“You are beautiful, no matter what they say.”
It finally seemed like we were becoming an all-around inclusive society in a multitude of ways; including the idea that we are each beautiful in our own way.
When I came across a blog-post shared on Facebook entitled, “Not Everyone is Beautiful,” and read all of the positive feedback it received, my hope that we were a society that valued everyone’s inner and outer beauty came crashing down.
Basically, this blog post is a rant about how the word “beautiful” has become something valued above all other traits. What I ultimately took away from his blog post is that we should never say, “Everyone is beautiful” because not everyone is and we should instead keep the word locked up.
Click Here to read the blog post, written by Nathan Bieberdorf…
http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/not-everyone-is-beautiful/
Now don’t get me wrong, he has some perfectly reasonable and acceptable points. Should we tell young girls that physical attractiveness is of more importance than our intellect, personality, and personal qualities? Of course not! But to say that the word “beautiful” should not be applied to everyone, rather only to those who are by definition, “physically attractive” is in my opinion, taking a huge step backwards.
For Bieberdorf to say, “not everyone is beautiful” because some have “tumors,” “warts,” “blemishes,” and “skin like the Michelin man” is pretty harsh, in my opinion. He says that the phrase, “Everyone is beautiful” has become very common but we never say everyone is “athletic” or an “amazing writer.”
Of course we don’t say things like, “Everyone is a five star chef” or “Everyone has a fantastic singing voice.” Why? Because they aren’t true! God doesn’t give all of us the same gifts and talents and it would be false to say that we’re all equally equipped to perform the same tasks. Now would it be correct to say, “Everyone is beautiful?” ABSOLUTELY!
Is it ignorant of me to feel this way? To some, perhaps. But I personally don’t think that it’s so far-fetched to say that we are all beautiful children of God, created in His image; a major fact that he fails to mention. What Bieberdorf is missing, is that being good at football and being beautiful aren’t two things that we can compare. Skills are limited to certain individuals. Beauty can be applied to all because it’s SUBJECTIVE.
He attempts to support his argument by lashing out at the media and the beauty and fashion industries as “thriving off of lowered self esteem.” This, to me, is not an accurate statement.
Many of us purchase fashion and beauty products because we enjoy doing so! It’s fun to be able to experiment with various makeup and fashion trends. So what if taking the extra time to do our makeup or put together an outfit that flatters our body type makes us feel physically attractive? Just because physical appearance isn’t everything, doesn’t mean there’s shame in wanting to feel our best.
Rather than going on a rant about the media’s portrayal of beauty and how far it has come, take a look at these two women, both who have graced the cover of one of the most renowned fashion, beauty, and lifestyle publications in the U.S.
If we went off of Bieberdorf’s logic and beauty standards, we would tell our young girls that one of these women is beautiful while the other is not. And wouldn’t that be a shame?
You can tell a girl over and over again that she is smart or funny. And yes, that is incredibly important because at the end of the day, physical beauty will fade while our inner beauty is eternal. But if we are telling them that only some girls get to be physically “beautiful”, then we are doing them a terrible injustice. Why do we want to feel physically beautiful? Because, let’s face it, WE’RE HUMAN!
Bieberdorf says that the word beautiful is an ugly word, owned, not by us, but by the “world.” … What does he mean by that? I’ve got news for ya buddy, WE ARE THE WORLD! The word “beautiful” only becomes an ugly, confusing word if WE make it one. If we tell girls that God gave them gifts, talents, a killer personality and crafted each one of us to be beautiful in His eyes, than this war on the word “beauty” would not exist. In a society where suicide and self-harm due to low self-confidence is so prominent, this is one of the most meaningful things that we can do.
As a society, we have become more accepting than we ever were in the past. This being said, why would we not accept the fact that we are all beautiful? Why must we continue to find fault in the good things happening in society such as worldwide beauty campaigns and movements as well as thousands of movies, books, and songs to teach girls that even though we are different on the outside, God has created us to be uniquely beautiful, inside and OUT.
And hey, maybe that one loser on the soccer team from high school found another girl more beautiful than you. That doesn’t mean a ton of other people don’t think you are, or you shouldn’t think you are, or, most importantly, our Heavenly Father doesn’t know you are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.” What we need to take from that, and teach our next generation, is that if God created us, then we are indeed something beautiful. With the start of the school year right here, my hope is that we can all go back with this confidence and assurance.