Body positivity has without a doubt been one of the most powerful movements of this decade; rising up from the grassroots of Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram to challenge the giants of the beauty and fashion industries to include a more diverse range of models and show accountability in advertising and media. Body Positive (or “Bopo”) bloggers and influencers preach self love and acceptance, a powerful antidote to the pressures society puts on women to sculpt and starve their bodies into an ‘ideal’ mould. But how far can body positivity take us in the fight for women’s liberation?
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy following Bopo bloggers who love themselves because of – not in spite of – their individuality, and what mainstream society deems to be ‘flaws’, from weight to acne to disability to body hair to dark skin colour. What they preach is radical self love in the face of a society which pressures us to hate ourselves for monetary gain, with global cosmetics sales alone set to reach $675 billion by 2020. Perhaps there's a little more than money going on here, too. As Naomi Wolf explores in her seminal 1991 book, The Beauty Myth, after Second Wave Feminism saw women walk out of the household and into the job market in the USA and the affluent West, advertising and the social narrative refocused on beauty in order to continue to exert control over women. The unending, thankless work of maintaining beauty took over from the unending, thankless work of housework.
Body positivity rejects the notion that beauty is something to strive for and maintain (usually by paying a great deal of money) and acknowledges that beauty is ever-changing across time, cultures and continents. Body positivity confidently assures us that we don’t need to change ourselves; we’re all beautiful just the way we are. This is a strong stance, and we should all admire the people challenging societal norms of what beauty means.
So, what’s the problem? Body positivity is still centred on the body, on beauty. This is still in keeping with society’s obsession with the way people – particularly women – look. As Wolf writes, “women’s identity must be premised upon our ‘beauty’ so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.”
Can’t a woman be ugly? Can’t an ugly woman be a complex, interesting, valuable individual? Neither everything nor everyone in this life is beautiful. But the challenging, more ‘ugly’ times of our lives often turn out to be the periods of the most growth, where we build resilience, self awareness and compassion. Beauty and ugliness are both necessary to live a fulfilling life.
De-centring beauty, indeed sidelining or ignoring it altogether, would be a truly radical way to re-imagine the value of women in society. So, instead of reassuring women that they’re all beautiful, we should turn their gaze away from their appearance to nourish a more intrinsic vision of their own worth that is tied to their beliefs, actions and talents. Encourage women that they are smart, kind, capable, talented and unique. Accept that each person is both beautiful and ugly... and a complex, valuable individual. Do this and we will truly see women – and men – flourish; not because they are beautiful, but because beauty doesn’t matter very much at all.