The Weapon of Beauty Part 1
The Power of Beauty
What is beauty? According to the Webster Dictionary: Beauty (n) is the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. This means that beauty provides pleasure to the spectator.
We are living in an era when the relationships between men and women is being rebalanced, when the spiritual qualities of the feminine need to be appreciated in order to correct the imbalances and distortions of male egoism and misogyny. This can be corrected if we allow room for natural female advancement and agency. A huge part of this is a man’s belief that he can police a woman’s right to adorn and beautify herself.
A beautiful woman is powerful. Her beauty is transcendent and hypnotizing. The spectacle causes you to stop in your tracks. It captivates your senses. Beauty is disarming, and coupled with confidence turns anyone powerless. Once a woman has found a way to obtain a version of her own beauty then society deems her a weapon against men. Many men view this as an assault on them. She becomes his achilles heel and he loses control. Beauty stops his ability to rationalize.
The truth is what holds our attention determines our actions, and men resent this. There is a love/hate paradox that men have with beautiful women. They are smitten, yet spend a lot of time attempting to disgrace the act of beautifying. This can be seen in social media post, television shows from a man’s perspective, and even in the workplace. All are places where numerous men express their discontent for women’s adornment choices. These rants come from famous and not so famous men alike. The paradox also shows in how a man wants his wife or girlfriend to be beautiful enough to make other men jealous or envious, yet he is often shaming the process.
Beauty is a powerful tool. Historically a woman’s beauty has been the cause of male missteps and mistakes. It weakens him, she then obtains control. In an effort to usher women out of the power structure, an unobtainable standard of beauty was created and is now reinforced. Society tells us that the ability to attract admirers is based on a fixed set of metrics, usually affiliated with the look of an eastern European teenage girl. The features include a symmetrical face without strong or distinctive features like- a larger nose, wider eyes, or a mole.
This standard is fleeting and unrealistic for most. Men and women are sold this ideal. Men began to believe this is what they desire while women use all resources possible to obtain the image. The irony is that although we encourage women to conform, we as a society is captivated by what is novel and new. The proof is in history’s most beautiful women. They do not match this ideal (Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Diana Ross, Eartha Kitt, Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lopez….)
People have a desperate need to have their attention captivated. This is present in the need for conversation, the popularity of social media and the constant attempts we make to become distracted. We need her beauty to engage us. It is the attention getting distraction we want, and it’s fun. The problem is men become paralyzed by it and then she (the beautiful woman) is now the enemy. Why is women shunned for not being beautiful while at the same time shunned for being beautiful?
If we as a society is being completely honest about those women who have managed to obtain the standard of beauty, we are not really in awe of their beauty, we are just recognizing that they have met this manufactured standard. That is seemingly impressive. This applies mostly to the women who have paid the price of plastic surgery and intense diet restrictions to meet that goal. This standard does not take into account pregnancy, health issues, natural development and evolution. It is used as a weapon against female advancement. A societal uniform standard of beauty reinforces structures of inequality in areas of race, age, sex, ableism, size and colorism. Culturally, we encourage women to hate themselves. If women remain hopeless and distracted in this blind pursuit of an ephemeral standard of beauty, then men maintain control over her ability to dictate her femininity. Lower self-esteem is easier to control and is profitable.
Visuals are very powerful. Visuals are so powerful that in some religious practices they are banned out of fear of the influence it will have. The myth of Grecian gods rely on it. Jesus was painted white in the 17th century. When white men gained visual of a deity that matches their image, they began to rule the world. This realization gave way for the birth of advertising. Advertising grew to significance in the mid-20th century, however in 2017 this industry grossed 104.8 billion dollars in revenue. The process of advertising has helped many other industries grow exponentially.
Americans have innate traits that have been exploited for financial gain. Examples include the porn industry which grosses ten billion dollars annually. This industry exploits a man’s insatiable desire for sex and his insecurities in being unable to please a woman sexually. The dieting industry is a sixty billion dollar a year industry that taps into the masses fear of being overweight. The cosmetic surgery industry is a sixteen billion dollar a year industry that taps into a woman’s fear of not being beautiful. The cosmetics industry grosses four hundred and forty five billion dollars annually, this includes the distribution of skin bleaching creams, makeup, laser hair removal and the list continues. All of these industries is America’s beauty industry. There is no conspiracy that the advertising industry came up with in order to tap into women’s insecurities and inflate a man’s ego.
The American beauty industry is often described as hope in a jar. Images of the ideal beauty is manufactured in an attempt to sell more products. The product’s marketing is centered on giving women hope that by using this product or by having this procedure done she has the “hope” of looking like the ideal beauty of the time, which is ever evolving. Beauty standards evolve faster than people. These images are risen from our unconscious anxieties and threatens a woman’s consciousness. However the goal is met. Every year more products are sold.
Although capitalism goes hand and hand with toxic patriarchy and masculinity, the beauty industry was created and built by women. Men, however historically dominate the advertising industry. This partnership turned into beauty being culturally authorized, beauty campaigns needing to create a problem to sell you a remedy and beauty advertisers pressuring mass culture to populate itself almost entirely with images of the icon – the ideal woman. This does not leave much room for a diversity in beauty standards.
Women have used beauty and adornment to captivate men since the beginning of time. This is their means of obtaining soft power. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Beauty is a form of soft power. In most western societies soft power is viewed as weak because it is believed that it only holds a temporary impact. be that as it may, the truth is soft power has a lasting effect. Hard power also known as carrot and stick power is less sustainable. World leaders often use carrot and stick power which results in receiving loyalty only as long as they are offering a benefit to their followers – protection, food, money etc. The effects of soft power can last several generations. There are other ways besides beauty to gain soft power, but the fastest way is through beauty. This is why women who do not tap into their beauty find themselves envious of other women who do.
Through legislation and religious principles men have found ways to outlaw a woman’s right to beautify herself. An example of this is forcing black women in Louisiana to cover their hair in the 18th century because their hair was too beautifully adorned causing insecurities in other women and a strong attraction from white men. Also, all Abrahamic religions claim it sinful for women to adorn themselves. Being that religion is a resource for male dominance and control, there are many loop holes for men to engage in bad behavior with women who do adorn themselves i.e prostitutes, belly dancers and strippers. An enchanting woman has a powerful and irreversible effect on a man. He encounters a form of paralysis in her presence. This is beauty in form of captivation and not conformity.
Since beauty and soft power captures our attention, women do themselves a disservice in pretending that looks do not matter. According to researchers being attractive provides social and psychological advantages throughout life. Examples include pretty children tend to get more attention from teachers, while more attractive adults earn more money than their less appealing peers and people tend to associate beautiful women and handsome men with goodness. People tend to assume that attractive people are warm, sensitive, kind, interesting, poised and outgoing.
The truth about beauty is it only exist in the imagination. Beauty offers an experience of aesthetic pleasure. Beauty is a creation. Beauty evolves over time and space. Beauty can be played with and created by women. Beauty IS NOT conformity or socially created. Beauty is self-created. Beauty is in our irregularities. Beauty is in the spectacle. Beauty is subjective. Beauty lies in a woman’s ability to command attention by her style, spark, a signature look, by enhancing nature to bring about a desired effect. This can be done using our innate creativity – through adornment, fingernail coloring, makeup, etc. Women are beautiful in their own unique way. Beauty lies in our ability to stand out and capture and keep attention.
