Beauty Regardless

Monoi de Tahiti, blood red rose, peach, tangerine, sparkling ginger, and warming cinnamon.
I’ve been thinking about control and how it is used in society. I’ve been thinking about capitalism. And I’ve been thinking about how we define beauty. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, why do we as women think we all need to look a certain way, wear certain clothes, have hair a certain color, have our bodies a certain size, and so on? Who decides what we are supposed to find pleasing to the eye? Because that’s what is beautiful, right? We see something and our brain says, “Oooh, that’s nice. I like that.” And that also applies to what we see in the mirror. (I’m setting aside action as beauty for this argument and any sort of proportional mean in the face, ok?) And, for the most part, the general standard of beauty has stayed about the same over time and it also usually equates to being desirous towards the male gaze (only talking about heterosexuality). Without going into a long-winded ramble, do you see where I’m going with this? It seems to me beauty is defined was constructed by men and also by money-making entities. And this construct of beauty is a means of controlling women. I’m not saying to say no to beauty or that those things aren’t “pretty”, what I’m saying is we don’t have to let others tell us what is beautiful or whether or not we, as individuals, are beautiful. If we are allowed to be told what is beautiful, it is impossible for everyone to meet that goal (if that is our goal, but that is another conversation). A homogenous ideal of what defines beauty allows a certain group to feel more powerful, while it leaves another group feeling less than and always in a state of trying to attain something that is, in many cases, impossible. Beauty is constructed. (I know this isn’t the first time someone has said this and I’m not claiming ownership to the idea. It’s just something that I’ve been thinking about as I reflect upon my own self-loathing and what it is about.) The social construct of beauty is very rigid. As far as I know, we are under no obligation to abide by it. And while I’m here, I want to high five all of us who have been struggling to fight social beauty standards. It’s not easy.