I’ve spent a great deal of my life concerned about my appearance.
I deem my blue-green eyes too small, my nose too flat, my face too round and my body too hopeless. I have a hard time believing that anyone would want to be with me romantically, and I let those insecurities ripple into my relationships and personal well-being. These problems seem small when I translate them to 12-point font etches on a screen, but it’s been more real than I care to admit. They’ve made me feel worthless, until now.
Last week, I watched one of Dove Real Beauty's recent campaign videos that went viral on social networks. I joined other women in the world in a concord of tears and relief, while acknowledging Dove's fundamental problems — Dove is owned by the same company that releases sexist ads for AXE — as well as the fact that the spotlight shines brightest on young, thin white women.
These things are not excusable, but as someone who frequently studies perception, I couldn’t help but feel more at peace when reconciling my bridge troll-esque self-image and the fact that these women were objectively wrong about their appearances. I thought Dove had done a good thing.
Although I felt more resolute about my body image, something else was bothering me. I figured it was probably the hypocrisy or the harmfully restrictive and normative standards of beauty (being young and thin), so I tried to let it go.
Then suddenly it sideswiped me with such force that it stripped me of every complacency I’d ever had in being miserable in my own skin. There was a good chance my mother had watched this video. There was a chance she felt similarly, that she was moved by its message that she may be more beautiful than she thinks, and that because of that she’s worth more than she had originally estimated.
That enraged me.
You see, my mother is the most virtuous, brilliant and genuine woman I’ve ever known. I admire her in more ways than I admire anyone else on the planet. She also happens to be beautiful, but that’s secondary to the sheer magnitude of good she continually offers the world.
So here’s the problem: I’m a feminist. I seek to empower other women by promoting healthy self-images and challenging damaging schemas. It would be an understatement to say my feminism is important to me. Because this is the case, I can’t equate self-image with self-worth anymore, not if my mother or any other woman isn’t allowed to do the same.
It turned out it wasn’t Dove’s hypocrisy that bothered me, but my own.
I take myself seriously. I take my feminism seriously. If I can’t empower myself, if I can’t somehow reconcile my insecurities and my passion for ensuring that women are treated with the respect that they deserve, then I don’t deserve to be taken seriously. It’s time that beauty stops being a litmus test for value, because I know that all women, including my mother and myself, offer the world so much more than our beauty.
My problems with self-image are still real. But my problems of self-worth don’t stand a chance.
Reach the columnist at ameschko@asu.edu or follow her at @alishameschkow
