This post was written by Heather Widdows, Ph.D., and Jessica Sutherland.
What won’t we do for beauty? We paint our faces, starve ourselves to the bone, feel the burn, suck our fat, freeze our faces, cut our skin, and insert foreign bodies—saline or silicone—into our skin and muscles. There are almost no limits to what we will risk for beauty, and risking our lives for the perfect butt curves is just one of the latest in a long line of dangerous beauty practices.[1]
We devour beauty stories, stories about what women have done in pursuit of the beautiful body. Was the woman crazy? Or does he just have something, and we could do the same? These stories fascinate, fascinate and repulse. These stories repeat cultural tropes about the trivial nature of beauty—and perhaps the superficial characters of women who do beauty. Together, they trivialize beauty and obscure the truth about the changing way beauty is valued.
Electric Corset Advertisement
Maurice Savage / Alamy
One of the stories we’re told is that women—and it’s usually women in this story—have always done stupid and dangerous things for beauty. That’s the point of it Emma Beddington’s recent articlewhich highlights the use of poisonous products, such as white lead and radium, and terrifying machines, such as hip reducers and electric corsets, to show the pains women have historically endured for beauty.[2] Sometimes the point of stories like this one is to show that beauty is less demanding now than it was in the past: “Body waxing is nothing compared to foot binding.” Sometimes, they aim to say that we’ve always done crazy things about beauty and there’s nothing really new. Changes in what’s technically possible mean we’re moving from fussing to butt-lifting – from ‘dress-cutting to bust-cutting’ – or, in this case, butt-cutting, literally. But in the service of the same old tired ideal.
Another story, a very common story, is to claim that beauty changes over the decades and track those changes. The ideal of the 20s was the skinny flapper, thin but without curves. The 50s were a fuller hourglass figure, like Marilyn Monroe. The 60s was Twiggy’s boyish beauty. in the 80s the supermodel from the Amazon. Kate Moss’ 90s Heroine. and so it goes on. The moral of this story is that beauty changes across times and places, so beauty is only a taste – nothing is fixed, everything is in flux.
This is a recurring story and not only in women’s magazines but also in national media,[3] The tabloid,[4] and comes to life in many YouTube videos. This story reinforces the view that beauty changes with time and place, and is therefore fleeting, a matter of changing taste. In this story, beauty cannot be defined: “Don’t worry if you’re not the ‘perfect’ right now. chances are things will change and next year or next decade it will be you.” Either way, beauty is too ethereal, too mutable, and too fleeting to take seriously.
These stories obscure the truth.
The ideal of beauty is not constantly changing. On the contrary, it normalizes, naturalizes and homogenizes. All the ideals of the 20th century fall under the emerging global ideal. The universal ideal requires you to be slim, firm, smooth and young in one combination or another.[5] Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy and Kate Moss are just different versions of thinness, firmness, softness and youth. none dispute the essential characteristics of the ideal. To be perfect or just good enough, you don’t have to be the stereotypical Margot Robbie Barbie, but you do have to be one of the barbies. Skin color can vary, size can vary (within limits), and in some contexts—assuming you’re slim, smooth, and toned—you can even be old.
Stories about the changing value of beauty, and stories that make women look foolish for risking pain for something as fleeting as beauty, obscure the growing dominance and demandingness of the new global ideal. A new—and very popular—story is that beauty is increasingly diverse. Diversity is the story we want to tell most right now. For example, in May 2018 Fashion The cover openly celebrates diversity.[6]
Vogue May 2018 cover
Vogue magazine
Diversity in skin color has been embraced by fashion—and that’s an important step forward that should be championed and celebrated. Absolutely amazing. However, diversity in skin color does not challenge the emerging ideal of beauty. The ideal skin tone of the emerging beauty ideal is medium tone – golden, bronze or olive (often achieved by fair skin and tanning pale skin). But any skin color can be beautiful, as long as you have the other characteristics of the ideal—fineness, softness, and youth.
The Fashion The cover models are more similar than different. Not only are they all slim with curves (they all “pop” in the right places), but they have the glowing, ideal complexion that softness and firmness demand. Glowing skin—newsflash, skin doesn’t glow in the real world, only in the virtual world—but it’s glowing skin, glass skin, that’s what’s required. This isn’t real human skin: It’s the skin of photos, selfies, filters and editing apps, skin without pores, blemishes or imperfections. Enninful asserts that diversity is not just about skin color: “When I say diversity, I want to be clear that it’s never just about black and white for me. It’s about diversity across the board – whether it’s race, size, socioeconomic background, religion, sexuality.” [7]
But is this diversity really in terms of the requirements of the universal ideal? The real diversity would be models who are fat, hairy, wrinkled, and old and with more than one feature being contested at the same time. All bodies would be visible on magazine covers and in the virtual world. Only this would really challenge the ideal. The story of diversity is just the latest in a long line of stories that obscure the truths of beauty.
Beauty is not fleeting, transitory or trivial. It never was. The women who wore the electric corset may not have known the full dangers, but you can bet your life that they didn’t enjoy the practice and wish they didn’t feel obligated to engage—but they knew that beauty mattered. In our brave new world, which is increasingly becoming a visual and virtual world, beauty matters even more and for the first time, our ideal of beauty is universal.[8] A universal ideal is far less forgiving and, despite the rhetoric, far less diverse than our previous ideals (whatever crazy practices they required). In order to take beauty seriously, we need to discard these stories – as fascinating and homey as they are – and take a cold, hard look at how serious the demands of beauty are and the challenges of living under a universal ideal. in a virtual culture.
Heather Widdows is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.
Jessica Sutherland is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
