Who Decides What Beauty Is?

This little exploration through the tangled briers of my thought process is brought to you courtesy of a posting I saw on Facebook:

Julie GainesLife of a whovian fan-girl: January 24

I saw this on tumblr and it made me very angry. I know that this page is very good at fighting hate aimed at fans, so I decided that this would be the page to share this with so the massage gets out there.The comment that went along with this:"Wow. I’m sure you’ve all seen this girl’s fantastic tardis dress floating around here the last week or so. She hand painted the inside and everything, and she just looks plain great. But of course, I see it posted on Facebook, and the slew of comments begin.

“I don’t think it’s a mystery as to why I, as a bigger girl, spend the week before a convention crying because I’m so nervous about what people are going to say about me just because I want to dress up and have fun like everyone else. And there is something really, really f*cking wrong with that.”

Edit: I am NOT the girl in the photo, so please stop sending me friend requests. ALSO, I did not post this for the girl. She is beautiful and probably knows it. Look at her smile. I did however post this for the men who made those comments.

Now, my initial reaction and reply to this posting was:

M. D. First of all - as a larger Zaftig woman myself all I see is a lovely talented young lady. While I am not a Dr. Who fan personally I can still appreciate talent when it is right in front of me.

Having said that ... WHY are people still so willing to accept that there is only ONE standard of beauty? Societal tastes change all the time. At one time pale white skin was prized and tans viewed as ugly. Cultures have worshipped the curvy female form for centuries and viewed with distaste and pity the waifs who they felt were not up to the task of bearing healthy children.

When did we all become such sheep that we blindly follow what a small number of gay male fashion designers tell us is the only "acceptable" female shape?

**********************************************************************

NOTE: I am not a Dr. Who fan and had NO idea what a "Tardis" was. So for clarification to all those other readers who don't know -

The Tardis (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) is a time machine and spacecraft in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who and its associated spin-offs. In the series, the Doctor pilots an apparently unreliable, obsolete TT Type 40, Mark 3 TARDIS. Its chameleon circuit is faulty, leaving it stuck in the shape of a 1960s-style London police box after a visit to London in 1963.

This little snippet of thoughts though would not go away. If you Google the words “beauty, standards, historical” or the question “What were beauty standards in the past” you will get hundreds of pages and just as many varying viewpoints.

Some writers will tell you that during Period X “this” was the ideal and then during Period Y “that” was considered what women should look like. Many of these people will cite the art of the time as the rationale for their conclusions. However couldn’t it also be just a factor of patron’s taste and what they ordered?

Imagine it is 1750. Duke A pays for a portrait of his beloved wife who stood barely 5’ and weighed all of 90 pounds soaking wet with thick blonde curls who had given him seven healthy children. And Earl J commissioned a painting of his adored mistress who was 5’6” and weighed 250 pounds with baby fine brown hair. What conclusion would we make then of the “ideal” standard of beauty in 1750?

We cannot. We can however conclude that for whatever reasons these two women were valued and cherished by the man in their lives since they went to the trouble and expense of having their portraits done.

However, over the centuries there are some traits which seem to be more prevalent than others.

• Ancient cultures (prior to say 500 AD) have portrayed goddess images that show to varying degrees a belly on women. Some more pronounced than others, but even the ancient Greek goddesses showed a softness to the belly and saved the “six packs” for the men. The statues of the Mayans, Inca, Australian Aborigines and African continent often show the woman’s figure as plump and bursting with energy. For me this shows an acknowledgement, and sometimes a reverence, for the woman as life giver. The one who nurtures a child within her own body in order to perpetuate the culture or society to which she belongs.
  
  
  
  
• 
  

  There seemed to be a real trend during the Elizabethan Age towards white skin. Partly I believe as a way to emulate the queen even when it went to ridiculous and dangerous lengths. Women would use arsenic and lead based cosmetics which could ultimately kill them. However you see throughout the art of the 15^th – 17^th centuries a clear difference in the skin tones the women in paintings. There seems to be an accepted belief that women of higher breeding, or upper class women, had paler skin and softer hands. While lower class, or working women, had skin darkened by the sun and hands weathered and callused from years of hard work. Though I think this also could be a commentary on someone’s socio-economic standing and not just a statement of beauty.
  
  
• 
  

  During the mid-1800s you see ads in women’s publications promising smaller and smaller waists with the newest type of corset. Then in the 1890s the marketing trend added pads you could tie around your waist to make your backside appear more prominent.
  
  

  

  
  
  

Things take a drastic swing by the 1920s when foundation garments are now geared to flattening a woman's assets in order to achieve the almost boyish figure of the Flapper.

In more recent decades we have seen hair lengths rise, fall than rise again – along with the hemline of skirts. Women co-opted men’s clothing, wore interpreted versions of what we thought a pioneer woman would, drowned in bright neon colors then blended into the background in a mind numbing array of neutrals and browns. We have ironed our hair then got perms. Spent hours with a blow dryer and then went with the wet look. Our lips have been painted crimson, white, blush, brown and coated only with gloss. We have plucked our eyebrows, struggled with fake eyelashes and spent too much time and money having acrylic nails applied and maintained. Stockings were In – then Out – then In again but only if they were colored. Heel heights have been anywhere from non-existant to a toe crushing 5”+.

WHEN are we going to finally stand up and reclaim our right to decide as individuals what is beautiful to us? Will we actually come to a place as a society when we tell the tabloid media and the fashion industry to shut up and quit pushing their narrow minded views down our throats. Or have we become so sheep-like that such a strong sense of our own self-worth has been forever weakened.

It saddens me to consider that latter statement may be true.