Redefining Feminism: The patriarchal notion of Beauty

 No matter how shallow we may think looks to be, when it comes to the ground reality, looks and

beauty are known to have a strong threshold in our lives, the variations of it vary geographically.

Don’t confuse these unrealistic beauty standards that the society places on us with the norm of

taking care of oneself or looking after oneself. Looking after oneself is something I’ve realized that

needs to be emphasized more, it should actually be taught to everyone, especially girls since

childhood, because you must have noticed that most of our mothers and the women in our family

feel a sense of guilt whenever doing or even asked to do something for themselves. It’s the years of

conditioning by the society which puts such a huge emphasis on women being sacrificial and dutiful

that a woman making herself a priority and doing things for herself is seen as unnatural. However it

is the same society that’ll be on its toes when it comes to beauty, making or rather pressurizing you

to follow them for ‘your own good’! They won’t show the same amount of zest when it comes to

other things like your education, financial independence, your brains, thoughts, because well that

ain’t getting you a man, the only thing getting you a man (considering that’s what we want) are your

looks! The society enrols us young in this system to compete, for the best groom.

Take matrimony sites for example, if families can actually mention traits like ‘Fair’, ‘Not talkative’

‘Flexible’ ‘Educated but not working’ ‘Height 5.2’ ‘Obedient’ you can only imagine how hard it might

be to imbibe all these virtuous qualities in one self to get a prince charming. We then are made to

use products to lighten our skin, straighten our hair, lose weight or at times gain it, wear heels or

flats in accordance with the wanted height, and allow the people around us to blindly paint us all in

the same colour of beauty, in accordance to the conventional heterogeneous standard of beauty.

Let’s take Fair & Lovely for example, which is pronounced as Glow & Lovely in which the letter

patriarchy is silent. The entire manifestation of the product is flawed. You must have seen in its Ads

that apart from promising you a lighter shade of skin the narrative shows that the girl after using the

product suddenly gets a job, so are we as a society trying to say that a certain shade of skin plays a

role in getting a job? If now you tell me that no, the Ad just shows that the girl feels confident in

herself after using the product and hence gets a job, trust me it gets more problematic. Are we as a

society teaching girls to keep striving for a certain colour of skin considered beautiful and feel

confident in their own skins only after that shade is achieved? You can’t simply rename the product

without mending the damage it continues to cause and expect it all to be okay. These behavioural

patterns point towards a prevalent ‘pick me’ culture, which we all fall a victim to. A culture in which

women are often made to feel they have to compete for partners by adhering to the most

patriarchal of standards- to take care of all household duties and excel at it, to be submissive and to

always look graceful, encouraging the entire idea of a trophy wife. And you aren’t just made to

follow these ridiculous standards of beauty but also made sure you don’t resist them by proper

moral policing. The torchbearers of patriarchy both men and women call out anyone who goes

against the norm and embraces themselves and gets comfortable in their own skins, cause no that’s

not how we do it in a patriarchal society. We are made to, rather taught to feel bad about our

appearance, always finding something problematic with ourselves, making our appearance the

utmost priority; we are made to fear the consequences that might follow if we don’t adhere to the

conventional idea of how a girl should be. And how do we do that? By drawing an equation between

beauty and respect, a very complicated one, you’ve to be very sure about the quality of beauty and

the kind of looks added to the prescribed amount of behavioural norm of how a girl behaves, to be

able to earn yourself that respect. You don’t just get that respect by being yourself, you’ve to strive

to be the society’s version of you, you’ve to be exactly how ‘a girl should be’.

Respectability politics have always been about controlling group behaviour with designations of

appropriate or inappropriate behaviour rooted in structural inequality. A girl sitting with her legs

crossed is respectable but one sitting with legs wide open doesn’t deserve respect. A minimal make-

up looks good but too much make-up makes you look like a slut, no one will respect you. Don’t wear

a wide deep neck top, you’ll look desperate, people won’t respect you. Such respectability is

financially and emotionally expensive. Because there isn’t just specific speech patterns that are

changed to fit the norm of ‘like a girl should be’, but everything from body language, body size,

wardrobe to hairstyles need to be remodelled. Gatekeepers of respectability push dominant

narratives but don’t necessarily understand where their ideas of what respectable is come from, or

who dictates the parameters for one to be respected. This structure of respectability requires

adherence, not autonomy, and relies on dominant norms to create a hierarchy of privilege in a

patriarchal institution. Beauty thus, is intrinsically rooted in patriarchy. It is time we redefine what

beauty is, or actually allow people to define it for themselves without policing and shaming them for

doing the same. Let’s do away with this idea of how a ‘girl should be’. Ask yourself who is this girl

we’re referring to? Who made her? Who dictates her qualities that are set as a bench mark for the

rest? Why should everyone be like this girl who is just a mere idea of the whims of the patriarchs in

our society. Another extremely ridiculous thing we need to do away with is sexist compliments.

Heard of ‘Beauty with Brains’, what the fuck does it even mean, complimenting someone with this

phrase directly reflects the belief of the patriarchal society that a girl with brains is a rare sight. And

not just any girl, a beautiful girl, beautiful in accordance with the conventional standard, with brains

is a rare sight. Ever heard of such a stupid compliment for boys? What we need today is to be

conscious enough of every word, phrase, compliment that we use for a person in a rewarding way

for their beauty, ‘You’re pretty for a brown girl’ Who decides how pretty can a brown girl be, what’s

the bench mark to know you’re too pretty for a brown girl or a little less for a white one. Do away

with the ridiculous discriminative beauty standards the society places upon you. We need to

redefine beauty for ourselves, in a way that it doesn’t rely on perfectly packaged responses and

ways to change ourselves to be accepted. We need to come to a place where we learn to embrace

differences instead of pretending that freedom comes from erasing them.

-Kuhu Srivastava