2. Another friend, in correspondence, shared her take on the "Real Beauty" ad, and also had smart things to say. I asked her if I could share it and she said yes. Here's her thoughts:
There's a lot wrong with the ad, but there are some things that are right. If those things that are right are the first step towards people finding healing, then I support that. That seems to be what the ad is doing for many women, and I don't necessarily (from the comments I've read, anyway) think it's leading them astray.
One of the things I was struck by in the ad was actually the fact that even the "pretty" pictures aren't drop-dead gorgeous, just more realistic. So people are getting the reality check they need to see their current appearance in a more real light.
I don't think that says that everyone is beautiful (though many may be more beautiful than they themselves think), that beauty is insignificant, or that we can or should rely on our beauty for anything. I think it just says that we don't accurately perceive our own beauty, and that the misperception can cause unnecessary and soul-harmful pain, especially in our culture.
Her view's not quite mine, but she's not the only friend who saw real value in the commercial, and she put it so well that I wanted to share it.
I was corresponding with some friends about this ad, and I figured out what really bugs me about it:
I think beauty is both more important and less important than the ad implies.
1) Beauty does have a huge impact on your life. If you're born with it, you've got a leg up on the competition. It's a lot like intelligence or athletic ability or good parents or inherited wealth in that way. You didn't earn it, but it is extra ammunition in your pocket. Pretending it's not one of those unearned advantages is disingenuous, at the very least. And sort of insulting. (This book is an interesting take on the subject. And this is an interesting mini-series on a closely-related subject.)
2) Beauty's not gonna get you all the way. Again, much like intelligence or athletic ability or good parents or inherited wealth. It's not going to make you a good person, it's not going to get you into heaven, it's not going to make you pleasant enough to live with, it's not going to make you happy. And even if you have it, it disappears quickly. If you rely on it in youth, you're going to be sunk in old age. (Hence the frantic American quest to retain their youth through all manners of surgeries and gimmicks.)
So, the ad lies because,
1) Those women aren't actually all just as beautiful as every other beautiful woman in the world.
2) Having an assurance of their beauty isn't actually going to make them happy.
But . . . that said, from the reactions to the video, it's clear it strikes a chord, and that many women really can't see the loveliness that really is there, and that even if beauty doesn't make them happy, perceived lack of beauty makes them profoundly unhappy. That . . . that part I don't have an answer for. (Other than the one Hopkins gives.) For that, well, maybe the sketch artist experiment actually is helpful. I don't know. It is at least the gift of a new perspective, and I don't doubt that's a real gift.
-Jessica Snell
p.s. Also, talking about beauty this much makes me feel the way I do when I've eaten too much candy. There's something profoundly un-nourishing about this topic, isn't there?
Since apparently I can't be succinct the first time around. :) Here's what I was trying to say:
1) When beauty's present, it's okay to appreciate it, because it's part of God's good creation.
2) The beauty of someone's personality changes their face into something even more beautiful - changes even an ugly face into something beautiful. This is a reflection of reality, and shouldn't be taken as an illusion. The intangible has a real effect on the tangible.
3) Beauty fades, and that's okay, too, because God keeps all good things in his care, and we can trust him to take care of what's good in us. I guess: The Lord gave, the Lord takes away, and blessed be the name of the Lord. (And so don't rely on whatever beauty you happen to have; cultivate what lasts instead.)
And, perhaps most of all:
4) Don't trust beauty product companies who try to make philosophical statements about beauty; they're still trying to sell you something.
So, did you see the new Dove "Real Beauty" video that's floating around Facebook, ubiquitous as the flu virus? If you missed it, here it is:
It's a clever idea, but it seemed a bit off to me somehow.
AND HERE'S MY BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: If this commercial made you cry, you might want to stop reading this particular blog entry right here. I don't want to poke at anyone's sore spots and I'm really coming from a different place on this. But if this commercial made you a bit uncomfortable? if it felt a bit off to you? well, I have thoughts, so read on.
So, anyway, I read this feminist critique of the ad, which I didn't wholeheartedly agree with, but that seemed to get somewhat close to what was bothering me about it. Unlike that blogger, I do think there's a place for humility and modesty in feminine beauty but, on the other hand, I don't think she's far off when she says:
There is no room in Doveland for women who know they’re hot . . . There’s no room to tell the artist about your thin jaw even if you see and love it. The only confidence that’s acceptable is halfhearted: “Don’t worry, I don’t think I’m pretty, but I’ve been told I’m wrong, so maybe I am a little.”
What do I agree with here? The idea that it's okay to honestly like your own face and body. Why wouldn't you? God makes good things.
Where I'm Coming From (ETA: this is the boring, personal context part. Skip to "The four loves - or at least two of them" if you want to get right to the meat of this article.)
It's hard for me to talk about feminine beauty without getting personal, and I know my experience isn't every woman's. Still, my first reaction to this ad was very personal, and it was, "Unless you caught me on a pretty bad day, I don't think I'd be describing an ugly woman to that sketch artist."
Here's the really personal and particular: I've been describing myself to myself - and that favorably - since I was a teenager. I've been writing fiction all my life, and like most writers I started out with very Mary-Sue-ish heroines who resembled no one so much as me. (Me-as-a-space-princess, but still me.) Narcissistic and immature? Yes. But it did teach me to see the good that was there. Later, my focus broadened, and I started describing the good in everyone else, too. Now it's habit.
Then, in adulthood, I've lived with a husband who smiles whenever he sees me. That's a grace that makes it hard to hate myself.
And I guess there's a third piece of it: I like my body for what it can do. In my twenties, I managed to break both my arms at once, and got a small taste of what it's like to rely on someone else for every daily need. Competence is probably a fleeting part of my physicality, but I surely do appreciate it at the moment, even if it may be gone in a few more decades. I know part of my self-image is formed on the fact that I've been lucky so far. That's probably young and immature and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes. (Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a LOT of what I talk about in this entry changes; I'm not all that old and wise and virtuous yet. So - if you do read on, please do it with a grain of salt, yeah?)
None of these things are general though. I'm just giving them as context for where I'm coming from on the subject.
A Christian view of beauty? at least in marriage? (okay, maybe this is only sort-of-general . . .)
Here's the not-so-personal part, though: I couldn't help but think of the Song of Songs as I looked at that video and read that critique.
In the Song of Songs, the woman knows she's beautiful. Her lover praises her, but she praises herself, too: "Dark am I, but lovely."
And in poems like Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday", you see the beloved triumphing, trumpeting, insisting on her own glory: "Raise me a daïs . . ."
And even if the woman in the Song of Songs was a queen and deserved a throne, well, isn't this rejoicing of the beloved in her lover's rejoicing at her beauty sort of a universal experience in romance? I think in That Hideous Strength there's a moment where someone reads a passage about something similar. Argh - can't find it at the moment. But, anyway, beauty is a good thing; God made women beautiful. Delighting in beauty isn't inappropriate, especially not in the context of love. It seems like a natural part of the whole deal, in that context.
But is beauty the most important thing about us? No, not even close. And we're not to rely on it and it's important to nurture our virtues and not our vanity. But there's a difference between acknowledging something and paying inordinate attention to it. (Is vanity paying inordinate attention to your own beauty? I think it might be. Hmm, have to ponder that one some more - this blog entry might have a sequel.)
The four loves - or at least two of them
But even aside from romantic love, I think there's a proper place for caring for your body and a proper reason to avoid false humility.
Let's start with the last first: false humility is bad. Why? Because lying's bad. And honestly, that's really all I mean by that; nothing more. Lying does bad things to your soul. Don't be the pretty lady telling the sketch artist you're ugly. (Be more like Cordelia Vorkosigan: "It was a good face, suitable for all practical purposes . . .")
Storge
But what's the love you should have for yourself? Well mostly, firstly, I think it's storge. It's affectionate love, it's fondness. Your body is familiar, your face is familiar. Be easy with your appearance like you're easy with every other homey, normal, everyday good. Like you love that well-seasoned frying pan that lives on the corner of your stovetop, like you smile at your aunt's familiar jokes, like you feel comfort when you curl up under that old knitted blanket you keep folded up on the couch. Your body is not just a good thing God has given you, it is part of you, and He's given you stewardship over yourself. Treat your body well, use it properly, and be grateful for it. Your body is a good thing.
(This is St. Francis' "brother ass" bit: the body as a good, stubborn, sometimes-frustrating beast of burden.)
Appearance and Community
But there is some good in that video, though you have to reach to get to it, and it's this: your face brings joy to the people around you.
Know that. Believe that. To the people you love, your face is one of the most beautiful things in the world. AND THEY AREN'T WRONG TO THINK THAT. Even if you're not objectively gorgeous. No kidding, seriously, I mean it. People are their bodies but they are also MORE than their bodies, and our bodies are the weakest, most mutable part of us. The loved is beautiful both because it is loved AND because it is beautiful, and those two don't cancel each other out, they build on each other and seriously, really, really, yes, seriously, really.
I talked about the fact that I've been describing myself to myself since I was a kid. But I largely grew out of that narcissistic focus of adolescence, and now I describe everybody to myself. It's habit. I'm an author, and an artist, and it's my job to observe and articulate. That's what I'm for.
And as someone who observes, habitually, the appearance of others (among other things), I can tell you this: people are beautiful. And the most beautiful people? Are my friends. Every one of them. And the longer I know them, the older they get, the more they walk with the Lord, the more heaven shines out of their countenances. The objectively lovely - and many of them are objectively lovely - is suffused with the beauty of their personalities. They're stained glass windows that the light of the Holy Spirit shines through.
(I kind of think we might each have a job of appreciating both beauty in general, but also of appreciating beauty in particular, in our own families, our own friends, our own city, our own home.)
There is such a thing as real, objective beauty. And not everyone has it. I'm not arguing about that. I know people who are ugly, too, everyone does. And I'm ugly sometimes. Everyone is. And I'll get uglier. Everyone does. No one can escape the ugliness of sickness, of stress, of sorrow. The immaterial stresses put lines on material faces and mar and weaken physical bodies. It comes earlier to some than to others, but no one gets to be young forever, no one gets to be well and happy forever, and so no one gets to be perfectly beautiful forever. It's against the laws of the universe. Physical beauty is fleeting, Agar's mother was right about that. And so if you rely on it, well, sorry, you're sunk.
So, appreciate it while it's here. Why not? don't you appreciate the flowers that fade and the grass that withers? Sure you do. It's inhuman to ignore them.
But it's foolish to count on them; it's foolish to value them at more than their worth.
And maybe, in the end, that's what's wrong with that commercial. It pretends not to, but it still makes physical beauty all too important, raises it way, way out of its proper place - and of course it does. For all their disclaimers, Dove is still trying to sell you things that make you feel beautiful. So they're very earnest about it, very intense, and they're LYING, LYING, LYING because they still very, very clearly say that physical beauty matters - and that it matters much more than it actually does. There's something false in that commercial, just because it's pretending so hard to be true, to have pure intentions.
They're right that some women see themselves inaccurately. They're wrong to imply every woman does. They're wrong to imply they're the arbiters of what we see and they're wrong to pretend they have no stake in the definition of what beauty is. And there might be a further, weaker implication that every woman is as objectively beautiful as every other woman and, again, LYING HELPS NO ONE SHUT UP DOVE.
But you can't give beauty, you can't create it, and you can't keep it. Beauty may be virtue in you, but it's not your virtue. It's all gift.
But here, here's what you can do with it: you can give it back, you can give it again, you can hold it with open hands. Here's something better than all, all, all my endless blathering on the subject, and here's where I'm ending it:
The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well)
THE LEADEN ECHO
How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there 's none, there 's none, O no there 's none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age's evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there 's none; no no no there 's none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair.
THE GOLDEN ECHO
Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,
Tall sun's tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth's air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever's prized and passes of us, everything that 's fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's self and beauty's giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.
We're a month into the school year now, and the days are turning over nicely, and all the blessings of routine life have me in an experimental mood. My curiosity is at a high enough peak that I'm actually trying new things instead of just thinking about them. They're not huge, life-shaking things. They're just little tweaks. But I like reading about other people's little life hacks, so I thought I'd write about mine.
One thing that I'm trying is using coconut oil on my face, as a moisturizer. Yes, that sounds a bit nuts, and the fear that I would instantly break out in the worst rash of pimples if I even hinted to my skin that I was going to try such an unconventional thing is what kept me just thinking about it for so long. But it's been a few days now, and there's no sign of a breakout.
The two things that made me think about trying it were 1) it's done wonders for my hair and 2) my grandmother. My grandmother has the loveliest skin you'll ever see. She looks at least thirty years younger than she is because of it. And do you know what her skincare routine is? She puts Vaseline on her face every night. No kidding! And I think it probably sealed in the moisture after she washed her face before going to bed every night. I couldn't help but think that coconut oil would do the same thing.
Here's what I'm doing: every night, after washing my face, I dip the tip of my finger in coconut oil and then rub my hands together, and spread a thin layer of it over my face and neck. Then, in the morning, I wash it all off. I figure that I really will break out if I leave it on all day, because the oil will attract dirt. But at night, on a clean pillowcase, I don't see how it can.
The result so far is healthier-looking skin - honestly! I have an olive complexion that tends to leave me looking tired due to shadows under my eyes, and those have lessened, I think, just because the skin is plumped up a bit because it's not so dry. And I think I have fewer (hate even typing the word) zits than before; certainly I don't have more.
So . . . the second thing is housework. The older my youngest two get, the more energy I have. For some strange reason. Heh. So I've been looking at my housekeeping routine and trying to figure out how to tweak it so that we have fewer chores left over till the weekend, and so that things are just generally cleaner. We do a good job around her at keeping vital things clean (like, say, food-prep areas), but things like, oh, the top of the fridge and the baseboards - these are very seldom clean. And, you know, if I have the energy to do it, it's awfully nice to live in a clean home.
So I'm trying this service. I was willing to experiment with it because it was just $2 for the rest of the year (Oct-Dec) and if I like it, I can just subscribe to the whole year in 2011, and buy that instead of a new personal calendar, adding nothing extra to the budget.
So far? So good. I'm using the page-a-day version and taking out things that don't apply to our home, and adding in things that do. For example, I've got 4 young kids, many of whom are not entirely clear on the proper way to use the toilet (i.e., it's not something you look at while your stream of pee goes elsewhere) and so I'm swiping down the toilet and floor right after I wipe out the bathroom sink.
What do I like about it? I like that the very dirty areas are done once a day so that they just always look clean. What a luxury is a clean home! Really. I like that it reminds me to do the little things. I like that the less-frequent chores (like cleaning the fridge) are done a bit at a time. I also like that it's fairly similar to the to-do list I write out every day by hand anyway, and it saves me the writing-out part.
I'm also adding in the weekly zone missions from Flylady. Several years ago I did Flylady, and while I learned a lot (and kept up on a lot of it), it's just too over-the-top for me. Very emotional, those emails. And with the four kids, I get enough emotion thrown at me every day to last me, thank you. But the daily missions are helping me to do some deep-cleaning that was neglected in the Toddler Era, and that's nice.
We're also starting to use this chore system with the older two kids. We've been hemming and hawing on what to do about allowance, and we've finally decided they'll get a small base amount every week, with the option of earning more. I think it strikes a nice balance between you-get-to-partake-in-our-resources-because-you're-part-of-the-family and you-get-to-contribute-your-blood-sweat-and-tears-because-you're-part-of-the-family. The thing I really like about the linked-to system (besides the fact that it's free) is that it lists both expected (unpaid chores) and paid chores, but the paid chores don't get paid unless the expected chores are done first.
The younger two children will be given the chance to earn pennies once I stop worrying about the likelihood of them eating said pennies.
So those are my recent experiments. I'll let you know if any of them crash and burn! But (especially regarding the first) don't expect pictures if they do. ;)
I like wearing dresses, and now that I'm finally neither nursing nor pregnant, I can wear them again. But I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to make my own, because I cannot find what I like in stores.
For instance, I look at a page like this (not that I'm going to spend that much because, y'know, thrift stores exist!) and I think, "What do you have against fabric? Use more of it, for heaven's sake!" And that's not a modesty rant. It's an anti-tightwad rant.
At least, I think it is. Honestly, look at that. Now that I know something about sewing, I can recognize the one thing all of those dresses have in common: they use very little fabric, and that's solely due to the narrowness of the skirts.
Which, I'm guessing, ups the store's profit margin.
But who wants to wear that? People complain about dresses being impractical to wear, and I think, sure, when you're talking dresses like that.Dresses with full skirts, though, are pretty practical to wear. Something knee-length isn't even going to give you much trouble, if the skirt is full enough and the fabric has good drape. You have plenty of movement and even if you take a knee you're covered, because the fabric just falls into places around and between your legs.
But if you're stingy with your fabric, yeah, the dress is going to be impractical to wear. Even if it's cute as a button. (And for the record, I tend to really like how LOFT's stuff looks.)
I want to start a movement: Women for Full Skirts! (An acronym that sadly doesn't quite spell WTFs.) Oh well. I like sewing anyway. And it's really not that important. But . . . I can't help thinking that if you're going to bother to make a thing, you ought to bother to make it well, make it so that it's pretty and it's practical. Form and function. Why make something that's not usable? I don't understand.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
p.s. Some places do slightly better with the full-skirt thing. But that page just makes me want to go into another rant, which I would title: Women-have-waists-that-look-nice-when-their-clothing-highlights-them-but-those-waists-don't-start-directly-below-their-breasts-you-idiots. Although that mistake is at least more understandable: sleeveless empire waist dresses only have to fit at the bust, whereas a proper dress has to fit at bust, waist, hips and possibly shoulders, making it less likely to be an off-the-rack success. This also explains why the easiest way to get the silhouette of a properly-fitted dress is just to wear a skirt with a shirt. You can then have your fit at waist and hips with the skirt, your fit at bust and shoulders with the shirt, and the torso length problem solved by letting the skirt and shirt overlap if need be; that way the fit problems don't have to all be solved in one single item of clothing.
Okay, now I talked myself out of being mad at clothing manufacturers. They really are facing all sorts of problems when they try to make dresses blind, without knowing what body type they're going to have to fit.
I just read a long thread in the well-trained mind forums about hair-dying. It was really funny, because most of the responses were something along the lines of "well, I'm fine with others going grey, but I started going grey so early that I had to dye."
Which makes me think that, actually, it's probably pretty normal to start go grey in your twenties. We just don't think it is because there are so few women in our country who don't dye their hair.
I freely admit my bias: I dislike dyed hair. Doesn't make me think horribly of women who do, I just really prefer seeing real hair. I think it's more interesting.
But, whichever side of the (non)debate you fall on, isn't it weird to think that we see so little natural hair that we have no real idea anymore of when people commonly go grey? Or how much of the population actually is blonde? (A much smaller proportion than you'd think if you just go by how much blonde hair you see. Same for redheads.)
I think the funniest story about this I've heard comes from my mother, who has the most gorgeous hair I've ever seen (which, sadly, I didn't inherit). It's a deep gold. Just the loveliest dark blonde, with natural light highlights and red lowlights. And unlike most blondes, it's incredibly thick. (Did I mention that somehow it didn't get passed on to me?)
Okay, actually I like my hair. And with my olive skin, I'd make a really silly blonde. But still. Not fair. (Also not fair? The fact that my brother has long eyelashes and I don't. He's a boy! He doesn't need them!) (Um. Love you, Josh!)
Anyway, one day my mother was standing in line at the grocery store, and a lady waiting with her asked her where she'd had it done. My mom thanked her, but said that it was natural. The lady said, "No, where did you get it done?" "I was born with it." "No, really! Where . . ." The conversation continued along these lines for awhile, my mom insisting she was born with it, until the lady threw a fit and said, "Fine! Don't tell me!"
What's so funny about this story to me is that fake color has become so common in our society, that when someone sees the real thing, she can't believe it isn't fake. If I were a preacher, I'm sure I could get a moral out of that somehow.
My mom's hair is starting to go grey now, though it's hard to see, since the grey blends in with the blonde. My hair is going grey too, and it's easier to see, since I'm dark, although it's still just four or five hairs.
Will I dye my hair as the number increases? I don't know. I don't plan to, but I now you change your mind about things sometimes as you get older.
Though from what I've observed so far about my greys, I think I'd rather have their texture changed than their color! (And I could see dying my hair grey completely if the slow transition gets to be too much of a pain. Honestly, I'm hoping for my great-grandma's beautiful pure white.)
What about you? Do you think it's weird that seeing a grey-haired sixty-year old is less common than seeing a brunette one? Did you (like me) start to go grey in your twenties? Is our idea of what "looking old" is screwed up? Do you like dying your hair, and if so, do you think that fake highlights ever look as good as real ones? I know I'm in the minority on my opinion about how dyed hair looks, so I'm curious about what it looks like from the other side.
And again: no great moral point here, and no hate for those who are on the other side of this. It seems to me mainly about aesthetics. (Though here is a fascinating article about some of the possible sociological effects.) Any thoughts?
peace of Christ to you, Jessica Snell
p.s. Okay, I don't quite hate all dyed hair. I think that dyed hair that is an unnatural color (e.g., purple) is kind of fun. I don't like dyed hair that is trying to look natural, 'cause it's annoying. Dyed hair that's trying to look dyed? I think is kind of awesome. :)
