empowerment – Half-Blood Kuwaiti

Women, Beauty Standards…and Men

I don’t like choice feminism.

If real feminism were a fruit, choice feminism would be artificial fruit candy, or maybe Fruit Loops cereal. Not nearly as good for you, but much easier to digest…and sell.

By choice feminism, I mean the idea that anything can be an act empowerment if it was freely chosen. Nothing is more important than choice. I’m not advocating taking choices away by any means, it’s just the only criteria for a good choice cannot be that it was a choice.

Maybe after centuries of women being told what to do all the time, the movement designed to help them doesn’t want to start doing it too. Maybe it’s due to feminism becoming mainstream, and too many people are chiming in who don’t want to think critically. But surely if we want to help women we have to be able to talk frankly about choices and consequences.

This is especially evident in the beauty industry, perhaps because of the amount of money at stake. If it makes you feel good, it’s good, even if it’s painful plastic surgeries that mutilate your body and threaten your health. But sometimes feeling good is just fitting into patriarchal beauty standards. It’s not bad to enjoy that; it’s understandably pleasant. But let’s not pretend all joy is your soul self-actualizing and reaching nirvana.

A short walk through any mall reveals ads using phrases like “express yourself,” “be you,” or “empowering” to describe shopping, often for entire categories of products that men don’t even buy. I guess they’ll never get to experience the satisfaction of being themselves or having rights. Or maybe I don’t need to buy pants made by a sweatshop worker in India to express who I am inside. Maybe makeup doesn’t somehow reveal my inner beauty by covering up my actual face.

There’s no way forward when people refuse to say anything is inherently harmful. Empowerment is not simply feeling good. It’s about gaining actual political, economic, social, or personal power. Feminism wanted to create a better world for women than the one where they only power they had was through being sexually attractive to men. It isn’t real power, and it doesn’t last. No one would patronize a man by saying he was empowered when he put on a nice suit or got a haircut. No one would expect them to be satisfied with something so inconsequential.

I recently followed an account on Instagram called @notyourmanicpixiedreamcurl. Helen doesn’t shave, wear makeup, or dye her hair and is critical of the idea that we should. While I don’t see myself giving up makeup anytime soon, I scroll through her content fascinated. One, it’s refreshing to see someone stating a real opinion, and two, she makes a lot of sense. Why is it that the natural female body is seen as disgusting? Why is it that women are told they’re expressing themselves through makeup when they’re actually changing themselves? How is painting on a new face everyday not a message to your psyche that your real one isn’t good enough?

I’m not sure I’m willing to sacrifice my own attractiveness at the altar of these principles, but the principles themselves are logical. In the end, the thing I most have an issue with is not women trying to be as attractive as possible. It may not be good for us, but it’s understandable, perhaps even instinctive. It was probably completely harmless in hunter-gatherer days because we didn’t have the option to surgically alter our entire bodies. My issue is with pretending this is an empowering, feminist choice just because it’s a choice.

When men care as much about their appearance as women do, it’s strangely unattractive. Many women would be horrified if their husbands started wearing makeup. Why? I’ve heard one theory that it reflects our hatred of women. Men who act like women are making themselves less because women are less. This is possible, but it seems odd to make wearing makeup such an integral part of being female when it hasn’t been for a long time. My theory is that it seems pathetic for a man to put so much weight on his physical appearance because he should know he’s worth so much more than that. But for women, it’s okay because it’s accepted that how they look is the most important thing about them. In a world where that kind of thinking is prevalent, imagine how damaging it is to believe your defining quality doesn’t even exist anymore after you wash your face at night.

If any men are reading this, I’m willing to bet many of them are nodding along agreeing, saying they’ve always said women shouldn’t wear makeup. Theoretically, I should like these men. In reality, I usually don’t. The more often they mention how much they don’t like makeup, the worse they usually are.

Many of them aren’t coming from a place of concern for how makeup affects women. They don’t believe it’s unnecessary because most women are so beautiful without it. The reason they don’t like makeup is because they think women shouldn’t pretend to be more attractive than they are.

It’s not totally illogical. But if no women wore makeup, we would get used to it and the standard would adjust to reflect that. The women you think are attractive with makeup would probably still look attractive. I once heard a man say he thought men were better-looking than women because they don’t need makeup. Newsflash: No one needs makeup. It’s something that exists, people use it, our expectations have adjusted accordingly. The man who hates makeup and expects women to be beautiful without it is so often toxic because our current beauty standards reflect the number of artificial means for enhancing beauty that are available. Without realizing it, makeup-hating men expect women to look that way without any help, which in my opinion is just cruel. The most beautiful women in the world wear makeup and get photoshopped. Most men can’t even tell when someone is wearing makeup. They genuinely don’t realize how unrealistic their expectations are, because very little of what they see around them is totally natural. I would prefer to be around more traditional misogynists who complain about women not putting in any effort to look good because at least they realize an effort is required.

In this strange reversal of common sense, men are giving themselves feminist points for criticizing and shaming women who are trying their best to get by in a world that values them most on things they can’t control. Whenever they try to take some level of control, they’re criticized for being artificial. But it’s hard to forgo the opportunity to be more attractive when going natural usually results in being asked by everyone if you’re sick. I’ve had people stare and even gasp when they see my natural face. I am apparently such a convincing portrait of illness that if I want to skip work, all I need to do is come in the next day bare-faced, and no one questions it. This strategy was once so successful my own students told me it was okay if I wanted to go home and take more time off.

I don’t think I’m an unattractive person, but incidents like these make me wonder. Sometimes I think we have forgotten what natural faces look like. In a world without makeup, my made-up face would be the shock, not the real one. But then I think I’m only telling myself this to feel better, that somehow I’m the only one who looks this way, who manages to masquerade as attractive with the right disguise but falls into hideousness without it. As much as I am defending the human frailty that leads us to paint our faces and even operate on them, beauty culture is still extremely damaging and this is one of the reasons why. Women have become more and more isolated in their insecurities. Just like men, even we don’t know what other women really look like anymore. We only see our own face, with all its flaws, and feel alone and ashamed. Although I wouldn’t put body hair removal in the same category as makeup, it often has a similar effect. Women grow up secretly ashamed of how much hair they have, believing they are a special, defective minority. But the truth is, when everyone removes their hair, no one knows what normal is anymore. When everyone wears makeup, filters their photos, and dyes their hair; when celebrities almost ubiquitously get nose jobs and Victoria’s Secret models get boob jobs, people forget what natural beauty looks like. They don’t even recognize it as beauty anymore when they see it.

In all of this, people seem to have forgotten that if the most important thing to you about a woman is her appearance, you have missed the point entirely. Looking prettier than you really are is only a crime when looking pretty is terribly important. It’s better to say women don’t need to wear makeup because they don’t need to look good. Men who are afraid of makeup think they’re entitled to a beautiful woman and deceiving them is like robbery. But what if we didn’t care what women did to their faces because their faces just weren’t that important anymore? We don’t live in this world yet—we probably never will—but if we did, it wouldn’t really matter if women wore makeup or not. It wouldn’t damage their self-esteem the same way, we wouldn’t think showing your unadorned face is showing your true self because it isn’t the self at all. Before we criticize something, it’s worth considering why we think the matter is so important in the first place. It all hinges on the idea that women are defined by their appearances, what they do or don’t do with them.

Sometimes, when I feel unattractive, I think about two things to feel comforted. One, it’s God’s fault I’m ugly not mine, so He should feel bad not me. Two, I remember that if the way I look is the most important thing about me, and the best thing, I have truly failed. I have succeeded in something that will surely fade, and failed at everything that really matters. I can’t control what the world values, if people are more impressed by my painted-on face than my personality, but at least I can decide how I value myself. How I feel at night in bed with my eyes closed is more important than anything I see in the mirror.

3 Ways We Refuse To Take Responsibility For Our Lives

low-angle photography of man in the middle of buidligns

Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

It is interesting to me how much power and agency the average middle-class person has and how often they refuse to use it. Power is a strange thing. Most people do not feel powerful. But I believe we choose not to recognize our own agency and abilities because then we would be responsible for using them, and that responsibility is a very frightening thing.

It is more comfortable to blame others for our unhappiness than to acknowledge that we are where we are largely through our own actions. I read something once along the lines of, “We all have what we want most.” That might seem contrary to your experience, but it’s not wrong. Many people would rather be safe than happy. They might say they want to be rich, but what they want is to continue spending money. They might say they want to meet someone and fall in love, but they would rather not risk rejection.

I have three favorite ways of avoiding responsibility in my own life, but I am sure there are many others. I’m sure I do many more that I haven’t realized yet. But I think if I can work on these, I will be a lot closer to where I want to be.

1. Caring more about being right than reaching goals.

This is a big one in every aspect of our lives. Instead of telling people how we want to be treated, we test them and judge them if they get it wrong. If we really want other people to make us happy, we should give them all the information they need to do that. And we should understand that to increase the chances of successfully getting what we want from them, we should not approach the subject as though we are a victim and they have wronged us. It might be true, but that doesn’t mean it will work.

In other areas, this could manifest as refusing to compromise your artistic vision to be successful (which is fine, but expect to be less successful), refusing to ask for opportunities or promotions because other people should realize you deserve them, or insisting on any course of action after it has been shown to not produce the results you want. On some level, people know what to do to get what they want. They just don’t believe they should have to do it.

2. Believing choices that would cause conflict are not options.

How often do we say, “I can’t do x, y, or x,” but we really mean that it would be uncomfortable or cause a conflict with someone else? This sounds like, “I can’t marry the person I want because my family wouldn’t approve,” or, “My husband won’t let me have male friends.” It’s nice that you don’t want to upset people, but you are making a choice. People do not have nearly as much control over you as they would like you to think.

It is not wrong to upset other people or say no. It’s unpleasant, but if you can learn to live with that feeling, you will finally be free.

You might say that you can’t stand up for yourself. But this probably doesn’t mean you can’t, it means that perhaps it makes you very anxious or you start crying. But you can still speak your mind even if you are crying. You do not have to do something perfectly for it to be effective.

Part of the reason why we are reluctant to risk conflict is we don’t have good conflict resolution skills. I personally have spent more of my life focusing on conflict avoidance skills. These boil down to trying to be polite, apologizing quickly, and giving in. To many people, it is a terrifying thing to honor your own wishes knowing that it will upset someone you love. Beneath that is the unspoken belief that they will no longer love you if you have caused them anger. We believe we do not have enough to offer to still be worth it after we have upset them. Which is strange, because the people who usually feel this way are upset by others all the time and still care about them.

The ironic thing is that we would not struggle so much with conflict if we weren’t expecting someone else to fulfill the needs we refuse to meet ourselves. The confrontation becomes weighted and intense because so much relies on the other person responding how we desire. On the flip side, every person who takes responsibility for their own happiness makes it easier for everyone around them to do the same. If I meet my own needs, I will not be upset by what you need to do to meet yours. If I know my boundaries, I will not be torn when you ask me to violate them. I will simply say no, calmly and politely, because what really affects us is feeling powerless. I will be upset by attempts to manipulate me if I fear that they might work. I will be upset by insults if I secretly agree with them. If I know who I am and that I deserve to be happy, I will have no desire to control someone else. (Or at least a significantly decreased desire. No one’s perfect.)

3. Externalizing insecurities and hoping others will fix them.

I have not thought about this one as much as the others, but I think it is still valid. I have noticed that people tend to gravitate towards those who see them the way they see themselves. That’s not inherently negative because hopefully the way you see yourself is not inherently negative. But let’s be realistic. It frequently is.

Instead of facing our self-doubt, we look for someone who doubts us as well and try to win their approval. If we can convince them, maybe this is proof that we should believe it ourselves. And this process only works with people who see the flaws we are self-conscious about.

I see this happen a lot in romantic relationships. People chase those who don’t like them because they don’t like themselves. It’s not very reassuring to prove yourself to someone who already likes you. This person just seems to have low standards to us. No, we want someone perhaps even harsher than ourselves. And this is why we stay with people who are critical and put us down. We think, “If I can get this person who hates x, y, or z about me to think I’m great, imagine how wonderful I must seem to all the people who already thought I was fine.” Perfectionism, the root of a lot of self-esteem issues, wants us to reach a state where we are immune to criticism or disapproval. So no wonder we would be more interested in the people who don’t value us. We really think they can’t exist for us to be okay.

If you value yourself, the whole conflict disappears. When you really, really value yourself, you realize how powerful and capable you are. And you force yourself to act on it even if it might be difficult at first. Growth is not supposed to be comfortable. Think of how much babies cry when they get teeth. But it’s all worth it in the end, because they finally get to eat real food.

Everyone Is Not Beautiful

Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash

I usually hear this sentiment applied to women, as in, “Every woman is beautiful.” And my first thought is:

Is it so terrible to not be beautiful that we cannot admit any woman isn’t?

I don’t believe that denying reality helps. It just makes it seem that whatever we are denying must be really terrible if we can’t acknowledge it. People are aware that an attractiveness hierarchy exists, and this kind of rainbows and sunshine attitude doesn’t get rid of the hierarchy; it reaffirms it and insists we are all on the top of it. I just think of Animal Farm. All women are beautiful, but some women are more beautiful than others. Great. Now we are back where we started.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t believe in our own attractiveness. I think everyone is beautiful to someone. I think everyone has beautiful features, both internally and externally. But why is it considered a necessary part of a woman’s self-esteem for her to believe she is beautiful? Wouldn’t it be better to encourage women to believe their worth is not based on how pretty they are? What I hear behind these superficial empowerment messages is: Your value is still based on your attractiveness. That hasn’t changed. But don’t worry, because you’re attractive.

The ironic thing is that I don’t see these people arguing that Trump supporters are beautiful, or misogynists, or Karens. Everyone is beautiful—if they subscribe to a narrow ideology of leftist beliefs. But it doesn’t work that way. People aren’t physically attractive based on whether or not you think they deserve to be. What ought to be is not what is reflected in the world. And if you think what’s on the inside makes someone beautiful (a very nice belief), everyone is still definitely not beautiful.

People don’t talk like this about men. Many men do not consider themselves particularly good-looking, and they don’t care about it one way or another. They believe in other positive qualities that they have. They don’t think the majority of their value depends on their outward appearance. When a man accomplishes something great, we don’t throw in how handsome and sexy he is the way we make sure to throw in “beautiful” when we are proud of a woman.

We wouldn’t say everyone has an above average IQ because that’s statistically illogical, but we would acknowledge that everyone has a talent of some kind. The first statement is incorrect, the second is the truth. The truth is comforting. The truth is that you can be personally attractive without being conventionally beautiful. And if you aren’t particularly attractive, that’s fine too. A pretty face contributes so much less to the world than intelligence, hard work, and good character. It’s a lie to pretend that being valuable attracts as much attention as superficial beauty. But the world doesn’t reward what is should.

We are still obsessed with women’s bodies, and whether we insist on covering them, uncovering them, perfecting them, or going on about how perfect all of them intrinsically are, we are still placing more importance on the body than the woman herself. It is not empowering women to expand the definition of who deserves to be sexualized. Why is it so necessary to tell us every body is a bikini body? I’m not saying don’t wear bikinis, but where is the movement shaming men for not being comfortable in speedos?

It does end up being shaming. You are shamed for not loving your body more. But I think if I really love myself, I should tie it to something more meaningful than my body. I should be able to acknowledge I have features that are not ideal, but not be upset about this because who I am is so much more than that. Men, for the most part, are pretty covered up in everyday life. This isn’t because there is some kind of stigma against their bodies. It’s just that their bodies are not their defining characteristic and so no one cares much about what they wear. People are always telling women to either cover or uncover, but neither of those solves the actual problem, which is that women are defined by their physical appearances.

I am reminded of the words of Courtney Martin: “We are the daughters of the feminists who said, ‘You can be anything,’ and we heard, ‘You have to be everything.’” But it’s lie. You don’t have to be everything. You don’t have to be beautiful, you don’t have to balance a family and a career, you don’t have to love every part of yourself. You just have to be good enough.