We are all beautiful

Awhile ago, Cam sent me a link to a video from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and thanked me for buying their products for us. He said he was glad we were supporting this initiative.

The video Cam sent (which is in the posting directly after this one) shows the transformation a model undergoes. After watching that video, I checked out some of the other ones from this campaign. My favorite, "Little Girls," is posted too.

I've been thinking I should write something about these videos and the ideas they represent.

Then, today, I was interviewed by my sister-in-law, Johanna for a paper she is working on for her Women's Studies class. They have just finished reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. The book and Jo's paper will address expectations placed on women regarding their appearance in the workplace. We talked about my experiences and agreed that while we want to be perceived as beautiful, we'd really like to be accepted as we are.

While I was talking with Jo, I picked up my worn copy of Women Who Run with the Wolves, wanting to remember what Clarissa said on the topic of beauty. She says:

"I have been taken with the way wolves hit their bodies together when they run and play, the old wolves in their way, the young ones in theirs, the skinny ones, the fat ones, the long-legged, the lop-tailed, the floppy-eared, the ones whose broken limbs heal crookedly. They all have their own body configurations and strength, their own beauty. They live and play according to what and who and how they are. They do not try to be what they are not."

"To be ugly or unacceptable because one's beauty is outside the current fashion is deeply wounding to the natural joy that belongs to the wild nature."

"Women have good reason to refute psychological and physical standards that are injurious to spirit and which sever relationship with the wild soul. It is clear that the instinctive nature of women values body and spirit far more for their ability to be vital, responsive and enduring than by any measure of appearance. This is not to dismiss who or what is considered beautiful by any segment of culture, but to draw a larger circle that embraces all forms of beauty, form, and function."

I agree with Clarissa. Let's draw a larger circle.