Few of us would NOT want to look like the Victoria's Secret angels.
Movie stars. Celebrities. Supermodels. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find it hard NOT to compare yourself with these seemingly perfect slenderellas, adorning the covers of the glossies. They of the Perfect-and-Pert club. Perfect hair… perfect skin… pert boobs… perfect teeth… perfect figures (not to mention their enviable jobs and their jetsetting lifestyles!)
“Woe is me!” I lament. “How can I possibly measure up? Doesn’t my husband stare wistfully at said perfection and yearn for the day when his wife looks a bit more like Angelina Jolie… and a bit less like an ageing hefalump? What a failure I must be… with my outgrown-roots-in-need-of-dyeing and my saggy, post-children, cooper’s droop breasts… and my dimply, un-tanned thighs… and my skew, not-so-white teeth… oh, how crap I feel! Oh, boo-woo-hoo!”
If you’ve ever felt this way – if you’ve ever compared yourself with the world’s models, celebs and superstars – and found yourself sorely lacking… do me a favour: ditch those glossy beauty magazines and turn off that E! Entertainment / Fashion TV!!!
Now… get in your car, and drive to the closest mall. Find a coffee shop where you have a great view of the passers by. Order a cappuccino… and PEOPLE-WATCH! (Or rather… women-watch!)
I’m sitting in a coffee shop myself, as I type this blog. I’m drinking a really delicious cup of foamy cappuccino and I’m watching the world go by. I’ve been sitting here for about 2 hours… and I have seen a lot of women walk past my little window… but no-one… and I mean NO-ONE… resembles anyone of the photo-shopped perfection that you see on the covers of the glossies!
That’s not to say that I haven’t seen any beautiful women today. I have. They are all beautiful – and they all have something unique and special to offer the world.
There’s a lady with a mop of wild curls with a sexy swagger. She’s wearing a funky little Jo-Lo style tracksuit and laughing with a friend. A middle-aged woman strides by purposefully. She’s wearing a neatly fitting red jacket and her shiny hair in a short bob bounces. I want to reach out and run my fingers through it – her hair looks like something straight out of a shampoo commercial!
A little black girl sits at the table opposite me in the coffee shop. She must be about 18 months old. She’s wearing a pink tracksuit, decorated with hearts. Her curly hair has been parted and tied in to about 12 top-knots… each spouting a little bush of black curls, and each tied with a different colour hairband. She wears gold hoop earrings and she’s gorgeous! Her mother has creamy, smooth skin and a sexy cleavage. Delicate hands with carefully manicured nails.
An elderly lady stops at the sweet shop opposite me. She’s scooping popcorn from the popcorn machine into a candy-striped box. Her movements are so graceful. She has neatly styled silvery-white hair and laugh lines around her eyes. I wonder if the popcorn is for a few adoring grandchildren?
There goes a blonde woman with long, toned legs. She’s wearing pink and she’s in a rush. There goes the housewife with a trolley full of groceries… and the mom with her newborn in a pram. Two office colleagues in matching uniforms clip-clop purposefully down the corridor – and an Indian woman with enormous, dark eyes, hurries her two children along. Her eye make-up emphasizes those beautiful eyes even more! There’s also a Muslim women whom I can’t see too well, because she’s covered head-to-toe in the black hijab required by her religion. However, I do catch a glimpse of a sparkling shoe and a pair of dainty feet with pink, manicured toenails.
The women I see today come in all different colours, shapes, sizes and ages. Young… old. Fat, thin and everything in between. Tall… short. Huge boobs – and no boobs. Big bums… flat bums. Pear shapes, apple shapes and every other shape imaginable. Blondes, red-heads and brunettes. African, Asian, European, Indian… a lovely spectrum of cultures and colours. There are housewives, saleswomen, secretaries, medical professionals, students, shop assistants, businesswomen, managers, teachers…. there are mothers, wives, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and daughters… and they’re all beautiful (but sadly, very few of them realise this about themselves).
This is how many of us feel about ourselves.
I think that one of our biggest mistakes (as women), is that we’ve bought into the lie fed to us by our media-created, celebrity-obsessed, Western-Society ideals – that teaches us that ‘beauty equals perfection’. And that, if we’re not perfect (and who is?)… then we’re not beautiful.
I believe that women are beautiful – just in the simple fact that God created us as WOMEN and everything that entails: our softness, our femininity, our ability to bear children, our compassion, our talent, our hips, boobs, wombs and vaginas… our soft skin, our curves… small hands… luscious lips… accommodating tummies… our voices… our laughter, our nurturing capacity… our tendency to make things better… our empathy, our warmth, our vision… our ability to multi-task… our brains, our ideas, our wisdom, our strength… our capacity to overcome obstacles and accomplish great things… these (and much more!) are the things that make us women AND beautiful.
Beauty is NOT the number on the scale. It’s NOT the measurement of your waist. It’s NOT your dress size. It’s NOT your ability to perform porn-star-sex-acts in the bedroom. It’s NOT the trendy-ness of your clothing… or the colour of your skin… or your popularity… or your bank account… or your shoe size… or your hair-do. Beauty is not what the mainstream media says it is! Beauty is not what Western Society says it is! Beauty is not what the fashion industry says it is! Beauty is not what the porn industry says it is! Beauty is not even about what the beauty industry says it is!
Ask a loving husband why his wife is beautiful – and his answer won’t be: “Well, she’s skinny, she’s got tits the size of watermelons and she’ll do anything I want her to do in bed!”… (and if there is a male out there who answers as such – then he’s not actually a man, he’s an insecure and pathetic little boy!). No… most men define their woman’s beauty very… very differently to the way that the woman defines her own beauty.
I remember we had a Free-2-B-U evening a couple of months ago. One of the women there (a beauty therapist… ironically) – didn’t believe that she was beautiful.
“Heather, this is such pie-in-the-sky nonsense!”, she said to me, “All this you-are-beautiful rubbish. Anyone with eyes can see that I’m not beautiful! I’m old and I’m fat! Come on! Let’s get real here! Let’s call a spade a spade!”
She was so adamant that she wasn’t beautiful and no amount of affirmation from the women present could convince her otherwise – so I asked her: “What does your husband say about you?”
She was quiet for a second and then blushed. “Oh him…” she said, suddenly resembling a shy schoolgirl.
“I bet your husband thinks you’re beautiful!”, I said.
“Well, yes… he thinks I’m beautiful”, she admitted, “But he doesn’t know any better… I’m sure he’s being sweet and just saying what good husbands are supposed to say”.
No! Her husband had it right! He could easily see her beauty – but she couldn’t see it… or embrace it herself! How true this is for so many of us! Many of us have adoring men in our lives who tell us that we’re beautiful – but we simply don’t believe them! Yes – we love hearing those words; “You’re beautiful!”… but why is it so damn hard to accept and embrace those words?
I believe that it’s time for women to re-define the word “beauty”. Yes, most of us do like dressing up… and we like make-up and nice hairstyles… and fashion… and spa treatments and all of those other wonderful things that are tools to express ourselves. But all of that stuff is just… “cool stuff”… and not the essence of beauty itself. My belief is this: Woman equals Beauty. It’s God’s design… and it’s beautiful.
PLAN OF ACTION:
Ask yourself: “What is my definition of beauty?” – and then consider how you came to think that way. Did your parents teach it to you? Were the kids at school an influence? Was it magazines, TV and movies? Was it boyfriends? WHY do you feel the way you feel about what it means to be beautiful?
Ask your man why he finds you beautiful – and try not to grimace when he compliments you! (You could also ask close and valued friends the same question).
Heather. I love you and I love this blog. You’re amazing and your story is amazing!
I find it really odd that in the top image the first woman is white and the second woman is black… but they are the same colour.
Weird. Not only did they hire women of similar shape, they hired women of different ethnic backgrounds with the same coloured skin.
Thanks for this post
Rachel
You are kidding yourself.
You can ramble on with oh how god created women to be this and that, and how women are all so lovely.
But fact is, i cant sell BEAUTY products using ugly girls like you.
btw:
You women set the standards!
If i could sell beauty products using “ordinary women” i would stop, but i CANT! And as long as you women buy the products plastered with these women, nothing will change!
Personally i would also rather look at these victorias secret models than age old fat asses like yourself ..
sorry about that ..
The world has many Peter Pans. Ken, whoever you are, you have the right to like Victoria catalogue women but why do you feel such anger and hatred as to write such a horrible thing to this woman? Why didn’t you just think “well I don’t agree” and move on?
Heather, I would guess that this person is a misogynist and must obviously be in a huge amount of pain, self-hatred and denial. Imagine being a woman going out with a person who could write such things. She would have an extremely tall order to live up to . Perhaps he (if indeed it is a he) would benefit a bit of self-love!
Thanks Andrea. I was rather shocked and taken aback at Ken’s angry rant – directed at me – a person whom he has never met and knows nothing about. I will never understand how people can be so ugly and insulting or how they feel that it’s totally okay to abuse other people with words. It’s simply… quite unfathomable… to me… to even consider the option of writing or saying something like that to another human being (no matter how much I may disagree with their viewpoint). I could have deleted his post – but I wanted to leave it there as evidence as to people’s prejudice and intolerance for those who don’t “fit” the mould of society’s expectations. There are many Ken’s out there… the challenge is to stand up IN SPITE OF them.
Dear Heather,
what an inspiration! I feel more beautiful just by reading your words… God Bless you in your quest to open womens eyes up to their own Beauty!
It took me a very long time to accept myself and believe that God adores me the way I am- cause I was designed by Him and He does everything in excellence! But when I did, such and awesome thing: people started saying to me that I look beautiful and radiant- ‘there’s something about you’. Why? Cause with excepting myself that dark spot in my heart was erased and beauty could reflect from inside out!
Love to all women, may you come to a place where you allow that Beauty to shine inside-out! – You are BEAUTIFUL!
I was looking for porn and came across this site while searching for “beauty”. I ceased my search and studied instead the real meaning of worth. Thus I paused mid-browse. I read the whole thing from top to bottom. It touched my heart, it cleared my head.
How can materials make me me? They are mere externals; they are available to anyone. A body is more personal, but most can be limber, sturdy or stout as they choose. We could be fat, we could work out.
But what of my features, moulded this way, shaped like that? See past my features and into the heart. Not past mine into my own, but beyond the nose to see other hearts. Reflected there I’m sure I’ll see…a veritable image of true beauty.
The answer to my search was answered in this. Beauty is an inheritance, given to us by the loving Abba, expressed as he chooses, Giver and Creator.
Thoughts not sensual swirl in my cranium. Off to sleep, no more to seek…bodies and fine physiques. I’m a woman, with beauty to know, a beauty unique. I am a woman.
THANKS FOR SHARING THIS AWE-INSPIRING READ.
ahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa =))
)))))
I am from Iran. I see your web and Glad to see you. My English isnt very good but i want to speak to you. Please help me. thank you very much. and hope to see you in Iran.
Thank you for a wonderful post. I wish there were more women like you, pointing out what we should all know. Sometimes I feel like we forget what a male-dominated society we live in. Women’s liberation was great, and crucial, but unfortunately we forgot much of what defined us as women. Cooking the food, sewing and mending clothes, knitting items to keep our family warm – these were all crucial and honorable skills that became, unfortunately, symbols of oppression. I absolutely love cooking and caring for my family.
When I was working on my Master’s degree, I started dating a friend of friends who I found to be very attractive. He absolutely destroyed my self-esteem with his idea of what a woman “should” be. (I now know that this person had NPD, a sociopathic personality disorder that is devastating to the people who love them). He put me on a pedestal, then began a cycle of knocking me down, letting me crawl halfway back up, and knocking me down again. I spent 4 years trying my hardest to get on top of that pedestal again, and feeling like it was my fault that I couldn’t. I dieted more strictly than I ever had. I spent hundreds in gym and sports club memberships. I am naturally a curvy woman, and I was dropping weight like crazy. I got down to a size 4 (I’m naturally about a size 10). The funny thing is, I never felt skinny, or attractive. He would compliment me on losing weight, and in the same breath tell me I just “needed to work on my hips a little.” (your comment in your post about the “insecure boy” and his description of what he loves about his wife instantly brought him to mind). He could never just tell me that he thought I was beautiful, or that he appreciated me. After 4 years I was completely broken. He finally cheated on me (with a 19 year old), and left me saying he wanted to “experience a variety of women.” (Unfortunately I’m not even exaggerating).
Of course I should have left him long before that, but it was so easy for him to play on my insecurities about my body, and he always did it in a “nice” way (veiling his criticisms in compliments), that I was unable to see exactly what he was doing to me until he was long gone. When he left, I stopped exercising and started eating, and gained 30 pounds. The funny thing is, I didn’t feel any different. I made myself LOOK exactly the way he made me FEEL all those years. I look back now at pictures and can’t believe how skinny I was. I never felt attractive.
Maybe this story seems a bit irrelevant, but I feel like the same insecurities he used to keep me dangling on a string are the exact same insecurities the “beauty” industry uses to convince us we NEED their products. We NEED to be thinner and tanner and less wrinkly and have different hair, or else we’re not good enough. But no matter how many products we buy, we never FEEL any more beautiful. The beauty industry, like my ex, is still out there telling us we could just “work on our hips a little.”
I am now with a wonderful man who loves me, big hips and all. I jog to be healthy, and I let myself have a piece of cake at birthday parties. I’m not a size 4, but I feel happier and more beautiful than I ever did when I was that size.
Thanks again for your post
Best,
Heidi
Thank you Heidi for your wonderful, honest account of your experiences. So… SO many women have had similar experiences – and it’s my goal… my mission in life… to help women embrace and accept their own beauty! And that’s REAL beauty – not the warped, twisted version presented to us by the diet industry, the beauty industry, the fashion industry and the media. So happy to hear that things are on track now! Tell other people your story! It’s an inspiration! Heather x
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I am a young man from Tehran. Can you help me? I can not speak and read english very good. help me How speak to you? Thank you very much.