By: Amanda Anderson
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but apparently these days, there is some secret list of requirements every woman feels she needs to meet in order to feel like the beauty she really is. On that list, you will find a big ass, breasts that make no anatomical sense, and a superficial attitude that can instantly make any beautiful woman seem unattractive and downright uninteresting. No where on that list penned by the current society and big media influences will you find substance, originality or character. Nope, a big ass is just way more important than smarts or a woman who actually has enough substance that she can take over the world and start a trend of real women who aren’t afraid to love themselves. That’s just asking too much from a woman who rather invest in a derriere that will leave men in a trance, rather than reflect the type of persona that will leave a man thinking about her in more ways than the physical or a pathetic one night stand.
Beauty is so much like fashion, and it truly changes with every season. One season, skinny is in, and any woman with a hint of curves suddenly isn’t thin enough to be beautiful. Diets are pushed down the throats of millions, and somehow we are forced to believe that being a size 0 is the only way a man will find a woman attractive.
Fast forward to now, curvy women are in. Skinny chicks are told they are undesirable, and a big ghetto booty is more important than what kind of person a woman really is. The sad part of this mind game is that women continue to buy it every single time. We took a stand so that we could be more independent, have our own businesses, and our own minds; but we have refused to take a stand to have the courage to love ourselves and set our own standards to beauty. Isn’t that worth the fight?
We are buying butt pads, paying for plastic surgery, and getting new noses that don’t even fit into our God-given and beautiful African American features. By the time we get done with “fixing ourselves,” we can’t even recognize ourselves. Not only have we become what they told us we had to become in order to be considered one of the beautiful ones, we begin to hate any part of ourselves that isn’t on that list.
They told us we weren’t beautiful as is, and we believed them.
What if we just loved our bodies because we wanted to? What if we took the list and shoved it up the ass of every man that told us we weren’t good enough unless we met the requirements?
What if we took that money we could spend on fixing things that don’t need fixing, and used it to really invest in ourselves? Start businesses, pay for college, and even start an organization that enforces self-love?
Better yet, what if we stopped looking to celebrities to tell us what we should strive for? Halle Berry might be flawless in beauty, but has she mastered flawless inner beauty as well?
Aren’t real women worth just as much praise as the superficial women in Hollywood receive?
If we changed our way of thinking and stopped letting people tell us what beautiful is and why we aren’t good enough, we wouldn’t feel the need to adhere to any list or current trend in beauty. Just maybe then the young girls wouldn’t want to be Beyonce’, but rather they would want to be just like the real women around them who manage to walk into the room and draw in every person there with their confidence.
It is a choice that every woman will eventually have to make. Any person can pay for beauty, but that beauty won’t last. That big ass will get old if you can’t hold a conversation. That sick wardrobe of yours won’t make people remember you, nor will it make that man love you.
Standards will keep changing, but you don’t have to adhere to someone else’s standards for how you should look or what kind of woman you should become. In a world full of clones and duplicates, it is better to be one of the only women left who feels beautiful just because she wants to. She doesn’t need anyone’s permission to feel good about herself, nor does she need the plastic, the padding, or the injection to draw people to her. She does it naturally because she loves herself naturally.
And it’s that kind of beauty that lasts a lifetime.
Have the courage to love yourself just is, and then you really can be one of the beautiful ones.
I think it's sad that some women feel that all it takes to be beautiful is a big butt and European features, oh and full head of weave. Yes, we have gotten superficial, and we care too much about the things that really don't matter. What about the inside? I mean seriously, we have to remember what's really important. So sad.
Low self-esteem is rampant these days. Hopefully this article will make some women wake up. Great article.