Tick Tock, Pink Posh, Pink Wash
You are white, you are black
You are skinny, you are fat
Tick Tock, Pink Posh, Pink Wash
Your thighs aren’t sleek, don’t wear no sleeve
You are cute
But the chubby cheeks?
No sugar, no dairy
You’re perfect, but baby…
But? What but? Why but?
The makeup’s too much!
You didn’t get airbrush?
Tick Tock, Pink Posh, Pink Wash
Ever since I realized the social construct of gender, I have been taught to be presentable. As a young child, my parents would want me to wear a pair of trousers and a shirt and that was okay back then, but when puberty knocked, things changed. The gaze of my own kinsmen changed. I was no more to be taken lightly. I had to wear clothes that would categorically display me as a girl. In my school, all the girls were supposed to wear skirts and bread their hair into two ponytails. But I had short hair, not pixie cut or boy-cut to be precise but my hair wasn’t long enough to make me a beautiful Indian girl next door every boy in the neighbor would have wished for. I would not apply Kohl, did not have pink hairbands and guess what I was not welcomed in the sweet teen girls club.
The short hair and the not pink belongings of mine were the parameters to gauge me as a girl. Who I was, can be said to be the least concerned topic for my entire classroom until one day I topped in that particular subject where usually men are supposed to be at the hem of it. Any guesses? Mathematics, it was. I scored 100 out of 100 and kaboom! People went liberal with their codes of beauty and I was in the sweet teen girls’ team. See, appearance does not count all the time! Even if I was the tomboy of the class girls would offer me their friendship. A clean and hygienic clothe was doing okay-ish. And here, I am not trying to set a parameter of intelligence but at that time intelligence was measured with the stream we chose in our studies. Double oppression. Sighs!
Today, I am 23 and I understand what sham the beauty standards are. Every society has a class one category to compare the rest of the humans whether they are beautiful or not, if they are classy or not, or are they modern in the contemporary world or not.
The pimple removing tools and the skin brightening apps what exactly are they trying to do here? You think they are making you beautiful and flawless? Yes, they are making you, look like a white plain sheet of paper with no spots; but where are you in that? Can you see yourself in the super modified picture of yours? Has it ever occurred to you that the inside of you can matter too? Why is it so important to be flawless? Have you seen the nature? Does it emphasize flawlessness whose picture we all post and take pride in? No, it’s not. The ground is patchy, muddy, rough and is nothing near flawless. The mountains are giant, the trees grow uncropped and the flowers are wild then why do you have to edit everything out of your natural self and sacrifice the true you for the sake of the sham beauty standards. Woman, trust me we aren’t meant to be censored. We are not silver spoons and gold plates to be ins perfect shapes. They are objects. We are people. We don’t have to look “beautiful” to be a human. Remember Joey Tribbiani? He is curvy and he likes it. I saw an ad where a chubby girl was concerned about her belly-fat the entire time and it suddenly vanishes with fairness cream. A whitening cream came to rescue and with the matte-glowing look, the girl was happy and not concerned anymore of her not so slim figure. That is okay if makeup gives you the confident, fine. Your choice and I respect it honestly. But the generalization, was that okay too? Am I not allowed to feel okay just by looking at my jiggly tummy? Is it a terrible sight for humanity? I say, why not make girls feel comfortable in their own skin? Kusha Kapila, a YouTuber says, “I look at my jiggly thighs and I feel confident”. She is a successful fashion blogger and she does not exhaust herself with her curves. She is confident because of what she is.
I am not against make-up. On the contrary, I think that make-up is an art. The perfect eye wings and the right amount of blush, they need balance and the skills of an artist. But why do we need to make it a beauty enhancement application? If I put on a baby pink blossom lipstick, I get appreciation but wait. If I had put on a black lipstick then I would have been a fashion disaster or not a soothing sight. This is where I want to speak that make-up should be treated as anything but not something which beautifies you.
Fat-shaming, the cellulite embarrassment, pimples, facial hair, body hair and what not! Name a thing and there is a beauty treatment available. The list is never-ending and I would not go deep in that, I am least interested. But I am amazed at the fact that these elements have become the major deciding facets and are causing lower self-esteem in people all over the world. The beauty pageant shows where we actually perceive the idea of perfection was not meant to come up with such an idea. It welcomes contestants without any discrimination. The society also is not any less in favoring a set idea of beauty standard. Indian beauty, African body, English skin, American blonde, Lebanese shade, they are all beautified by the society itself. You are not beautiful until you match their criteria? But tell me this, do you want to be limited by these silly codes? What about the will of a free bird? What about the concept of beauty where the soul is kind?
Women have become conditioned to believe in these sets of beauty pre-described by society. Why should a dark-skinned girl feel inferior? Why a girl with 0-size figure should become the gold standard? Why even gold be the determining factor? Why divide into so many segments? Every skin tone person with any body size is beautiful. The beauty comes with your personality, your confidence, and the inner self.
The beauty standards are unrealistic and are marketing scams. Keto diet, Immediate fasting, Vegan diet, no-carb diet, these are all first-world problems. There is an uncountable number of unfed children out in the streets with bread for not even three times a day. Stay fit, eat healthily but there is no need to invent and indulge in artificial diets. What should be a major concern here is the right nutrition not the calories.
The social media has hampered the mindsets greatly. The various types of filters to create something that is not you is a sham. The natural is beautiful. The kinder is beautiful. The compassionate is beautiful. Beauty comes from within not without. The concept of perfection is itself the biggest flaw the mankind has to see. There is no such thing as perfect. The authentic self is the one true beauty. Embrace it. Don’t emulate someone else. You are beautiful. We all are.
Be You.
Sincerely
A human.