Let’s talk about beauty.
For instance, the new and improved Barbie. Mattel’s mission to diversify Barbie has come alongside 29 new dolls in different shapes, sizes and skin tones. According to Mattel, "Girls everywhere now have infinitely more ways to play out their stories and spark their imaginations through Barbie. Along with more overall diversity, we proudly add three new body types to our line."
But is this "groundbreaking" move truly any different from our previous schools of thought? How can we socialize and teach our children what is beautiful without knowing what it is, or how it reflects our own values?
In this kid-approved critique, young eyes of all kinds lit up when they saw themselves represented in the new dolls. The positive feedback seems great; the press is raving about this skeptically, highly publicized move. But with only 29 new dolls, how can Mattel possibly seek out to represent everyone in its highly impressionable young target audience? How will it seek to please the entire crowd? Will every single individual be represented in miniature form physically, will Barbie dolls eventually become customizable eventually? Or will it take a different direction entirely? Well, in order to determine direction, one also has to determine destination.
On that note, what constitutes beauty, and how can these components be justified authoritatively? Some might argue that beauty is subjective and does not need to be backed with logic. But say we did venture into that train of theory; say we examined the various facets to this construct and broke it down into its clear, defined roots. Would weeding the purposes that no longer served us bear fruit to perhaps a lush, more fruitful perspective? For where is the beauty in anything that is purposeless?
We are living in a progressive era. In an age where information is at our fingertips, where the need for purpose, self-love and enlightenment overrides social and financial mobility, the movement towards a decidedly cerebral gratification is quite evident. The push for acceptance and across the board is a slow yet steady effort. And yet, there are still components sorely lacking; society still has left a lot of unpacking when it comes to social constructs such as beauty. Beauty is an arm of culture not borne out of clear core values, but rather, values that emerged through biological need, appeal between the masses and the razor-sharp knack for striking gold out of these same masses.
According to Psychology Today, attractiveness is a reproductive motivation; men are attracted to women who illustrate the physical capability of being the best to bear their children, and women are attracted to men who can provide for their children once born. This is highly understandable, as the reasons for marriage served an economical purpose back in the day. However, if we are living in a cultural shift where reproduction is no longer the apex of life goals, do these standards truly stand the test of time? An increasing number of millennials are deliberately choosing to push traditional marriage back in favor of priorities such as successful careers, traveling, giving back, adventures of self-growth and discovery, and of course, more practical reasons. With this evolving set of ideologies in mind, there is an undeniably growing, largely unaddressed demographic that very might find the biological, traditional ideals of beauty a tad outdated.
That being said, how can we redefine beauty to best suit a period of awakening? Is it truly necessary to hold onto such conformed, cookie-cutter ideals of beauty, and where else can we find beauty where it hasn’t been overdone? How can we remain inclusive within beauty-centric rites of passage; how can we please everybody with sufficient thoughtfulness and care?
Well, for starters, perhaps we can put actual thoughtfulness and care into the objective and look inwards. Just like everyone else in our target audience, we need to put ourselves in their shoes, dig deep, and realize what is truly important to us. Whether it's that new position up for grabs at work, that next travel destination, or that exciting new project geared towards a specific demographic, the values haven't truly changed. The medium has, the depth has, the path has. But in the end, the values are placed within people; it's placed within the need for survival, self-love and connection; for understanding and a desire for something greater than the sum of its parts. If we were to measure our motivations, on, say, the Maslow scale, it seems safe to say that our generation has progressed very much past our peers of marriage-focused era and floating just a tad higher on the degrees of self-actualization and wanting-ness (wink, wink). The aha! moment comes when we stop staring so hard at the fine details of physical makeup, and instead focus on what we can find beautiful among all people. We are people, after all; we simply own human bodies which continuously change and do absolutely nothing to reflect who we truly are as individuals throughout time. Although highly incomparable to life itself, we find natural wonders breathtaking because they give us a sense of feeling so insignificant in comparison to the boundless possibilities they entail. Cheesy as it may sound, people are just as boundless in possibilities, if only we focused on having as much a knack for consumerism as we do finding the endless beauty within. We had absolutely no say in what shell we would manifest our beings in, but do have a choice in our words, actions, and intent. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I'd choose to behold a person's evanescence over their exterior, any day.
Unfortunately, all the chaos that happens in the world is a clear result of such simplistic, regularly practiced attitudes towards these external categorizations. If I had a choice in what to teach my child about values with regard to our current state of affairs, I'd say my fellow millennials who are also social justice scholars may be on to something when dissecting any kind of archaic ideologies we still hold dear. I'm all for enlightenment, self-discovery, and transcending previous schools of thought through the small victories. The new Barbie dolls are great, but I believe there are ways we can make them better. But that's an idea to be explored for another time.
