Beauty's Dark Underbelly

The more women succumb to the pressure of living up to the ever-elusive beauty ideal, the more they get trapped into it

- Srirupa Chatterjee

MORE than ever before, the issue of beauty and desirability in the current appearance-conscious times presents a peculiar conundrum, especially for women. On the one hand, women who obsess with appearance, self-care, and beautification get labelled as attention seekers, flirtatious, or even dim-witted; on the other hand, women who ignore beauty labour and socially prevalent appearance expectations get branded as callous and rejected as 'undesirable' beings.

Even though the irony inherent in this paradox is often overlooked and denied within dominant socio-cultural discourses, one cannot disregard the relevance of the beauty ideal in the lives and identities of almost all women across almost all cultures. This is because women, perhaps since civilisation began, have been scrutinised, branded, punished, or rewarded based on how they look.

Researchers have variously called the importance of beauty the 'aesthetic capital' or the 'erotic capital' that grants women their self-worth in most hetero-patriarchal societies. Given the significance of physical appearance in what philosopher Susan Bordo prophesied to be 'the empire of images,' it is no surprise that women who fall short of conventional beauty standards are both shamed by the world at large even as they themselves internalise a deep sense of worthlessness, self-hatred, and shame. 

Undoubtedly, appearance is a prime marker of one's identity. It is the first thing we notice about people. Embodiment, therefore, is not just a biological concept but also a sociopolitical one, which has, over the ages, defined, and even hierarchised various races, ethnicities, classes, genders, communities, age groups, physical abilities, and so on.