Overcoming Beauty

I have a deeply ambivalent  relationship with the concept of "beauty." I would argue that most successful women fall somewhere on the spectrum between "conflicted" to "deeply ambivalent" to even "tortured" in their relationship to the idea of physical beauty. We, doctors, lawyers, physicists,  feel as though we should be above the pull of social forces that tell us that we must be slender, beautiful,  and aesthetically pleasing.  We are intelligent women able to hold the ridiculous physical demands to the light and know that they are socially constructed and unattainable.  Many of us are even able to reject portions of the social ideal. But let me tell you one thing: any woman who says that she doesn't care what she looks like is lying.

This topic is so multi-faceted one could write a book focused solely on it. Heck, I just might. Beauty as power. Beauty as conformity. Beauty as "natural." Beauty as a reflection of inner "good." Beauty as one's utility. Beauty as control.

The focus of this article, however, is the fundamental idea that beauty is natural, and that any failure to be beautiful is a failure of the individual. The Western image of female beauty is incredibly difficult to access and articulate,  in part because, although the physical manifestations of beauty have changed wildly over time, the normative language appears to be timeless. Conception of beauty as "natural," "virginal," and "pure" appear to be neutral, while instead serving as imposition of  dominance over the female body that is often unconscious and unexplainable.

In the foundations of Western philosophy, internal and external beauty are inseparable. Beginning with Plato, Cicero and Aristotle's Rhetoric, academic literature  made no distinction between beauty  (pulchrum, decorum) and utility or goodness (aptum, honestum)."[1] Inner beauty was inextricable from outer beauty, as evidenced in writings by John la Rochelle, in which he writes that honestum is the elemental ingredient in beauty "truth and beauty were… both defined in terms of form: truth was the disposition of form in relation to the internal character of a thing; truth was the disposition of form in relation to its external character."  Alexander Hales wrote "the good is distinguished from the beautiful by intention…the nature of the beautiful consists in general in a resplendence of form, whether in duly ordered parts of material objects… or in men, in actions." The Platonic stance, then, in which the physical form is merely a replica of an intangible ideal, is that the physical form of an individual is a external expression of their inner moral reality. The most beautiful is the most real.[2]

Let me break it down. Think Wizard of Oz. Bad witch, the one out to get Dorothy and her little dog too? Ugly. Glenda, the Good Witch? Beautiful.  Bam, Western philosophy.

Robert of Blois echoed the standard line that the  essence of female beauty is moral.[3] And Thomas Elyot put it most clearly in his The Defence of Good Women, in which he wrote that truly beautiful women were temperate, gracious, and moderate.[4] Those women who had to work the least at being outwardly beautiful, then, were presumed to be the most moral and godly. [5]

If we track this theory back into this post, in which we discuss the idea that women are presumed to be innately flawed, and combine it with the above, the outcome, then, is that a failure to be beautiful is a moral failure on the part of the individual. Indeed, the "democratic rhetoric of beauty" in the twentieth century[6](discussed by Banner in her amazing book American Beauty,) is the the belief that anyone can attain beauty, thus all women should try to be beautiful. Therefore, unattractiveness is evidence of a woman's failure to work hard enough.

There are all sorts of things wrong with this. I get it. But I am also subject to it.

For instance, I truly believe that if I eat enough organic fruits and veggies, and drink enough water to float a barge, that I will have beautiful, glowing skin. Nevermind that I am 30, sundamaged, and probably the only way that I will ever "glow" is if I get into a horrible highlighter accident. I truly believe that the reason that I have terrible skin is my inner failure to eat and drink what I should. Maybe I just have genetically doo-doo skin, but the implication remains- I should be naturally "fresh" and "dewey."

Pure honesty? I honestly, truly believe that if I put my mind to it, I could be as skinny as a supermodel. Intellectually, I know this to be false. I also know that I should be above society's conventions and should be comfortable with being healthy and strong. I also know that a supermodel would in no way be able to stand up to the physical rigors of my job. To a certain extent I have made peace with this, but on a level that I cannot deny, I feel that my failure to be supermodel skinny is a failure of effort and willpower.  Whether this is a function of "high-achieving" is unclear.  I have been able to accomplish almost every goal, professionally academically and athletically to which I have put my mind, thus my failure to attain "glowing" and "skinny" is particularly grating. Especially when reality television shows a plethora of dumb skinny bitches. If they can figure it out, shouldn't I?

It shouldn't bother me, but it does. So sue me.

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[1] Eco, U. 1986. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.

[2] Lowe, B. 1994. Body Images and the Politics of Beauty: Formation of the Feminine Ideal in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press.

[3] Reginier-Bohler, D. 1988. Imagining the Self. In G. Duby (ed.), A History of Private Life. Vol 2, Revelation of the Medieval World. Trans. A Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap

[4] Elyot, T. 1940. The Defense of Good Women (1540). Ed. E.J. Howard. Oxford, OH.: Anchor

[5] Lowe, B. supra.

[6] Banner, L. 1983. American Beauty. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.