BEAUTY: What is your definition?

 

I can recall as a young girl growing up in the Caribbean, my mother had three daughters. My eldest sister was light skinned and skinny with long black curly hair, my middle sister was dark, athletically built and fit and I was the last of the girls, black and the heaviest of the three. I can also recall feeling and knowing early as a child, that I was the least favored of my mother’s three daughters and as a matter of fact, I felt like Cinderella (not beautiful but made to do the majority of the chores).

I did not feel beautiful, in fact I felt ugly because I wasn’t given any of their privileges as my other sisters, and they were treated differently than how I was treated. They got the best of everything and I always got the last and the hand me downs and I felt that this happened because my mother didn’t think that I was beautiful according to the standards back then and how she was raised as well.

So when you look at each of these women photos, what comes to your mind, how do you judge, what do you say in regards to who is beautiful? Do you decide who is beautiful based on the following characteristics?

1.       Skin Color, complexion (light, dark etc)

2.       Hair texture (curly, straight, natural, weave)

3.       Weight (size, heavy, thin, thick, fit)

4.       Social Status (celebrity, money, position)

In my eyes, all of these women are beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty comes from within. A woman could be the most attractive but if she has a negative attitude, dirty speech, low self esteem, then she is not considered as beautiful to me.

We have been raised as black women to think less of ourselves if we are not thin, our hair is not curly or straight (we would be called nappy hair) and most of all if we weren’t “light skinned.” But today, our standards of beauty have changed in 2020. There are so many black women being comfortable in the skin that they are in. They no longer feel the need to bleached or lighten their skin, straighten their hair or starved themselves to be thin. So many have gained success in both their personal and professional lives, in the skin that they are in. Just look at Michelle Obama, Lupita Nyong’o and Oprah Winfrey. They are all the darkest of the hues of black women, in shape and size as well as hair texture and they have all become very successful women in their own right without having to conform to “Hollywood’s standard” of beauty.

As a matter of fact so many celebrities are now ditching wearing a ton of make-up and is now wearing their hair in its natural form. You can now see on TV women of all shape, shades and sizes and they are all considered beautiful because they are. I think we all have to come to the realization that we are all different but we are all HUMAN and we have to love who we are and the skin, shape and hair that God has blessed us with.

Love You for who you are, don’t let anyone tell you whether you are beautiful or not, you are beautiful in the eyes of your creator.