Beauty: a giant magnet
in the computer store of life. It is one of the strangest, most subjective, and
most powerful phenomena in our social world. It has the ability to make us
fawn, flirt and make our reasoning power rapidly approach zero. We need to understand
beauty- in terms of what beauty actually is and what it should and should not
be used for. If it is true that with beauty comes power; then young women need
to consider how they can regard and utilise their beauty in a way that respects
themselves and the people around them. This is neither something that is meant
to blame beautiful women for how women are objectified or at times abused by society, nor is it
something that is denying that this is merely one piece of the complex puzzle
we call social identity. This is, however, aimed to demonstrate that beautiful
young women can add to social problems when they do not recognise their beauty
for what it is: a gift.
I am a beautiful young woman. I must say that beauty is a fun thing to have;
I mean- what a better source of self-worth, right? I get power, attention,
value, and the ability to take advantage of it- and unfortunately at times I
have done just that. However, learning that beauty is nothing to be proud of
has changed the way that I utilise the way I look as well as the way in which I
view other people. This change occurred after considering why I and other woman
find our value in the way we look.
When you sit down and think about it, the reasons as to why
I and other young women can derive value from the way we look are quite
interesting; and by that I mean they don’t make a lot of sense. It is
true that being a beautiful young woman means possessing something that people
like, but it is also true that I have no control over the way I look other than
making it to the gym now and then and applying makeup in the morning. However- somehow, we see beauty as something
we can pride ourselves in. People are
very quick to take pride in things that they actually have very little to do
with; like when “your” team wins a soccer game, or when an old friend reaches
success and we say things like “Oh so-and-so wouldn’t be where he is if he
didn’t learn this from me”. We do
whatever we can to make it seem as if the external things that happen or the
good things we have are because of something we've done or something we're entitled to- which are in most cases untrue.
To be able to pride yourself in something, you need to have
a significant claim in how you came to acquire that thing. For example: if I drive a nice car, I can
pride myself in it if I worked hard and paid it off, but priding myself in it
if it was just given to me wouldn’t make a lot of sense. In fact, getting such a gift would inspire something
very different to pride: gratitude. Beauty is something similar. Yes it is great to have, but I had nothing to
do with how I got it- it was given to me. Because of this, I have no reason to be proud
of it, but rather grateful for it.
Grateful people are those who do not undervalue what they
have, but who want to bring about the best possible use of that gift to benefit
those around them. This gratitude is what I believe beautiful woman ought to
portray- not to undermine others, but to walk in the humility of knowing that
the gifts that they have were not self earned. But no matter what my view on my beauty is, I
have no right to exploit others with it.
The ability to exploit others is the biggest problem with
having beauty. All around the world, young women are prizing
sex appeal over any other asset that they can have. We want to be FHM cover
girls- Victoria’s secret models, or playmate of the month. We chase it, we
abuse it and we make money from it; we think that if we achieve these things
then we have achieved value. We get paid tens of thousands of rand for posing
in bikinis to seduce other women’s husbands. This is a man’s weakness; he knows it and so
do we, so we use it for our own personal gain. We become gold diggers, dancers, underwear
models, or even prostitutes. It’s easy,
good money, and we have the ability to do it. “And just what is wrong with that?” you may
ask. Well, how about this: it is
exploitation.
I know that I may not have to explain why exploitation is
wrong, but I want to do it anyway. Exploitation
is the act of 1) making someone worse off than they were before- of stealing
something from them, 2) not giving them benefits to the extent to which they deserve
them, or 3) giving them something in exchange for money or services that is not
as beneficial to them as they think it is. Each of these forms of exploitation is based
on the unjust action of benefiting at someone else’s expense- which is wrong. Using
sex appeal for personal gain can take each of these forms of exploitation
depending on the situation. If we can
gain an understanding as to how this exploitation happens in various situations,
then perhaps we can avoid it in future.
Situation one:
exploiting sex appeal in general
Something interesting about sex appeal is that it can never
be owned by an individual- it is something that one may have for a short time and
it cannot be measured- as the way it is valued by others is subject to personal
taste. Therefore, if I use my sex appeal
to get ahead, I am not using my own sex appeal as a vehicle to personal gain,
but I am using sex appeal in general. This
is because when someone sees me, they are not concerned with my individuality
or my humanity; they are concerned with something that I possess and something
that I share with many other women. The fact
is this: many women have sex appeal and therefore, even though it is slightly
personalised, we are all sharing in the same asset.
Now, if some of us
decide to exploit that asset for our own personal gain, it does not tarnish our
individual reputation (because many people do not know you on an individual
level) but it tarnishes the reputation of the asset that we share. For example, if a beautiful woman exploits a
man for his money, then it is often generalised that beautiful women exploit
men for money. Now, that means that everyone
who fits into category A, namely being a beautiful women, is believed to
exploit category B, namely men with money. Therefore the behaviour of one woman with the
asset of beauty directly influences every other woman who shares that asset by
making others typecast all beautiful women as people who exploit men for money;
therefore, exploiting ones beauty negatively affects women who are also
beautiful.
Situation Two: exploiting vulnerability
Beauty would be powerless if it did not create an
opportunity to exploit vulnerability. The vulnerability that beauty exploits is
that of a) women aspiring for beauty and b) men desiring women with beauty. The
evidence of this exploitation in both instances, I believe, is quite easy to
see. It is told to us that to have
beauty is to have value. Therefore as a woman, the less beauty you have the
less value you have; and as a man, not being able to get a woman who possesses
that beauty decreases your value. Exploitation
of this notion comes in to play through advertising for beauty products, cars,
clothes or anything that is portrayed to make you more “valuable” by achieving
beauty yourself or by getting the attentions of those who possess it.
However, the notion that “beauty equals value” is a lie. The
value of each person is consistent and completely independent of appearance,
race, financial status, gender or social class- which is in direct contrast to
what we are consistently told by society. Because this is a lie, exploiting
this lie to project a higher value of yourself to others is an attempt to rob others
of their value.
Situation three: gains
that are not real gains
Situation three is that the beauty industry (which capitalises
on those aspiring for beauty) as well as the sex industry (capitalising on
those who possess and desire beauty) is offering something that is not
authentic gain. Being a consumer of any
form within the sex industry gives you what you want- in the instance where
what you want is not good for you. Now a
woman in the sex industry may say: “I’m making money, and I’m giving men what
they want, right?”
No. What you are
doing is fighting for the affection of the husbands, the fathers, and the young
men who want to love their women wholeheartedly in order to gain from them. You are using their weakness against them- you
are exploiting them where they are vulnerable and offering gains that aren’t
really gains.
You are constantly
reminding men of where their wives or girlfriends are failing. You are pointing
out her lack of perfection, her aging face, her needy heart, and you are
presenting to them yourself- a woman young and beautiful; and you are
presenting yourself to them with this question:
“How can you ever be
satisfied with her- when you could picture yourself with me?”
Exploiting my beauty and their weakness is the greatest evil
I could ever do to another woman; and in due time; when my face is aging and my
beauty is fading- I may be made perfectly aware of this destructive power- as
some beautiful young woman will begin to seduce my husband’s attentions away
from me.
So girls, lets love ourselves enough to realise that our
value is not determined by our beauty; let us not take pride in the beauty that
we do have- but be grateful for it; and most importantly, let us not use our
beauty to exploit the weaknesses of those around us- no matter the situation. Realising
that our beauty has nothing to do with our value is one of the most freeing
things that any woman can ever experience. Let us be women who love others, respect them,
and show them the dignity that they deserve.
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