Religion, Culture and Consumerism: Searching for a Definition of Beauty

By Ashley Paris

‘I like the bit where she says beauty is a currency.’ Nods and hums of affirmation come from around the room at what the woman sitting beside me had said. Damn, I thought. If beauty is a currency, I must be broke.

We had been reading Naomi Wolff’s The Beauty Myth, a book so quintessentially nineties that I could almost hear the melody of an Aqua song, feel White Musk burning the inside of my nose. But both the book and the reading group prompted an inner discussion about the beauty we are defined by. I had trouble answering this question.

Appearance affects everyone. But especially as a female, I felt the concept, the simple word ‘beauty’, to be something that I am constantly giving my attention to (I know this is also the case for many other women). But if beauty meant so much, why couldn’t I define it? 

I have been told many things about beauty.

‘Beauty is surrender.’

A roaring Christian legalist had told me that beauty, to its fullest, was impossible. God is the most beautiful, and we are not as we are too flawed and too sinful. However, women could find some beauty in submission to God and a Godly man. 

The idea of placing all faith and trust in someone else, to nod my head and bend the knee, was a beautiful yet frightening and restrictive concept. I know too many other people who – like me – speak ‘too much’ and ‘too loudly’. It was too foreign an idea.

Other Abrahamic religions posed something similar: God is the most beautiful thing as He is so far removed from sin, so our own sense of beauty must derive from something Godly, not the ‘worldliness’ suggested by secularity. In these sorts of cases, women especially are at war with the rest of the world because in our secular world, beauty can be reached.

Secularly and culturally, beauty is a long shopping list of physical requirements and sought-after qualities and behaviours. But that list has always changed; it wasn’t a constant word from a quote in a Holy book. 

‘Beauty is something you have to chase (and, most likely, it’s gonna hurt).’

Our eyes never rest from following beauty trends in media. Even if we didn’t want to follow, the trends would find us. It’s shoved down our throats: a waist that shrinks, hips that swell, fox eyes, clear skin, high cheekbones, big lips. None of it matters because by the time you have given yourself shave rash and bleached your hair dry to the point of no recovery, something else is on-trend. But of course, we are expected to be magical shapeshifters, morphing at the whim of society. 

In Western society, speed is valued through all elements of our culture. Our economies are saturated with fast, cheap consumerism; our lives are defined by the ‘next thing’, event or possession. No longer are we limited by our genetics. Beauty, in the physical sense, is now another product on our shelves. And as for our personalities, well, I’m sure it won’t be long before that’s also considered a commodity. 

‘Beauty is confidence.’

Nine times out of ten, I was only told this when I was convinced that I was ugly, which is interesting. Aside from me, only 27% of young women feel confident in their appearances. In other words, the remainder doesn’t feel confident in the skin that everyone else sees. It’s shocking that confidence is dependent on our appearance, especially when confidence means so much in our society. 

It’s funny, in school we were taught manners. Say please and thank you, sit with your back straight and don’t interrupt. But in the majority of our state schools, confidence is never on the curriculum, so instead we look to the mirror. 

‘Beauty is a feeling.’

Another woman simply told me that I am beautiful and not to forget it. I haven’t. But I wish I could ask her what she meant because I don’t believe that I have ever looked in the mirror and drawn the emotions that I feel when I look at things that I know are beautiful.

Perhaps beauty may only be reserved for the sea and the stars, sunsets, snow, silver necklaces, beaches, palm trees, warm afternoons, God, words, mountains, fashion magazines, music, love, immaculate Pinterest boards – or whatever gives you that indefinable feeling.

Maybe instead of trying to garner an impossible, subjective, inconstant and ill-fitting beauty, we should try to harvest the feelings we gain from it and give it to someone else to reap. Because if I ever make someone smile the way I do when I see stars, then I know I’m beautiful.