MINA DIARIES: on body image
After spending part of an afternoon reading articles about Body Positivity vs Body Neutrality, I realized a lot of them were saying slightly altered versions of the same things, so I thought I’d summarize them here, then add some of my own hopefully novel and interesting thoughts.
Most of us have heard of body positivity. It actually stemmed from the 1960’s movement to help end discrimination against people who are overweight. Its purpose was to encourage people to love their bodies, regardless of size, color, gender or perceived flaws. In a society where young, tall, slim or athletic, hairless, cellulite-free etc bodies were revered, the body positive movement, which has gained momentum in the last couple decades on social media, encouraged people to look in the mirror and say, “I love this beautiful body I’m in,” regardless of whether the body meets societal standards. We were told that we can embrace, honor and love our bodies no matter what.
And of course, there are criticisms of this approach. The first is that this led to a barrage of slim, tall, white females — already beautiful according to current American standards — posting pictures of themselves on social media and saying things like “but I have a scar,” or “if I move this way you can see what looks like a fat roll,” or something like that, and everyone was praising their bravery, and so the movement wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, it was an echo chamber of positivity for people who didn’t really need it, and marginalized people remained marginalized. (Though if you think about it, this is a criticism of the theory in practice, really, not the theory itself.)
Some more direct criticism: one, body positivity still focuses on physical beauty, and not one’s innate characteristics; it still places importance on one’s appearance. Two, it creates an unrealistic expectation where people are expected to love aspects of themselves that they actually hate. It can lead to emotional suppression and feelings of failure when we’re not able to genuinely love our flaws. And three, it may discourage people from making physical improvements that would actually lead to better health, such as maintaining a healthy body weight.
So then somebody came up with something even better: body neutrality. Body neutrality’s mantra is to remain neutral about your physical appearance and whether it’s considered beautiful. Instead, we focus on the utilitarian aspects of our body. We are grateful that our legs enable us to walk, our hands enable us to grasp things, our movements enable us to accomplish things in the world. Body neutrality is all about gratitude for these simple things, and the rejection of any notion of physical beauty as important.
The criticisms of body neutrality were far fewer. Some people noted that it may encourage us to ignore standards of beauty and forget their impact, much like colorblindness does in the face of racism. Others noted the difficulty in embracing body neutrality for those with physical disabilities. One man remarked that his workplace, in embracing body neutrality, failed to acknowledge some of his special needs as a person with disabilities.
So most of the articles sum up to say that you should try to find your own middle ground and embrace the aspects that work best for you in the moment. Maybe today you want to love the beautiful thing you’ve done with your hair or you’re able to see yourself as a curvaceous beauty. Other days you’d rather just love your legs for getting you to work.
And in general, I think that’s great advice. I’m usually for the middle ground. Almost always, I’m for rejecting any laid out dogma and choosing what aspects of an idea make sense to you, plus adding some of your own ideas. Here are mine:
Sometimes when I’m thinking about beauty standards, I read articles about different cultural standards of beauty from around the world and in history. Like about how the women of Myanmar elongate their necks, or how some Malawian or Japanese people would sharpen or blacken their teeth, or how women of the Victorian era plucked their hairs so they had long foreheads and no eyebrows. Being large has been considered beautiful in many times and places since the dawn of civilization — look at Venus of Willendorf. Thinking about beauty over such a span of time lets us reframe current standards as transient, evolving and ever changing, just like our own bodies. Sometimes our own cultures’ standards and our physical appearance will line up, and sometimes they won’t. Some of us are conventionally beautiful here and now, and some of us are conventionally beautiful in another time and place. So when I get in this frame of mind, body positivity aligns with me perfectly. Some people, somewhere would think I’m gorgeous, some other people somewhere else would think I’m “meh,” still others may think I’m somewhere in between. Makes sense to me to agree with the ones who think I’m beautiful.
But one great thing about body neutrality is that it reminds us conventional beauty isn’t all that important anyway. There’s happiness to be found in every single other aspect of life that isn’t about looks. I could list them (several of the body neutrality articles do), but you know your life better than I do, so it makes more sense to list them yourself. And in the spirit of body neutrality, don’t forget to be thankful for all the joys of being in possession of a body of your very own, here on this Earth.
I do have some beef with body neutrality, though, and it’s not because I’m an esthetician. First of all, the name. It shouldn’t really be called “body neutrality.” It should be called “beauty indifference and utilitarian appreciation for the body.” I understand that name is way too long, but body neutrality is still a misnomer.
Second, if we are truly neutral about beauty, we may fail to acknowledge it where it exists. I’m not talking about missing out on spotting a hot chick or a sexy dude or something like that. I’m talking about seeing the beauty in our differences, in our “flaws,” in one of the things we have that makes us so uniquely human. There’s beauty in the stretch marks that show we gave birth. There’s beauty in scars and fine lines that show things we’ve done and how we’ve lived our lives. There’s beauty in the palest to the darkest skin, there’s beauty in the hips of a hula dancer or the physique of an olympic athlete. If I can see all that, surely I can see and admire some of the beautiful stories my own body tells.
When I think of the contrasts between body positivity and body neutrality, there are three specific people that come to mind.
The first is a woman who came to me years ago for a pedicure. She was from Florida and her name was Broomhilda (if I get to make up a name for someone, it’s going to be a fun name). Broomhilda had spent most of her life out in the sun. She wore sunscreen, so thankfully didn’t have any skin cancer, but she was a woman of European descent whose skin had been not gently kissed by the sun’s rays. She had solar lentigo (liver spots). The sun had damaged the collagen of her skin, it was wrinkly and what most people would call leathery. Having surpassed middle age, she had packed on some extra pounds, was no longer lean. She was tan, obviously. And I thought she was absolutely beautiful. Not because she had a sick tan, but because her skin told a story of her hard outdoor work, and long sunny beach days in between. Her feet relaxed in my hands as I massaged them, they had been hardworking feet. She seemed content, and warmth and beauty radiated from her. If she isn’t a body positive woman at heart, I thought, she damn sure should be.
The second is a man named Diogenes. I didn’t make up that name. That was his real name. I never met him, but he was a philosopher in Ancient Greece who lived in a barrel. His possessions consisted of the barrel and two tunics. He exchanged wisdom for food, and his wisdom was on point, so the Athenians took good care of him food wise.
Diogenes would have been the epitome of body neutrality. He did not give one iota what he looked like. He rejected all societal conventions and materialism. He probably was not very clean, though I do recall reading he washed his tunics in the river.
When Alexander the Great thanked him for his wisdom and offered him anything in his kingdom, Diogenes said, “Stand to the side, you’re blocking the sun.” All he wanted in the world was to sit at the edge of his barrel and catch some rays (he and Broomhilda would have gotten along, now that I think about it). If somebody would have laughed at his silly beard, or pointed out his liver spots, Diogenes wouldn’t have cried or bought wrinkle cream. He would have dropped some wisdom (perhaps in the form of a crushing joke) and then lay down in his barrel for a nap on his tunic-pillow.
The third is a friend I had a long time ago who I’ll call Penelope. Penelope was beautiful, but she didn’t know it. She was mixed race, her mother was white and her father was black, but they had both died and she was in foster care. When we were teenagers we hid around the back of the health center across from the high school during lunch break to smoke cigarettes. One day a man came out and stood with us and smoked, we started chatting with him. He was a black man. He said his wife was in there waiting on a gynecologist appointment, she was pregnant. Penelope asked, “What race is your wife?” And he said, “She’s white,” and Penelope said “Oh no, that poor baby.” The man was taken aback, but he didn’t seem offended. Really, both of us felt for Penelope together. She was clearly having a hard time, to say the least, being mixed race. And without the parents to guide her through it. It would take her many more years of life and struggles and work to gradually acknowledge that she was truly beautiful.
How in the world does all of this relate to my little studio? Well, for starters, I mentioned in my very first Mina Diaries entry that I wanted to create an atmosphere where people could love and accept their beauty. That’s still true. Embracing both body positivity and body neutrality in healthy and appropriate doses is most conducive to that. In fact, body neutrality can be a middle road towards body positivity, as some online articles outline. (If you aren’t ready to love your back fat, your cellulite, your whatever it is, being neutral towards it is a good step away from hating it.)
But also, getting facials and body treatments enhances and reveals the beauty we’ve already got, without trying to change or alter our God-given beauty. I will never, ever, ever tell somebody they’ve got too many smile lines and they’ve got to get rid of them by spending money. I try to love (or on body neutrality days, not hate) my own smile lines and I know what a struggle it can be. But body negativity will never be a thing with me. I know the medical aesthetics industry is a huge money maker, and I get it, and I don’t judge if there is something about you that you want to change. But I only ever want to offer services that enhance natural beauty. As such, I’ll only ever encourage you to embrace yours. (Plus, I’m scared of messing with lasers and needles.)
And if you decide you want to live like Diogenes, I won’t judge you for that either — but if you do, you should still consider coming to Bella Mina once in a while for a nice cleansing foot bath.
