The Burden of the Beauty Monoculture
The one size, one shape, one skin tone monoculture that dominates our ideas of beauty is a cultural poison. The only antidote is to recognise that beauty is a journey, not a destination.
Spring is here. The birds are singing. The trees are blooming. In stores across the country a colourful array of swimsuits has cropped up. Never a comfortable time for me.
As much as I love swimming, and walking and climbing, my own inner ‘beauty critic’ is never entirely silent, even when I am immersed in nature. The birds in my beloved local park don’t care that my hair is dirty, or that my bottom seems to be taking on a life of its own. But, to my eternal frustration, I still do.
So it was with some dismay that my worst fears were confirmed by new global research which found that for most females the inner beauty critic has already arrived by the time she is 14 years old and continues to erode her self-esteem as she ages. The research, the Real Truth About Beauty, was commissioned by Dove.
Dove of course is the brand behind the Real Beauty Campaign, launched in 2004, which featured lots of gals of different shapes and sizes (within a popularly ‘acceptable‘ range of course, and not an ounce of cellulite or a ‘bingo wing’ in sight) in their impossibly white undies.
The campaign came as close to cause marketing as any beauty company has ever come, and pioneered the use of real women in advertising. Critics said it was likely to be counter-productive because the marketing messages in the beauty industry are supposed to be aspirational and the images it gives us to aspire to unobtainable. It is the resulting frustration and dissatisfaction that absolutely drives beauty products sales. We all want to believe that the next product will be the one that actually delivers – even though it never is.
Some cruelly suggested it would define Dove as a brand for plain, fat girls. But they were wrong. Dove’s sales increased and the campaign started a global conversation about what constituted a beautiful body was. The momentum of that conversation even reached fashion industry (and probably went some way toward helping Gok Wan build his current empire). In 2006 Spain outlawed size zero models on its cat walks. In 2009 Glamour magazine twice featured ‘plus size’ model Lizzi Miller; 5’11” 185lbs and proud of her little paunch. Miller is actually a size 12-14 – and only in Glamour would this be considered a ‘plus size’. Still, it’s a start.
This week Dove has announced that it is ditching the Real Beauty Campaign and its emphasis on self-acceptance in favour of a more conventional campaign called Body Language which will instead talk about how Dove products make you feel confident and attractive.
Same as it ever was, I guess.
This still leaves room for a substantial ongoing conversation about what beauty is and how we go about discovering it, in ourselves and others.
My grandmother would have said beauty is as beauty does. Indeed this phrase has long served as an inspiration to women – and a warning that no matter how lovely you might be on the outside, you can never be beautiful if you are cruel, or crude, if you harm others, or are filled with greed, envy and hatred on the inside.
Less than a century ago, in 1913, Webster’s dictionary defined beauty as “properties pleasing the eye, the ear, the intellect, the aesthetic faculty or the moral sense.” Today the default definition of beauty has narrowed to a shocking degree, the result of decades of focusing only on what is pleasing to the eye.
The Real Truth About Beauty survey isn’t the first, and won’t be the last to show that from a very early age girls and women show a high level of dissatisfaction with their bodies and their looks. This dissatisfaction comes largely as a result of the fact that, for a very long time, what it is to be beautiful, even naturally beautiful, has been defined by the media, by Hollywood and by the globalised beauty industry.
On an emotional/psychological level, to be beautiful is to have the power to provoke profound feelings in others – and how many of us can say we feel naturally confident of our powers in this regard? So we look for something we can buy to give us that power. We look for external cues that tell us what is beautiful and desirable, what qualities will make us admired and loved, what attributes will give us the power to seduce and enchant. But these cues are constantly changing because the industries that provide them rely on the dissatisfaction of average individuals and the unrequited desire to achieve an idealised form of beauty to stay in business.
But things are shifting. For women in particular there is a slow evolution that seeks to redefine beauty in a way that is more natural and holistic, and more reflective of our needs, emotions and perceptions. One that leaves behind static, one-size-fits-all philosophy and embraces a broader appreciation of beauty that includes a world of diverse human beings of all ages and cultures mixing together.
This is also taking us away from synthetic, mass produced beauty products which rely on ingredients made from polluting and increasingly scarce petrochemicals, to those made from safer and more sustainable natural substances. Indeed, many moons and several dress sizes ago, it was an interest in such things that sucked me into the world of environment and sustainability.
On the surface of things increasing interest in natural beauty, which is mirroring an increased sensitivity to our environment, seems a positive even inspiring cultural shift for women; a valuable alternative to the plastic beauty which so many of us have grown up with.
Concern for what we put in our bodies, and the corresponding shift to a diet of more natural and wholesome foods has spilled over into concern for what we put on our bodies too. It is hard to feel healthy when one subsists on a diet of refined and highly processed ‘junk’ food. It is also hard to feel beautiful when one uses ‘junk’ beauty products, made using synthetic chemicals that are known to disrupt the body’s hormonal or nervous systems, cause cancer, provoke allergies, or be harmful to your unborn baby.
As we become more aware of the damage than humankind has done to the planet, it has become clear that trashing the planet in the name of vanity simply isn’t beautiful.
There are, however, difficulties to overcome. In using any kind of cosmetic, women seek transformation; and the promise of the ever-changing, transformative powers of nature is particularly seductive. Beauty products promise transformation, natural beauty products promise natural transformation.
In natural cosmetics women seek to capture the glow of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, the colours of the earth and sky and to make these natural things our own rather than accept our own individual roles as part of nature’s beautiful diversity.
Nature, of course, thrives on variety and it is this variety we respond to when we perceive the natural environment as beautiful. The marketplace, however, loves conformity. Thus the beauty industry’s view of the future continues to focus narrowly on the promise of youth.
Even as a leading edge of women are moving away from this beauty monoculture, the industry continues to pour countless millions into producing ‘facelifts’ in jarscontaining amongst other things, ‘natural’ human hormones, and ‘natural’ stem-cell injections as a replacement for Botox.
There are signs, however, that our increased identification with natural world is influencing the future of beauty in a more positive way.
An earlier Dove Global Beauty Survey found many women wanted to see the idea of beauty expanded from the narrow physical aspects of beauty that currently dominate popular culture, to include emotional qualities, character and individuality.
Indeed it is our personalities, our character, the individual lives we have led, and the depth of our relationships that may form the most important component of a new understanding of beauty.
According to the authors of one study, interconnectedness and co-operation – examples of which can be found in abundance in most nature systems – play a vital role in what attracts us to each other: “The value of potential social partners depends at least as much on non-physical traits – whether they are cooperative, dependable, brave, hardworking, intelligent and so on – as physical factors, such as smooth skin and symmetrical features” At the end of their paper, the scientists offer this beauty tip: “If you want to enhance your physical attractiveness, become a valuable social partner.”
Although ignored by academia for many decades, recent studies into body image and attractiveness confirm that our perceptions of beauty are complex and also have a profound effect on our health and well being. For instance, there is data to show that people who can accept their bodies and natural features live happier and healthier lives. In one 2008 study of 150,000 US adults, scientists found that negative body image resulted in chronic stress, which caused a decline in mental and physical health.
Likewise the notion that youth equates to beauty can no longer be sustained in a world where the population is ageing.
Compare the look of a Botoxed or surgically-altered face, with skin stretched and pulled and pinched, to the crows-feet one might accumulate by smiling and laughing with beloved partner, family and friends and the words of Eleanor Roosevelt come to mind: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, beautiful older people are works of art”.
Industry data shows that interest in youth potions and invasive surgeries falls off after the age of 45. Older women, it seems, are more interested in looking good for their age than looking eternally young. They also seek beauty care – for instance through massage or having a facial – as therapy for the inner self, to promote a sense of well-being, and not just for their appearance.
The sum total of all these cultural shifts is that we can begin to envisage a future where beauty is perceived as a life long journey, rather than destination. As an act of becoming that mirrors the slow, natural process of creating the mountains, valleys and forests from which we draw such inspiration. As something that requires not so much an act of force, but the confidence to stop trying to force the issue
Now and in the future older women will have a vital role to play as examples to help younger women to feel confident in who they are and how they look, and to respond less to societal expectations of beauty and femininity. It is this kind of mentoring that could help young girls silence their own inner beauty critic.
It’s an uphill battle, I know, but one we must engage with because, the beauty monoculture is a cultural poison that is plainly and quite literally driving women crazy. And really, there is some truth in the belief that no nation can rise above the health – emotional, mental or physical – of its women.
© Pat Thomas 2011. No reproduction without the author’s permission.
