Universal Beauty From Nefertiti To Today–Despite Diversity The Ideal Remains Unchanged

Despite the claim to the contrary, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, and even those who may prefer a woman of less classic, dark looks and more sensuously alluring (Marilyn Monroe), will agree that Tuba Büyüküstün, a Turkish actress, is beautiful.  Her type of beauty, with predictable cultural variations over time, is reflective of those characteristics which have always made women attractive. Symmetrical features, luminescent eyes, full lips, and luxuriant hair all express health, wealth, and well-being as well as being pleasing to a natural sense of geometrical order (the golden mean is universally appealing), and sexual appeal.  There is little difference between the women painted by Leonardo and Tuba Büyüküstün.

A recent survey conducted by REAL magazine in the UK found that only 3% of women in the UK are totally happy with their bodies and 73% think about their size or shape every single day.  These statistics track closely with those for American women.

Glamour Magazine recently did their own survey of American women and the results are even worse:

Read these words: “You are a fat, worthless pig.” “You’re too thin. No man is ever going to want you.” “Ugly. Big. Gross.” Horrifying comments on some awful website? The rant of an abusive, controlling boyfriend? No; shockingly, these are the actual words young women are saying to themselves on any typical day. For some, such thoughts are fleeting, but for others, this dialogue plays on a constant, punishing loop, according to a new exclusive Glamour survey of more than 300 women of all sizes. Our research found that, on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily—nearly one for every waking hour. And a disturbing number of women confess to having 35, 50 or even 100 hateful thoughts about their own shapes each day.

In any case, if it were not bad enough that women are fixated about weight, breasts, lips, hair, and eyebrows; Sports Illustrated has forced the issue. In its 2015 Swimsuit Edition, model Hannah Davis, displays her ‘on-ramp’ – one more thing to worry about.

As Jennifer Weiner notes in the New York Times (2.15.15):

Ms. Davis stands, thumbs hooked into the sides of her bikini bottom, pulling it down to reveal more of her tanned, toned, hairless on-ramp than you would typically see outside of a gynecologist’s office. “It’s the year of the torso,” Ms. Davis told Matt Lauer on “Today,” in a transparent attempt to win the award for Best Use of a Euphemism on Morning TV. Seriously, when you look at her picture, you do not think “torso,” any more than viewers of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl nipple reveal thought “pecs.”

This of course should not be surprising to anyone who watches television, sees movies, reads People Magazine, or glances through the glossy supplements to the NYT and WSJ.  Women are supposed to be thin, have luxuriant long hair, have regular features, bright teeth, rounded, full breasts; and long, slim legs. Despite calls for a more representative sample of women in public life – more plus sizes for example – male and female viewers both want to view the ideal, not the lowest common denominator.  Lord knows, we get plenty of that.

Betty Frampton had always been concerned about self-image; and there was nothing that her mother could do to stop her obsessive focus.  Selfishness, her mother concluded.  That’s what it was. An unhealthy concern for herself and little mind paid to anyone else. God created the body her daughter lived in, and finding fault with it was in fact finding fault with the Creator.  Of course Betty did get her husband Jerome’s bad genes.  Neither he nor his father could help the prominent nose they inherited from some distant ancestor.  On a man a prominent nose can be overlooked within a body gestalt; but it was certainly harder to disguise a woman’s nose than powdering over a mole or plucking thick eyebrows; but there were always ways. Hairstyle, jewelry, and the right collar made all the difference in the world.

In fact, Betty’s nose was very much like Nefertiti’s.

Betty’s mother insisted that all women should accept God’s will and never complain.  Rouge, eyeliner, Slim Fast, and the right shoes were simply a woman’s way of acknowledging His personal plan.

“Take Diana Vreeland”, Betty’s mother said to her daughter. “Now there’s a woman who was shortchanged in the looks department, but in compensation was given a remarkable talent.  She married well, had children, and was the doyenne of American fashion for decades. She should be your role model”.

Of course Diana Vreeland was exactly the example not to use, not in a million years. ‘Strong’ was the adjective her colleagues used when they wanted to be accurate but gentle when referring to her nose.

Actually Diana Vreeland was exactly the right example to choose; because she confessed in her memoir that she had always felt awkward and uncomfortable as a girl.  Not only was she not pretty, she was always compared to her unusually beautiful sister. Neither of her parents could explain how two such distinctly different-looking children could be born to the same parents.  There were, according to Vreeland, those polite but still accusatory moments when her father suggested that only infidelity could account for Diana – or her sister for that matter.

Perhaps to compensate for the slights she received at the hand of her parents; or because of a natural-born creativity and drive for success, Diana Vreeland did indeed overcome her physical unattractiveness by becoming sought after in her own right.  A feminist ideal, in fact.  A woman desired not for her looks or her body but for her brains and ability.

Diana also compensated in another way.  She made beautiful women famous, and as Editor-in-Chief of Vogue brought the most stunning models to the world’s attention.

Betty Frampton wanted no part of any of this, and who could blame her? She was young, impressionable, and pecked out of girlhood because of her looks. When she saw this picture of Sonya from the band, The Big Sleep, she wasn’t in the least encouraged; although Sonya understood that beauty is a matter of drama, and she successfully accessorized her natural look with eyeliner, earrings, and a tattoo.

Unfortunately, ‘the nose’ led to irrational assumptions about everything else about Betty’s body.  She was convinced that if God had given her such a pronounced and unattractive nose, then why should He bother to spend any time on lips, eyes, or cheekbones. No matter how many times she looked in the mirror, adjusted the lighting, or changed perspective, she saw only ugliness.  In her overwrought imagination she was convinced she looked like one of Macbeth’s Twisted Sisters.

It would have helped had she known that all but the most stunning of her classmates were experiencing the same insecurities.  They mercilessly berated themselves, cursed their parents and their Creator for giving them lips that were too thick or too narrow; legs that bowed; eyes that were so narrow that they looked cross-eyed; and breasts that were blebs or cushions.

Most girls have an uncanny sense of the social norms of beauty, dress, and behavior; and so they usually are not kidding themselves when they look in the mirror and see someone darker than the ordinary, too frizzy-haired, heavy-browed, or freckled.  The combination of acute adolescent sensibilities, an overpowering consensus of beauty, and necessarily imperfect bodies was devastating.  It is amazing that these girls emerge from this painful period as intact as they seem to be. The Diana Vreelands among them are few and far between.

Now, the shaved, perfect on-ramp can only serve as a further persecuting reminder of women’s imperfections. It is not enough that Hannah Davis has perfect breasts, eyes, lips, arms, and legs.  She has a perfect mons veneris. Not too big, not to small, not flat and insignificant, not protruding and obvious….Just right.  Once SI published that cover, thousands of girls and young women checked out body parts they never knew were going to come under scrutiny. OK, men had a thing about their junk and freaked out constantly about size, shape, and angle; but the allure of women’s paraphernalia is in unseen folds and inner recesses. Now women would have to check  out the mons, see how it measured up, and take stock.

Betty’s mother was right.  Play with the cards you have been dealt.  Not everybody has a winning hand.

The problem was that Amanda Frampton could not keep God out of it.  Being dealt a poker hand was one thing; but living in an imperfect God-created mold had existential consequences.  Although Betty was simply sick and tired of her mother’s God talk, the Biblical references apparently found their way through cracks in her adolescent wall and never got squeezed back out.

Her Purgatory ended when she was 27, however. Gifted a small fortune by a maiden aunt, Betty underwent elective plastic surgery.  The offending nose was shortened, the aquiline bump removed, and she opted for a cute girly upturn at the end. Her cheekbones were reduced, her chin softly modeled, and her lips sensuously thickened. The process was painful and long; but by the end of it she no longer hesitated to look in the mirror.  In fact she became as obsessed with her new beauty as she was with her imagined ugliness.

Beauty is a fact.  It is a tradable commodity, a factor in natural selection, a variable in most social and commercial transactions, and the first and last thing we remember about people.  It is no surprise at all that some of the most famous paintings and sculptures in history have been of women. Artists since Greek and Roman times saw a sublimity in the female form.

So much for diversity.  As much as feminists may dismiss the idea of universal beauty and claim that all women are beautiful, men and women are not buying.