I’m gonna break down beauty standards
Photographer: Mark Arrigo @markarrigophotography
Fixing your face or your body to feel more beautiful won’t necessarily make you popular, successful, and powerful. That's because beauty standards are meant to undermine your beauty, not enhance it.
When we look at our face in the mirror, most of us notice “flaws” first. Our eye is drawn to look at what stands out: if there’s a red hood among a crowd of white hoods, we will notice the red one first.
Since our brain works with symmetries, it will process anything that differs first, and then start looking for its match. If there were two red hoods in the crowd, our brain would feel much better about itself.
As a result it’s only natural that face and body asymmetries/ anomalies make our brain buzz with curiosity and interest. Think of birthmarks, different eye color, big features, rare hair colors, freckles and so on.
The brain was the greatest gift and curse of humanity.
And it’s so easy to fool.
With this in mind, let’s look at your face and body compared to other people.
The perception you have of someone’s look changes if they have particularities, something that makes them unique. You too, as there’s only one you in the world, have particularities.
Unfortunately most of the time when you are growing up and more vulnerable to judgement and bullying, these unique aspects of our bodies are used against us. Being the first thing that someone notices, it’s also the first thing that comes to mind when they want to mock us.
If people want to tear you down, they will go for something that makes you different and they will turn that into a weakness. Now don’t lie to me, starting from then you will perceive it as your weakness too. Or at least doubt yourself.
The brain is the greatest gift and curse of humanity.
And it’s so easy to fool.
Passively or actively, we are made aware of our particularities under a negative light. Bullies try to destroy our confidence by making us feel that our oddity is something wrong. Beauty standards share the same rules.
But how can other people play that easily with our mind and make us feel there’s something wrong with us?
When we are little and we get acquainted with the mirror for the first time, a reflecting surface is nothing but an amazing game. “Woah, that thing does the same things I do. I can touch my hand. Hey, my dog is in there too. Hi fluffy, hiiiii” - tiny chubby wrinkly hand waving at the mirror.
It’s funny to see yourself reflected on a surface; it shapes different realities.
In fact, when you see a reflection it’s never what reality looks like. Mirrors distort you in a million different ways: the mirror changes, the perspective changes, the people who look at you have their own perspective, so that changes too. And you, while you grow up, you grow in and out of your own perspectives.
Everything continuously changes while you form what is an ideal image of yourself. That is a combination of appreciative looks, compliments received, real-life examples surrounding you, ads, and your own tiny thoughts.
For this reason, I think the most crucial time to teach about beauty is while growing up, because we get exposed to certain standards that tell us what we should look like and we unknowingly absorb them. How should we look to be happy, to be successful, to be accepted, to feel part of the community, to feel like we belong [etc.]?
Our image and the way we look is of course one of the many sides of making us feel like we belong, that we can be part of a community. Other aspects are the way we act, so our attitude, the way we dress, the way we talk, the way of our manners, who are our parents, who we get exposed to, what are our talents, how bad we are at some things too, etc.
So all these aspects make you belong to a certain group of people, and that’s your community, that’s your people. You might find yourself belonging to a so-called minority or to a more standardized type of person which is known as the normal one - I hate that word - just because it is more popular in your part of the world.
Because the power which is given to popular people makes them seen as more valued, these people - instead of using this powerful popularity to make people grow with them, cherishing goodness and being amazing leaders - they become predators.
Most of the popular kids become predators because they are scared. They fear that if they don’t act like predators, they might lose their spot, the position they have conquered; being popular, being rich, being more important, being always complimented, being better than anyone else. If you don’t fight for it and make it exclusive then you’re gonna lose the spot, someone else will bully you out of it and you will be a terrifying nobody. This is their biggest fear.
Real confident people never fear losing their spot: they are 10 steps ahead of everyone else and while the popular kid clings onto the position they’ve managed to climb, confident people are leaving a footprint in the world and they will never be forgotten. Unlike popular kids and their moron friends that pretend to be their friends because they think popularity equals being smart.
So, this is one of the beauty-chain-processes why you think you have something wrong on your face.
Drum rolls.
Your oddity has nothing to do with you being wrong. That process that I’ve just explained is what leads you to think that what makes you different makes you wrong. Again, something completely external and utterly unrelated to you in society is now dictating the way you see a unique part of yourself. Your asymmetry. And that’s absolutely mad.
You cannot let something so impersonal dictate the way you see yourself, the way you aspire to beauty, the way you perceive beauty, and the way you relate to standards. Beauty has nothing to do with popularity. Beauty has nothing to do with being more successful.
It used to be for women, for example. When women were still widely suffering from being a minority, struggling to be recognized in things we now take for granted, like driving or voting even, beauty would help them because men would let whom they thought were beautiful women indulge in certain things that other women weren’t allowed to do. Not important ones, don’t worry.
However, since we are striving to create an equal society right now, we have to let go of this ingrained idea that esthetical beauty is related to happiness, success, popularity or power or even love. Because it’s not.
I am positive about this not because I am saying I am right, but because history has shown us that asymmetries, oddities, and particular aspects of our bodies can be empowered into becoming beauty standards.
If you think about the past, fashion and the way people look have immensely changed in 100 years.
100 years of fashion are a patchwork quilt.
The first accessible thing that shows you that beauty standards have nothing to do with real beauty is beauty history: uniqueness channeled through creative tunnels such as fashion, photography, music, theatre, movies, and arts, becomes beautiful and sometimes the symbol of a revolution.
On top of my head, the unibrow equals Frida Khalo and it stands for defying gender stereotypes, hope, power, and empowerment.
People with certain features have become popular and made those features come into fashion or even a symbol representing something. Because they own it. Because they own who they are. And they did so facing the fear to be marginalised.
Things that were considered ugly before are now everything that people want on themselves, because standards have changed. People have made them change, by owning them and becoming successful thanks to their talent.
Anything and anybody can become powerful, popular, successful. But only talent leaves a mark, and talent is just a potential who’s been offered a chance.
Look around you, use the internet in a good way, search the web for that something you think is wrong with you and you will see today more than ever that someone has already broken that wall for you. Out there in the world, someone is a step - or many steps - ahead of you so that you can follow in their wake and focus on what can really make you happy, whether it’s something you’re obsessed about or something you have yet to discover!
Ok, yes, but what if the way I look is actually limiting me so much that I struggle finding love, happiness, a job, social interactions? What if I don’t have a strong character, what if I am not easily motivated? What if changing that oddity would make my life easier and that’s what I want! I even don’t care about being popular, successful, or have everyone’s attention on me. I don’t care about any of that. I just want to be able to live normally, right now.
I got you too, hun.
Not everyone’s dream is to be accepted or live a glorious - but tiring - life. There is nothing wrong with that, we are all part of the same system that should let people thrive in what they’re best at. In spite of this, beauty standards still affect your lifestyle and what you can achieve. So no matter which side of the spectrum you want to be, it’s those standards that are limiting you, not what your face or body look like.
Changing your features to comply with the current beauty standards is probably expensive, possibly dangerous, and sometimes regrettable. Usually, time will prove you right or wrong. But ask anybody intelligent and older than you. Tell them about the changes you want to make to yourself so that you can fit current beauty standards and have it easier in life. They will laugh at your face and at the same time, if they’re smart enough, respect your decision.
People won’t try to change your mind or put you off of it, because they don’t care about you the way I do. And I care because I’ve been you once, or at least a part of you, and I know how hard it is to stick your head out and accept it’s not your fault and you can’t actually change your odds by adjusting to what society tells you to be.
Beauty standards are meant to make you feel ugly.
I think that we should not feel bad about ourselves if we are trying to do everything in our power to be healthy and to stay healthy.
If you commit to be good to your body and your soul, you won’t worry about the way you look too much. You come to a point where you understand the way you look doesn’t necessarily reflect your physical and mental health.
Bottom line is, live a healthy life and juggle between unhealthy vices and healthy habits - never let yourself become obsessed with being perfect, - and distance yourself from the beauty standards that affect you negatively.
It’s a slow process and it takes a lot of work on yourself before you get to fully appreciate and value the way you look. But if you do it, I will assure you that nothing that people say or think about you can tear down the Hulk of self-esteem that you built within yourself, which it’s not pretentious, obnoxious, bullying, overpowering-other-people Hulk, it’s just plain, simple green power within you.
Your energy will shine over other people’s mental issues and pierce through any wall and say “I owned it, you can do it too.”
Whomever you are, if you’ve come to read the end of this, you don’t follow standards, you’re meant to lead them.
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What do you think?
I would like to hear your story. Have you ever been bullied into self-doubting your beauty?
Tell me more and I will write something to break down those doubts one by one and turn them into a positive strength so that you will never fear them ever again.
All of my love, all of my love, all of my love
To you - Swirl
