughter was born, as I meditated upon fathering a girl into a woman in our society, the foreseen challenge overwhelmed me. Sure, I also struggle with meeting the challenges of raising our son, in part for the reverse consideration of how to raise a man to see and love women as whole humans, for their natural beauty. But I became hyper-aware of the many cultural — media, community, family, etc. — influences that seek, often unawares, to weaken her identity, misplace her sense of beauty and worth, and to, damn it, to sexualize her young, growing body.
It enrages me! These corrupting influences are everywhere!
They’re in the way some family members acknowledged our son more than our daughter. The way these stupid kid to tween TV shows, which we don’t watch, but which her friends do, send so many disturbing messages. The way just about every single toy company markets heavily gendered stereotypes to girls and boys. (Looking at you, Lego! Love your bricks, but your blatantly gendered sets are whacked!) The way her teachers talk of and to her differently than of our son. The way my wife used to say such things as, “Let’s put on the pretties,” when braiding her hair with colored bands. The way some of her friends’ fathers sexualize and silence their wives on the regular.
The way for so long we could not find any retailer but Hannah Anderson that sold dresses that didn’t seek to highlight her curves (or last beyond a few wears and washings — another matter entirely). The way when, once she grew out of Carters’ clothes, we could not find jeans for her that did not curve inward and ride low, showing her ass when she bent over. In other words, nowhere could we find jeans that fit a healthy, strong, seven-year old girl. What the?
Then there’s the ridiculous message conveyed by our rules in public spaces and social media which restrict public breast feeding, while plastered across every ad banner across almost all media — online and off — are naked women portrayed only as objects to satisfy my and others’ sexual desires (and I honestly can’t deny that I like looking, sometimes causing shame and guilt when I considered the models’ ages— it’s so ingrained and all part of the problem.).
I’m not sure where to head with this, yet I fear if I don’t publish now, I’ll not catch a ride back to this train of thought for a while. My goal isn’t a refined, profound essay (not yet, at least), but rather to explore these phenomena and hopefully engage in some constructive dialogue. So… any thoughts? Stories to share? Thinking errors of mine you’d care to point out? Let’s talk. Please help me dig in to and learn the 5 W’s and H of this.
