The concept of beauty is introduced early in a woman’s life through statements heard in childhood. If she has a beautiful mother, she will hear her exclaim, “She’s as beautiful as her mother!” or she whispered with a little shake of her head like it was the end of the world, “Oh, she didn’t get the mother look from her.” If she has at least one other sister, she will no doubt receive comments like “That’s a future heartthrob” or the well-intentioned comment “This is the smart one”, which translates to her not being pretty like her sister. She often hears such comments from relatives, neighbors, teachers and just strangers, and then begins to rank herself against this seemingly desirable standard called beauty.
This self-rating changes constantly as you get older and the most dramatic impact comes during the turbulent teenage years, when the opinion of your peer group is the law and the turnaround rating comes from that interesting and infuriating species, the children. If it turns out that she has been well endowed by the beauty gods, she would be popular but secretly or openly disliked by both sexes and she might experience don’t-hate-me-because-I’m-beautiful syndrome. She could be the valedictorian or a winning athlete, but remain invisible elsewhere in the school. Life becomes a Ms. Universe competition where most people are judges or contestants, sometimes both; and the few that aren’t are aggressively pushing ideas on how to win the crown. Or she could join a growing minority of bold rebels who boycott competition and go to great lengths to look defiantly unprepossessing. Things calm down a bit in college and when she starts working, she more or less understands and acknowledges her beauties and flaws… and then comes the explosive discovery of something that could actually create assets and cover flaws. Welcome to the world of fashion!
Suddenly, there are more “titles” to aim for in Ms. Universe-of-Life besides just gorgeous. Now there is chic, stylish, über cool and the coveted fashionista. With the right mix of clothes, makeup, bags, shoes, and accessories, one can achieve and even exceed beauty. Live! With fashion, everyone is a beauty pageant winner. End of competition and beginning of world peace, right? Not quite! Fashion has apparently leveled the playing field, but by broadening the criteria for beauty, it caused a frenzied dependency (addiction seems like the best word) to buy more stuff. Shortly after she gets her hands on them, her lifespan expires as they go out of style and become the latest season.
Beauty and fashion have their rightful place as attributes to aspire to. I get as excited as any woman about shoes and bags, and I openly do a double take when an attractive, well-dressed woman walks into a restaurant, especially when she’s wearing the latest fashion accessory, a handsome man.
What I do question is why we women have bought the “Ms. Universe-of-Life franchise” and why we have accepted everyone else as judges. I do understand the desire to look good but now I have learned to value much more, to feel good about how I look. That is a lesson that is neither beauty nor fashion, but acceptance. That too can be learned early by our daughters and nieces. Hopefully, they’ll skip the elimination rounds at any Ms.-Universe-of-Life pageant and launch straight into the Hall of Fame, where beauty and fashion are a relaxed, personal choice…or no choice. .