On the topic of Beauty

Having two daughters and being a female myself, I am keenly aware of the pressures to look a certain way and have felt the strain of how other's perceive me based on how I look.  Because of this, I have wrestled with the beauty complex and what I want to teach my girls about outward beauty, especially since the messages from society are so strong.  I have wanted to be deliberate in defining beauty for my girls (and sons for that matter) and in teaching them how I believe it should be properly valued in life.  It's hard to know with a child whether their own behavior early on towards "feminine" things is their own nature, or whether they are being socialized towards certain behaviors.  It's a very hard balancing act indeed.  For example, it stressed me out for a few years when Madison cared nothing about her physical appearance and seemed to want desperately to be a boy.  I had to exert quite a lot of self control in not trying to change her into my ideal for her, and also in attempting to understand if there was a reason behind this behavior, or if it was just her personality.  I admit that when she off-handedly suggested that maybe she could get some highlights in her hair, one of her first signs of caring about her appearance, I jumped on it and by the end of the day, she was styled and highlighted!  Then there is my other daughter who is almost too honed in to her appearance, wants to wear makeup at age 8, and is very conscious of style.  I have attempted to put the brakes on her desires to wear makeup and emulate her much older pop idol, Taylor Swift.  And then there's my own grapple with beauty; since I was such a late bloomer, I didn't feel good about my appearance for many years.  The upside was that I learned to value myself according to my talents and character instead of my outward appearance at a fairly young age.  The downside I suppose, was the low self esteem from how I looked, and then a subsequent slight preoccupation with how I looked for a few years to make up for those earlier years.  I think I have finally balanced it out now.

It was in my BYU class, "Sex and Gender in Society" that I began to really be concerned about what society teaches girls about themselves and life.  Take for example many of the older Disney stories; again and again a beautiful girl is rescued by her prince and lives happily ever after.  Princesses, in our common discourse, are pretty much all about beauty, polite manners, and wealth. They are generally the prize for men in some lusty competition or another. They are the pinnacle of elegance and beauty, but what does any of this have to do with our self-worth? And do we really want to teach our girls that being rescued by a man will lead them to living happily ever after?   If our self-worth is bound up in such shallow notions, we’ve got a lot of work to do. The messages now have since changed a bit in regard to Disney movies, and I am appreciative of that.  In the recent movie "Brave", a spirited girl is being forced by her Queen mother to choose a husband even though she feels she is not ready.  This causes problems between her and her mother, but the plight is ultimately solved when the mother realizes her daughter wants to do things in her own time and accepts her for who she is.

This Strawberry Shortcake doll was what I used to play with.

This is what today's girls want to play with.

In our house, we don't allow these types of dolls, or any Barbie-type figured dolls.  If someone were to ask my 8 year old why she didn't have any Barbies, she would say (because I've overheard her say), "Because my mom doesn't want me to think that's how girls are supposed to look."  It's not that I think that people who let their girls play with these types of dolls are making the wrong choice, it's just one thing I decided to take a stand against a long time ago, and have managed to stick with. The American Psychological Association recently stated that:  Research evidence shows that the sexualization of girls by means of advertising, merchandising, and media negatively affects girls and young women across a variety of health domains:

Cognitive and Emotional Consequences: Sexualization and objectification undermine a person's confidence in and comfort with her own body, leading to emotional and self-image problems, such as shame and anxiety.

Mental and Physical Health: Research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women--eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood.

Sexual Development: Research suggests that the sexualization of girls has negative consequences on girls' ability to develop a healthy sexual self-image.

On the subject of dolls the APA states, "It is worrisome when dolls designed specifically for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with an objectified adult sexuality. The objectified sexuality presented by these dolls, as opposed to the healthy sexuality that develops as a normal part of adolescence, is limiting for adolescent girls, and even more so for the very young girls who represent the market for these dolls."

I don't necessarily think wanting to be beautiful is a bad thing and I, myself, love new clothes, makeup and working out to be healthy and look fit.  It only becomes unfortunate when a female is valued by others according to her beauty or lack of, and learns to value herself in this way as well.  Women don’t necessarily feel good or bad about themselves because of physical traits. Women who are content with themselves, are content because they have something else to offer; they have goals, aspirations, hopes, desires, dreams, talents and other attributes that make them contributing members of society. They don’t define themselves by their appearance. Beauty is often defined in how others perceive us outwardly, but value or worth should be defined in our relationship to God and our confidence in our inward traits. One we can never fully win, the other we can never fully lose. One is temporal and fleeting, the other inherent and eternal. Maybe the one important difference is this: all of us have qualities that are intrinsically valuable, while only some of us have qualities that are intrinsically beautiful.  Beauty is largely a matter of luck, but every daughter of God has worth and value. So we can have legitimate self-confidence in our good qualities, once we recognize them, while unwarranted self-confidence in our physical appearance is delusional and hollow.  For this reason, I try and concentrate on telling my girls regularly that they are strong, smart, good, and talented, and tell them less often that they are pretty or beautiful.  I remind them frequently that it's nice to pretty, but it's better to be kind.

Last year, Forbes magazine ranked Salt Lake City, Utah as the vainest city in the United States.  http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/29/plastic-health-surgery-forbeslife-cx_rr_1129health_slide_2.html
Yes, Salt Lake City has more plastic surgeons per capita than any other US city and spends more money on beauty products annually than any other city in the nation.  If you live in Utah, I am sure you have seen the plethora of billboards advertising plastic surgery.  I admit to being a subscriber to this mentality because I don't see anything wrong with plastic surgery, especially for women who have had several children.  Media influences play on the natural desires of women to want to be beautiful and attract male attention. Contrary to the idea put forth that advertisers are trying to get women to want to look a certain way, marketing techniques simply take advantage of women’s own existing vanity, I believe. The idea that a beautiful woman is all men want is ingrained in our culture. This Forbes study could be an indicator that either:

*Utah/Mormon culture makes girls and women more susceptible to media messages.
*Mormon girls and women are receiving messages about what it means to be beautiful from influences         besides media.
*A combination of media influence and Mormon religious culture compound to make a bigger impact on girls and women about how to be beautiful and desirable.
* It could mean nothing more than SLC has lots of plastic surgeons.

I also take issue with the way in which Mormon culture teaches girls and women to value beauty.  I cringe when I hear the term, "Modest is Hottest" which is sort of a newer term aimed at encouraging girls to desire to be modest; if you are modest, boys will think you are hot.  In my view, the emphasis of modesty should not be tied to "hotness" or beauty, only to dignity.  Why not be modest as a form of self-respect, instead of to be an object, even in your modesty, of someone else's lustful desires?  The unintended consequences of a what I view to be an over emphasis with modesty results in the the complete opposite result intended:  a preoccupation on girl's and women's bodies, which I adamantly do not want for my daughters.  Many discussions of modesty, from diverse cultural or religious perspectives, revolve around the idea of keeping sinful and unholy female bodies and body parts from the gaze of others — particularly men. This privileges the male gaze, in a backward sort of way, and puts females at a disadvantage for being the ones in control of what others think or feel when seeing their bodies. When we speak of modesty strictly in terms of covering our bodies from the sexual gaze of others, we are keeping the level of discourse at the shallow waters of women and girls as bodies alone. We have very little control of what other people think when they look at us.  If we are teaching the girls in our lives that the primary objective of modesty is to keep themselves covered so boys and men don’t think sexual thoughts about them, then we are teaching girls they are responsible for other peoples’ thoughts and they are primarily sexual objects in need of covering.  Ever once in a while, I remind my son that HE is the guardian of his own virtue and no girl is responsible for keeping him morally clean and I tell my daughter that modesty is important, but even so, she is not responsible for the sins of her male counterparts.  No girl or woman’s body is sinful simply by existing, and no one should be taught that.  Modesty, as an ideal, can be about so much more than shaming females into covering up.  Modesty can be a powerful concept when we believe we are more than bodies.  And when you believe you are more than a body – that you are capable of more than being looked at and you can do more than work on perfecting your parts – then you might dress differently than someone who perceives her value comes from her appearance, or the amount of attention she gets from men. Someone who sees herself as a capable and powerful person with a body that can help her achieve great things might act differently than someone who exists solely to look “hot.” She’ll treat her body differently and think about it differently. If you believe your power comes from your words, your unique contributions, your mind, your service, then you don’t need to seek attention and power by emphasizing your parts and minimizing yourself to your body.  Boy oh boy could I go on and on and on about this topic!

As I watch each of my girls navigate the joys and pitfalls of growing into young women, I feel the need more and more lately to not just let them be unguarded in the influences they are exposed to all around them, but to at least have my voice heard among the rest.  What I want them to know most is that they are more than a body and their value should come from the content of their character.  Spending an exorbitant amount of time dwelling on one's body, even if it is in the name of modesty, takes away from what our true nature and purpose is.  If they can learn to value themselves according to their talents, relationships, service to others, and be good stewards of their bodies out of respect for themselves, it won't matter what anyone else in society has to say.