In an excellent new article for Bitch Magazine, Lindsay King-Miller argues against body positivity that requires beauty.
Here’s a taste:
While I’m in favor of encouraging women to feel confident and happy, I worry that today’s body positivity focuses too much on affirming beauty and not enough on deconstructing its necessity. Spreading a message that everyone is beautiful reinforces the underlying assumption that beauty matters.
Recently, a friend of mine—a fat, queer, thoroughly empowered babe—posted on Facebook: “I’m not pretty and I’m fine with that.” Immediately and predictably, the comments were flooded with well-meaning friends saying, “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re beautiful.” Reading the thread made me deeply uncomfortable, even defensive. Here was a woman moving away from an oppressive and harmful hierarchy, and with the best of intentions, her friends were trying to drag her back in.
I’m troubled with using “beauty” as a synonym for feeling valuable and powerful and magnificent. It’s not far removed from nominally inspiring, but ultimately shallow, slogans like “Confidence is sexy” and “Nothing is more attractive than happiness” that treat emotional well-being as an accessory. I seek happiness because it feels good, not because it makes my hair shinier. Happiness, confidence, self-esteem—these things should be ends, not means.
