WHAT STRANGE
BEAUTY Part 1
Written by Danielle Eliska Lyle
There is a never-ending battle with beauty. Women are faced with the stereotype that "looking different inevitably suggests being different". What can be worse than being "feared, because what is different is frightening, unpredictable and dangerous", but embraced because westernized culture "need to have people around as scapegoats who look radically different". Minority women will always suffer because "she is being asked, on the one hand, to work to hide her differences, and, on the other hand, she is being told that she must and will always be different" (Lakoff and Scherr 247).
"But the color of her skin, the shape of her eyes, the texture of her hair, the form of her body, will speak more clearly than her perfectly shaped words."
-Lakoff and Sherr, Face Value: The Politics of Beauty, p.247
I remember how angry I was when I heard of my baby cousin's ballistic frenzy. She had an extension track removed from her hair. I heard she sobbed and professed how ugly she was because her hair was now, "short". What she classified as "short" was an inch difference between her natural hair length and the weave. But she was convinced she was unattractive. This girl has gorgeous, healthy hair! She has what we call that good hair. Each strand is thick and strong like a horse's mane. Her natural hair length is mid-back, but she felt an extra inch defined her beauty. A girl so beautiful with unnecessary insecurities.
Mainstream images of standard beauty are constant reminders of our visible "flaws". Culture judges beauty by hair texture and length, skin and eye color, facial features and physical size. Women are brainwashed into believing straighter, longer hair and lighter, flawless skin, light colored eyes, keen features, and the thinnest physique is the touchstone of true beauty. If one doesn't meet this criteria, she is flawed or ugly.
Western culture exploits perfect beauty as if it's achievable. Beauty is measured by airbrush strokes, cloning, eraser, and masking tools used in Adobe Photoshop. Women have been idolized superficial. Models are falsely glorified on magazine covers, internet and videos. This culture has given birth to generations of women who question and criticize every reflection they see of themselves. There is a feminine wave of physical and emotional struggle. Extreme Makeover and Dr. 90210 receive high viewer ratings and deliver low self-esteem.
What hope is there for that young woman who compares herself to the images portrayed as the epitome of beauty and sees herself as never being enough?
Black women aren't the only victims suffering from mainstream images. Hispanic, Indian and Asian women tell stories of agonizing struggles to achieve the modern ideal of beauty. Western culture has gone to extreme measures and have cursed the appearance of women of dominant culture. I recall watching an episode of Oprah when her guest was 28 year old Jenny, a Caucasian woman who under went 26 surgeries to look identical to Barbie. Her childhood with Matel dolls had become more than a fantasy. She looked more radiant in a before picture than any cosmetologist could have altered her to look. She invested in the stereotype that has transformed her into a distorted doll.
Lakoff and Sherr were profound in their statement:
"As painful as is the ordeal of women of the dominant culture who spend so much money, their time, and their emotions trying to live up to the modern ideal of beauty, how much deeper is the agony of the woman who--whatever she does--inevitably must find in the mirror that her hair is too kinky...that her nose is too broad, that her lips are too full, that her eyes are too narrow, or slanted, or too dark, and if this is not enough, that her skin is irrevocably the wrong color." (246)
Even if I was there to comfort my baby cousin, letting her know how gorgeous she truly is, it wouldn't have mattered. Although, she has said I am beautiful, in her eyes I am not the mainstream, flawless beauty she desires to be.
What strange beauty I portray in my slanted eyes, my locked hair, my shapely hips, and my darker skin! Strange beauty is unfamiliar to the teachings of western culture because it refuses to see beyond "straight blond hair...widest eyes, the longest and thinnest limbs and skin like polished porcelain" (246). What can be more captivating than striking originality?
REFERENCE:
Lakoff, Robin and Raquel Scherr. Face Value: The Politics of Beauty New York: Routledge, 1988.
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