Looking out: Poisoning beauty

Issue 

Poisoning beauty

By Brandon Astor Jones

The so called "standards" for femininity, beauty and desirability in women, by and large, are dictatorially set by Caucasian men, most of whom the world over are of the sexist and racist persuasion.

Anyone who requires proof of that need only look at their television, fashion and pornography industries, where they will most often find skinny blonde blue-eyed women doing their best to sell something. With all due respect to those women, I've been fortunate throughout my 51 years to have encountered wonderful women of varying shapes, colours and sizes who are, for many reasons, in my opinion absolutely beautiful. I am greatly offended by the pretentiousness of the men who set these ridiculous beauty standards.

The women I have been friendly, and/or intimate with came tall, short, with tiny waists and larger ones. They had black hair, red hair and a host of other shades in between. Some let all of their body hair grow freely while others hurried to cut it off, as is their right. I find them no less beautiful for their differences.

If women know that most of the men who set these pretentious beauty standards are at once sexists and racists, why are so many women in this world striving so hard to meet those standards?

Would you continue to buy bread at a bakery that you know has a proven history of poisoning it? When you try to force your zucchini-shaped body into the carrot-shaped body of a Playboy magazine "playmate", you are either consciously or unconsciously giving the life force of your self-esteem a dose of poison. Why do you help promote those limiting standards of beauty that selfishly exclude you, set by the very same men whose sexism subjugates and objectifies all women — and whose global racism divides, and therefore impedes the progressive individual and collective growth of the human spirit?

I'm not advocating that you don't try to improve yourself, or let your body go to the dogs. I am saying that you must learn to love and live inside, rather than outside, of it.

There is truth in these words from the past, which are still relevant today:

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

"Beauty [is] the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole." — Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472).

I think we are all unique, magnificent and beautiful; if you question my view, see the truth for yourself in your own mirror.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]

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