Is good body image dependent on feeling physically beautiful?

[breakinglight11]

I wrote once a while ago in this entry that for some reason I was bothered by how so many of the style blogs I've started reading go about promoting positive body image. Back then I was trying to parse out why the approach they took felt off to me, and though I still don't have real conclusions, something occurred to me that I wanted to work out. I think a major component of my discomfort with their approach is that it seems to suggest that the only way to feel good about your body is to be able to regard it as physically beautiful.

I hear so much complaining about how much societal pressure there is on women to be beautiful and that there is something wrong with the notion that this is the most important thing for a woman to have. But appearing so frequently along with that are exhortations to expand the standards of beauty so more women can fit the definition. That seems really contradictory to me-- it puts a weird premium on physical appearence that I'm not sure is healthy. It suggests that even though beauty shouldn't be a value indicator, it IS a value indicator, so everyone has to be able to feel beautiful, because it is simply too important a thing for any person to feel complete and valuable without.

Does that bother anyone else? Because it feels like a mixed message to me.

I do feel like everyone deserves to feel desireable-- to feel like they are worthy of being wanted, loved, and valued. One of the reasons I believe everyone should dress well is because it gives you the power to appear to your best advantage, telling the world that you are a worthy human being from the moment they lay eyes on you. Concerning yourself with this is helpful to you because you have control over this presentation. But your physical beauty is determined by factors which can only be marginally affected by anything you do. Everyone's heard of that person who is constantly struggling to lose weight, to hide things with makeup, to change something about herself that genetics already determined were not going to be changed. Do we want to say that just because nature made it so you're always going to be a size twelve or that you have a round face instead of a heart-shaped one that you are not worthy of being wanted and loved? Do we really want to allow beauty to have such an enormous share of what constitutes desireability? If we're so fed up with being bombarded with messages that YOU'D BETTER LOOK PRETTY OR WHO CARES ABOUT YOU, shouldn't we be encouraging ourselves to place value on other, more important qualities instead of all scrambling to claim the "beautiful" marker?

Now God knows it's not like I don't have trouble with this issue myself. It was suggested in a very trenchant observation by meamcat that in that original post I might have been trying to ask the question of "How do you feel good about your body if your body is not beautiful?" This is something I have a problem with. I have a hard time liking the features of my own body that I don't feel are beautiful. I had about a paragraph here in my first draft of this post about everything that's wrong with my boxy ribcage, but I deleted it because I decided it was in bad taste. Because it demonstrated how deeply I too am in that mindset of putting all the value in beauty, and not in any other quality, and that is not something I want to be endorsing. We don't all NEED to be pretty, because that is not the be-all and end-all of personal value! We should be able to feel good about our bodies even if they are not physically beautiful!

I hear the reaction to my saying that now-- "Easy for you to say, conventionally pretty girl. How would you feel if you didn't get to see yourself as beautiful?" Got a point there. God knows it is way too important to me that I be the pretty girl, that I base too much of my self-image and maybe even self-regard on it. I acknowledge that I am more fortunate in that department that many are, and I don't have to know what it's like to be in a less fortunate situation. Maybe if I were, I wouldn't feel so comfortable saying "We don't all need to get to be pretty." But we all have things that are good about us, and that's one of my gifts. There are other things that I don't get to be. I can't sing, I'm not good at math, I can be very unkind, I'm surrounded by people who are smarter than me. Not everybody gets to be good at everything. Am I really so compensated by my physical appearence that clearly it overshadows anything else I might lack? Is being pretty SO MUCH MORE intrisically valuable than any other positive quality? And if it's not, do we want to give it that status by treating it as if it is?

It doesn't sit well with me when I see an image of a woman on one of these body-positive blogs and the blog exhorts me to see her as beautiful when I don't. The issue, for me at least, is two-fold. First of all, honestly... there are things about people I just don't find beautiful. It's not that I think there's anything wrong those things, or those people, or even that I think they're ugly. It's just that on a purely aesthetic level they are not optimally visually pleasing to me. And whenever a blogger or whatever goes off on how unfair it is that a person who looks a certain way doesn't get to be considered beautiful, I get a little uncomfortable, because I think to myself, "But... they're not pretty. They just aren't." But I shouldn't have to feel guilty about that. I'm not saying every woman should comform to my aesthetic standards. I get that you're not here to decorate my world. But I'm not here to admire your display. I'm not sure why, maybe I just don't like feeling pressured or obligated to say something I don't believe, but I strongly dislike anyone trying to tell me that my view on what is beautiful is wrong. Beauty is, as the trope goes, in the eye of the beholder, and if you force me into your definition of it, you're just as bad as any cultural image that you decry that tried to do the same thing to you.

And secondly, I don't want to admire her for a virtue that I don't believe she has, and I feel like it's degrading and patronizing to her as well. Why can't we admire her because she's smart, talented, funny, or kind? Why do we have to manufacture a positive trait for her when she's certainly got real ones of her one that she deserves to be praised for? Everybody is good at something, and everybody is not good at something. We don't all get to be considered funny or wise just to spare people's feelings.  By making beauty into something a person NEEDS, aren't we just reinforcing the notion that PRETTY IS ALL and if you don't have it you're WORTHLESS? Screw that.

On some of these blogs I read recountings by people who were tormented through their youths because they were not physically beautiful. Some people might use these things as examples of just how damaging it can be if people will not see you as pretty. But I find that an inappropriate reaction. The problem is that people are cruel, not that people don't get to be pretty. If people treated someone cruelly simply because she wasn't physically attractive, those people are dicks and their behavior is wrong. If that poor girl magically became pretty and was no longer set upon, the problem would still be just as disgusting-- being nice to someone, or at least not mean to them, because they're pretty is just as much bullshit. NOBODY gets to treat ANYBODY badly, FOR ANY REASON. The problem is not that their definition of beauty is too narrow-- their problem is that they are MEAN TO PEOPLE for STUPID REASONS like phyiscal appearence.

I'm certainly not saying beauty is meaningless. I believe it's a wonderful thing that should be enjoyed and celebrated. But I do not believe that it is more valuable, or even always AS valuable, as so many other good things a person can have. Not in life, not in work, not in art, and, to make an old-fashioned but still relevant point, not in love. God knows it can be hard for us girls to believe at times, but our mothers tell us this and we know it to be true. Beauty makes a man notice you. It doesn't make him love you, stay with you, or treat you right. It takes real positive qualities, less transient ones, to do that. And beauty makes you more of a target for bad men who don't care about those things. Being pretty certainly has its advantages, but it is NOT the most important quality to possess in this life. 

And anyway, beauty fades. Yes, I'm very pretty now, but I'm going to get older and someday I'm going to get wrinkles and put on weight. And when I'm not pretty anymore, I better have something else that's good about me going on, because in the long run it's those other things that really matter, that make you who you are. Yes, pretty is a great thing, but in the end it's an accident of genetics that tends to have an expiration date.

I know it's a hell of a lot easier to SAY this is the right thing to think than it is to actually convince yourself of it. This is of course something I need to work on as well. God knows I'm just as fucked up as anyone, and like anyone I have good days and bad. I have days when I believe to the highest level of certainty that I am the most delicious creature that ever graced this Earth with her presence. I have days when, often when my unibrow seems particularly intent on growing back in, I am equally certain that I should be considering relocating to beneath a bridge conveniently near to a billygoat's home. Sometimes I am so disgusted by the gooey greasy slimey squishy meat-sack that is this human flesh I wish to trascend my base fluid-filled shell and become a being of light or perhaps a cloud, and I think to myself, "How can anyone NOT hate their body?" Sometimes I just can't get over how AMAZING it is that God made me this thing out of dust that lets me run, dance, type, fight, swim, have sex, have babies, heal myself, taste the difference between sweet and salty, and feel the sun on my skin, and I think to myself, "How can anyone NOT love their body?" 

I need to believe this too, I need to learn this. My being influenced by this poisons me too. Among other things, this is where my fear of aging comes from. I've got to get past that fear of becoming less pretty, because I don't want it to be true that once it's gone there's not going to be anything left that's worthwhile about me. If I can't teach myself that there are more important things, how am I ever going learn to let go when the time comes that I have to?

Comments

[emp42ress.livejournal.com]

When I was in middle school, I had come to the conclusion that I wasn't attractive, and didn't expect to be attractive and was ok with that. I didn't think I was ugly. I knew I was smart, creative and social, and that lots of people weren't pretty and did just fine. I had even dated a couple of boys in that middle school dating way, and I knew that it was going to be ok. I had basically gotten over the whole appearance thing by about 14.

Then I hit 16, and suddenly pretty boys thought I was pretty! I spent about a year flitting from boy to boy and being way too happy about being pretty. However once that settled down, I still think I was a more functional person for having reached the not caring point beforehand.

[nennivian.livejournal.com]

Same here! It made a much healthier person!

[darkoni]

It's a wonderful sentiment. Unfortunately, too many people never take the time to get past beauty. It is harder to feel like it's not bigger if it is a factor that prevents others from trying to find your other qualities.

I wouldn't say that others that don't try are mean. It just doesn't even pop into their head to think about someone in other terms if they don't have that initial draw.

It is definitely not a simple issue. I can see what they are trying to do with redefining beauty. I can also see where their method isn't working. You can't change what people think is beauty. What they should be trying to do is open minds to the idea to look at everything and not just the physical, like you are saying.

[marigumi.livejournal.com]

Here's how I see it, I guess:

When people encourage unconventional-looking people to see themselves as beautiful, I don't see it necessarily as placing an inordinate amount of value on physical attractiveness. Rather, I take it to mean, "If being attractive is important to you, just remember that you can be attractive without being skinny" or blond or muscular or what-have-you. I do think this is an important reminder for people like me who, I flatter myself, are attractive without being skinny or blond or tall, etc. It's a reminder that the current fashions and conventions are merely fashions and conventions, not absolute laws about what is and is not beautiful.

Analogous messages pertaining to areas other than beauty do exist, though you won't see them as often on TV or style blogs, because they're not as relevant. But for example, if you have a child who is bad at math, which makes the child think that he or she isn't smart, you will obviously tell this child that you can be smart without being good at math. As a matter of fact, I bet there are PSAs like that on PBS during kids' shows.
Likewise, I'm sure in athletic circles there are mantras that say that you can be a good athlete without having enormous muscles or running a four-minute mile. You can probably imagine other areas where this sort of message is important and would occur.

The difference is that beauty is something that--for better or worse--is seen as universally important in our society, and so among the general public and in general entertainment, messages about beauty are more likely to be seen. And in a society where beauty happens to be so important, it's easier to combat the ill effects of its over-importance by trying to bring more people into the "in" crowd than by obliterating the "in" crowd altogether.

I realize that was not very cohesive, so here is a nutshell:
For every positive trait, there are often very narrow subtraits that become erroneously perceived as being the only way to be in possession of that positive trait. Thus, it is important to be reminded that every positive trait has, in fact, a wide range of ways that it can be expressed. This is not to say that people who do not possess these positive traits ought to be said to have them. However, often this is very subjective, so that's kind of tricky. In the case of beauty, sure it would be nice if our society placed less emphasis on it, but it doesn't currently, so as long as being beautiful is, for some reason, important, it's good to remember that there are many ways to be beautiful.

As a footnote, in my opinion most of the problems we have with physical beauty in our society actually do come from the fact that it is often so narrowly defined. I think the same thing can be said for the other areas I mentioned: people who think they need to be at the top of their class in order to be smart; people who think they need to benchpress twice their bodyweight to be fit (I just made that up, I don't know if that's something people do); etc.

So yeah. That's my response. Sorry that was so long. Feel free to rebut. :)

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

You make an excellent point. My post kind of forgets to address it, but I do agree with you that the narrow conventional definition of beauty is not and should not be only definition. I meant more that I think there is a limit on how far it can honestly be expanded, and that there is such a thing as "not beautiful" at a certain point, and I think that's okay.

And you're right, messages are powerful. It's hard to ignore the messages we all get that beauty is so important. But I do think we need to work to change the messages, because that one in particular is not healthy.

[valleyviolet.livejournal.com]

A lot of what people either do or do not get when they talk about body acceptance is how it's connected to self worth. It's not subtle, but it's very much down the depths of your mind and you have to dig and work to change it. If you think appearance is part of how people's worth is determined, you'll treat people differently when you don't think of them as attractive. You'll also tend to underestimate your own attractiveness or become depressed at every small flaw you see in yourself (however minor), because it harms your value as a person.

I've never thought of myself as particularly attractive, but I was also not taught to value looks as part of my self esteem. As an adult I try to dress in a decently flattering manner (more casual than most people my age, but I also work for a public university) because I know clothing can cause people to take you more or less seriously.

My friends don't really understand me when I talk about my body though. If I say "I don't have the legs for that outfit" I'm not hating myself, I'm just stating a physical fact. I think something showing less leg would be more flattering to me. It's strange to see them go into defense mode because they think I'm angry at myself for being, when really I'm not at all.

I also think that people strongly underestimate the social aspect of attraction. How you behave has a huge impact on how attractive people find you. Smiling actually makes you look prettier in most people's eyes. Learning how to flirt will have a strong effect on most people. Personality and charisma can completely alter interactions in ways that have nothing to do with being a "pretty picture" for people to look at.