Feminist Rant: On Beauty
Mar. 3rd, 2010 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imaginary_goluxReading The Beauty Myth – very good, very educational, am learning much – and would like to say this to the female population of the world:
The shape your body is? The shape it assumes naturally, the one which all the ads and movies and shows and magazines tell you is ugly? The one with the stretch marks and the saggy boobs and the bulge in the stomach and the wide thighs – or all or none of the above – that body, that shape? It is beautiful. It is a good shape. It is a lovely shape. It is a shape which people of your preferred gender(s) desire, if they’ve any brains at all. It is the shape you ought to have, and there is nothing wrong with it. If you want to lose five pounds because it would make you happy, go for it. If you want to dye your hair because it would please you, have a ball. But if you want to change the shape you are for no reason than that Society, that all-encompassing, all-judging monolith, says that it is the wrong shape? FUCK THAT. It is NOT the wrong shape. It is a good, a lovely, a beautiful, a proper shape. It is a shape you do not need to be ashamed to have. And the shapes of the people around you, each and every one of them is a good shape too. We are each and every and all beautiful, and to any hell that exists with anything that says otherwise.
And so, in the spirit of this, for whatever it’s worth, I make a promise to you – multitudinous, anonymous you, you who I know not at all. When I pass you in the street, when I sit next to you on an airplane, when I stand beside you in line at the grocery store, when I encounter you at any point in my daily life, I will do my darnedest not to judge your appearance. I will not think uncharitable things about it. I will not snicker quietly to myself. I will not make insulting comments. I may disagree with your politics, object to your opinions, disapprove of your religion or job or hobbies – any or all or none of the above – but your shape, the shape you are, whatever that shape may be, is, by all the gods, NONE of my business, except insofar as I should recognize that it is a good shape, a lovely shape, a shape which I have no right nor privilege nor desire to criticize. And I promise to keep that firmly in mind.
The shape your body is? The shape it assumes naturally, the one which all the ads and movies and shows and magazines tell you is ugly? The one with the stretch marks and the saggy boobs and the bulge in the stomach and the wide thighs – or all or none of the above – that body, that shape? It is beautiful. It is a good shape. It is a lovely shape. It is a shape which people of your preferred gender(s) desire, if they’ve any brains at all. It is the shape you ought to have, and there is nothing wrong with it. If you want to lose five pounds because it would make you happy, go for it. If you want to dye your hair because it would please you, have a ball. But if you want to change the shape you are for no reason than that Society, that all-encompassing, all-judging monolith, says that it is the wrong shape? FUCK THAT. It is NOT the wrong shape. It is a good, a lovely, a beautiful, a proper shape. It is a shape you do not need to be ashamed to have. And the shapes of the people around you, each and every one of them is a good shape too. We are each and every and all beautiful, and to any hell that exists with anything that says otherwise.
And so, in the spirit of this, for whatever it’s worth, I make a promise to you – multitudinous, anonymous you, you who I know not at all. When I pass you in the street, when I sit next to you on an airplane, when I stand beside you in line at the grocery store, when I encounter you at any point in my daily life, I will do my darnedest not to judge your appearance. I will not think uncharitable things about it. I will not snicker quietly to myself. I will not make insulting comments. I may disagree with your politics, object to your opinions, disapprove of your religion or job or hobbies – any or all or none of the above – but your shape, the shape you are, whatever that shape may be, is, by all the gods, NONE of my business, except insofar as I should recognize that it is a good shape, a lovely shape, a shape which I have no right nor privilege nor desire to criticize. And I promise to keep that firmly in mind.
