You are beautiful

Christina Aguilera's song, "Beautiful" came into mind when I was thinking of this topic. To me the song shows how people can be affected by how we are judged by others within our society. Every one tries to conform; however, we all know that there will be a few black sheep or herds of black sheep amongst us. In the song she shows a few different stereotypes that we usual associate with- weight: the anorexic girl, appearance: the skinny boy who wanted to buff up, the goth- see how I'm already stereotyping?- on the bus. She tells us to be our own individual and that "words can't bring you down". It is, indeed, a beautiful song.

So what is beauty?

As the quote says: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.

Is there such thing as ugly? To me, no one is ugly. I find beauty in every one whether it be in appearance, personality or quality, but this is not the case for every one. I was having a conversation with my friend and she told me this:

"My aunt had a gathering and I wasn't in. All these ladies were trying to get their sons a wife. And you know what was the first thing they asked her? 'What's your niece's size?"

Wouldn't you feel offended?

There are so many perceptions of beauty in different cultures. Us foreigners to the culture, would not understand why beauty is defined in those instances. For example, how most of the Oriental Asian population under-go the "double eye-lid" surgery. They believe that having bigger eyes is prettier. Indians prefer wives who are fairer in skin tone (this was told to me by a friend of mine). Rebecca Poponoe in Fat: the anthropology of an obsession reports on the complex connection between fat, social status, prosperity and health in Niger. The following BBC report investigates the fattening of girls to enhance their marital chances in Mauritania. From these examples, you can observe how there are so many things that people define as beautiful (or not).

So, what exactly is the criteria for Beauty? How do we judge it? How do we define it? The obvious answer is that beauty is subjective to ones opinion. What i find interesting is how different cultures define it.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius

A toute l'heure~

Sofie:)