Beauty

[Amie]

I'll admit to being pretty a cliche' woman in my choice of programming. On today's Dr Phil (http://drphil.com/shows/show/680/), he is going to talk about "stage Moms". One woman has her 8-year old daughter wear false teeth for effect! (Beauty pageants) Whatever happened to dressing your daughter up and letting the beauty she owns charm the judges? And why does that beauty even need to be exterior? Last I checked, Dakota Fanning (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0266824/) didn't look anything like Pam Anderson and she could charm the socks off a snake.

How do you define beauty?

Amie

[backtothefuture]

Hi,
I have always thought that beauty was on the inside. Crowning up having been made fun of a lot, I guess gave me more compassion for others, My best Friend for almost 50 years is very overweight and always has been. But she would do anything for anyone. She has a beautiful heart.
Our daughter who is just 4 ft 9 has had a really hard time accepting who she is. And she is beautiful inside and out. It hurts me when she can't see that. But then, it took me a lot of years to see the beauty in me, of which, most the time, I still don't see.
I worked in a Jr high lunch room for 12 years and the girls were under so much pressure to be thin. They would starve themselves, faint, get really sick. Its so sad I think. The pressure to look like these famous people is just beyond reality.
We all have feelings. Big, little, short, tall. I wish there was some way to convey a message to the young ones, that its not always whats on the outside that counts. My opinion, anyway.:)
Nancy

[Paige]

I define beauty as character (inside), and yet I also want to be attractive (outside).

My pet peeve is the constant pressure that is put on girls to conform to a standard of 'beauty' that is always changing. Right now, it is not good enough for young girls to have the hair they were born with. My son's girlfriend is a natural platinum blonde. What is she doing? She is dying her hair brown. My daughter works with a gal who just had her hair done in 3 colors. Jocelyn (my daughter) wanted to jump on the bandwagon herself. She went and spent $85 of her hard-earned money to put bleached out highlights throughout her beautiful red hair that she was already getting a continual stream of compliments on. She knows that I am not thrilled w/her choice, yet she thinks I am just old-fashioned. Maybe I am. I am not against wearing cosmetics, straightening teeth, etc...but what I see lately seems to go much deeper than that.

My husband and I have talked and we decided that we should just let this go for now. If we make a huge deal about it, she may just end up digging her heels in that much harder. I know it is only hair, however part of me feels rejection over the whole thing. The hair I gave her is passe', and she is rejecting me and the way God made her. I have been doing some self-examination on those thoughts, and it is probably just my story in large part.

I do feel that we women especially get a strong message that we are forever "not good enough". We are either too thin, or not thin enough; too big busted, or not big busted enough etc... Many maimed and broken people have been healed wonderfully w/plastic surgery, and it has been a great gift. However, many are now maiming themselves w/too much of it in the quest for the perceived standard of perfection.

Anyway, I have a lot of strong feelings about this topic (like you can't tell?lol). As a mom, I feel I walk a tightrope with my daughters. I don't want them to quit caring about their appearance, yet I don't want them to feel thay have morph into something God didn't create them to be in order to "fit in". My boys don't feel that pressure in nearly the same measure.

Paige

[backtothefuture]

I think that part of the problem with the way especially the girls want to look, is there is just so many choices now. When I went to beauty school in AGHHHHH1969, I had a blond streak put in my hair. That was so radical. There is so much available now to the kids. I guess Clairol has been around for a while, but look at all the do it your self kits now. Also, we only had good old June Cleaver as a role model. Now turn on any TV channel and moms don't look like they did when I was a kid.
I had to deal also with my daughters condition. She was born with a growth hormone deficiency and thus very small. She is 25 and we buy all her size 3 shoes in the kids section. She has had these last 2 years a hard time dealing with it. I blamed my self for so long. And yet I just had to let it go and know that God created her, long before I even had her. This is her journey to walk. Hopefully, one day she will see her worth, as myself and many of my friends need to.
Also, I think with kids you need to pick your battles. When our son now 23 wanted and earring and Blond hair. I colored his hair for him and he got the earring. Both lasted about 2 weeks. We look back on those pictures now and laugh so hard. Kids want to fit in so badly. We took our kids out of school in 8th grade for my son and after our daughters freshman year in high school. That helped I believe not having to deal with more of the issues my friends that have their kids in school had to deal with. At least we never went the Tattoo route!!
Nancy

[Amie]

Why do you or any woman or girl, wear make-up? (If you do) "Accentuate features" is a pretty common answer in my experience, but accentuation still means that you feel your features are not accentuated enough. (I wear make-up btw)

For me it seems to boil down to, I feel prettier with it on and I feel more dressed up. I don't think that I'm a dog without it and even with it I wouldn't call myself "beautiful".

They are doing more these days to feel prettier and the demand to feel prettier has created quite a supply. We can dye our hair, get our noses done, breast augmentations, and have the fat sucked right out among other things. Comparatively, what our teens are doing probably seems minor to them. Actually, considering society as a whole - what they are doing is minor.

While we all use our "ifs" ("IF" I loose weight, cut my hair, grow it out, had a larger chest, smaller chest, were thinner, taller, shorter, fuller, had a smaller nose, a larger one, longer healthier fingernails, etc etc) in giving feeling prettier conditions (..then I will feel pretty). Is it possible to feel pretty first?

Beauty is most definately a state of mind. Look at Glen Close for example. At first glance, she looks below average (imo), but after hearing her talk, seeing her move - experiencing the aire about her, she looks beautiful.

I imagine that folks like her put the make-up on because they feel beautiful and want to groom themselves. They are confronted again with self-acceptance as age creeps in. Do they get a face lift? Dye their hair or embrace the grays? (etc)

As for the whole "state of mind" thing, it seems to work for the fellas too - look at Jack Black, lol. ..Or even Jim Varney who coined the phrase "know what I mean Vern?" and starred in some movies as Earnest, and one as Jed Clampett in "The Beverly Hillbillies" movie. Even he became attractive and he got his start winning an ugly contest! (literally!)

We've been taught for generations that "men are more visual". They get turned on by looking, we fall in love with our minds. I question that. Dr Drew Pinsky has a show on cable called "Strictly Sex", and he was working to prove the old adage. Scientists scanned the brain of a man and a woman, and showed them sexy pictures of the opposite sex. The man's brain lit up as expected, but not as expected - so did the woman's!!

It seems to me that the more comfortable women are in the skin their in, the less inhibited they are as per, well, lust. Just think about how women who say that they think a man's rear is cute were seen ten years ago to now. It is more accepted, and women are becoming more comfortable with their raw sexuality.

I feel that men aren't frowned upon for craving intellectual companionship either (though I don't hear any of the fellas answering over in their forum!). Just as the woman Dr Drew tested appeared 'outside the norm', I think that men will also.

I think that woman, in other words, is a glimpse of what is to come, and what is evolving already.

Views of what is physically attractive has changed over the years, and so the primping will change too. Why is it changing I wonder? Even without the media, it went through changes (look at the body of Venus De Milo (http://bryan.parno.net/paris/big/P2010005-Venus_de_Milo_in_profile.jpg), Goddess of beauty.

I wonder if the changes are about the craving for things uncommon. Once they become common, they loose the draw. (just guessing and thinking out loud). If that is true, there will soon be a HUGE change because I'm thinking that all looks will be available in the future (via plastic surgery and such). Then things may move more toward that inner thing that frankly already makes one beautiful to begin with.

My daughter is only 8. It is easy for me to say right now that I wouldn't have an issue with her dying her hair and wearing make-up (though I admittedly get a chill when thinking of her possibly straightening it). I allow my son to dye his hair, and he has an earring as well.

It seems that this discussion really creates more questions than answers, lol! At least we can share with one another our struggles and experiences. Some are so new to me. It is foreign to me that a person hate their shortness ie, I always wished I was short and petite... I'm tall-ish and big, lol..

Amie

[lucinda]

How do you define beauty?

I define beauty as how I feel about myself. No matter what anyone else told me growing up I never felt pretty. I felt I was pretty homely looking for most of my life even though I was told I was beautiful. I didn't feel pretty on the inside until I was about 20 yrs old.

I have 2 older daughters that are 13 yrs old now and are dying to wear make up. My husband and I disagree with this but they do it anyway. I have let it go and chose not to battle with it. But the girls soon let it go too because of all the comments they got at school from their peers. They were told that they were too pretty to wear make up. They had natural beauty. Needless to say they didn't believe it because they didn't feel it on the inside.

So I asked them what they thought they should look like. What was pretty to them? To my shock they pointed to each other. They are identical twins! But see themselves as different as night and day. And there are some differences in hair volume, weight and height but only inches though. but the other sees the other as more beautiful.

Then we got into a deeper conversation and came to find out that they also thought the other was more beautiful by their personalities. One is more softer, caring, compassionate and always willing to put others in front of herself. The other is out there, bold, speaks her mind and does not hold back on her feelings and opinions. And they both wanted to be like the other.

These differences in personality also gave them different types of friends at school. Where as one group of friends was more quiet and boring, the other group was always having fun, in the middle of everything. They promised each other (I had nothing to do with this agreement) to always be best friends and include each other in the things that they do. So it included friends, feelings, and worries. In turn, their feelings about themselves changed for the better.

I see more smiles, communication and sharing their lives with each other. Now I look at my daughters and say to myself "How do I define beauty?" My beauty is in my child who can love herself as much I love her. I feel very good inside which is beautiful.

[Paige]

I imagine that folks like her put the make-up on because they feel beautiful and want to groom themselves. They are confronted again with self-acceptance as age creeps in. Do they get a face lift? Dye their hair or embrace the grays? (etc)

I think my issue is more about the pressure that it is somehow not OK to embrace the grays. I've gone to more than a few hairdressers that tell me I "need" to or it would be "good" to do something with my hair (involving dye of course) now that I'm getting some graying at the temple area. The feeling I get is that in our society, it is not "acceptable" to age. (Of course the real story could be that hairdressors make more $$ on customers that are fighting the grays, lol.)

Jamie Lee Curtis has decided that she is going to let the public see her age, and I applaud her for it. Reality is people age. Period. Is there a false story out there that we believe that age is ugly or unattractive? If so, it might be time to expose that false story and embrace the truth about aging. We are all aging everyday, and we all beautiful!

Hope sense can be made of my rambling thoughts.

Paige

[Amie]

Paige,

The sad part is that the hairdressers themselves believe that story (the grays are not okay). It is possible that they are mourning the loss of your beautiful red hair without seeing the new beauty emerging. Sometimes loss can make newness hard to see.

I think Jamie Lee is courageous and I applaud her as well. Your being okay with your grays will inspire the hairdressers, which will inspire many more. I like to think that I would be the same BUT, what if I don't like the way I look in gray?

Lucinda,

I wonder if all little girls either feel pretty or not pretty from birth, or if our feeling of pretty-ness is something that is taken from us as we grow up, whether by family, people in our lives, or the media.

Then as per the media we have to ask the common question: Does the media reflect society, or society reflect the media?

Amie