Page 14 - ThePhoenix1993-94

Have You Told Yourself You Are Beautiful? huge zit-how can I even painedly affirming their un- pearances? Then, I would good are forcing tbemselves By CARLEEN ALVES attractiveness are women. think that it must come from into impossible restraints. S'aflw,;,,, leave this ROOM will you Ahbh, morning ...the time tell my professor that I'm Why is this? What do we our parents, and the insecu- Imagine bow limiting tbat it would be to believe when the world is fresh and sick tbis is awful..." learn and teach one another? rities that they pass on to us- beauty is definable. new, when infinite possibili- This statement is under- What beliefs do we accept perhaps our fathers never So, ladies, what tbat ties stretch out across the standable on a Monday, or that can so easily and told us that we were beauti- means is tbat since nothing ful, or the fears of our moth- sky and the trees seem to perhaps during finals. The quickly be dis proven by the ers are seeded into our can be defined as beautiful, greet their passerbys with unfortunate circumstance is gentle-or perhaps not so thinking. (Yes, r speak tbat makes everything about words of good cheer. One when it is said daily, tbree gentle-words of another? It mainly on the perspective ourselves beautiful. And, would wish to savour the times or more. Nor is it lim- amazes me how rarely I and problems for women, believe it or not, we need to beauty of this moment of ited to young people. We've hear, .. God, I'm so gor- but men certainly aren't ex- be reminded of one simple pure pulchritude - unttltbe all heard our mothers, our geous, I love to be me." idea: men do not decide exclamations of a roommate friend's mothers, our next Perhaps it begins when cluded). what's beautiful, either. This is fine when we are shatter the new day's calm. door neighbors and our pas- we're small, from the com- small. However, somewhere What, are men born with the "Oh my God, I look so tors speak these same words. ments of our peers. Even bad. I am so fat/ugly/my Unfortunately, most of the then, where do we learn to along the way, most of us belief that "thin" is synony- accepting mous with "sexy"? Go look other slip into hair is frizzy/ I have this time, the voices heard be negative about our ap- people's standards of beauty at some of the greatest and accept ourselves AF- works of art and tell me that TER our peers have given us the women represented their acceptance. Some of looked like Twiggy. The the most famous performers standards of beauty have receive their approval by be- been changed many times. coming what the audience Men are programmed the desires. same as we are. They watch Let's take a look at Ma- the same T.V. shows, read donna. She attempts to, as the same magazines-they are she would say, get our atten- attracted to images that are tion by shocking us. She ac- familiar. complishes this- and be- What thelle seems to be is cause she has us wide-eyed, a need for us all to do some she has then been given the computer reprogramming. power (note the We could do a hit more glo- statement"been given") to rification of our wonder. create the standards to Just because one person which wcmen adnere. We doesn't like our recipe does find in this woman beauty, not mean that there aren't sex appeal, the sort of per- those who will. And, cer- sonality that grabs us-one tainly, two tomato sauces with a following we'd love can be award winning. Itaal l to have. The premise is that depends of how open- we, as women, believe that minded we are. There is re- in order to be attractive, we ally no need to use less must all be like Madonna. oregano- and although I be- Please. What are we, a lieve that Madonna could bunch of morons? No. I'll use a little less pepper, it admit that I've given a sec- doesn't mean that I will ond glance at Cindy downplay that fact that she Crawford and thought, "On, is a woman, and she is beau- to be on Men's walls and tiful-because this word is worshipped ..... Except then I not restrictive. hear this very raucous voice Tomorrow morning, r sug- in my head (that sounds gest that we all take a step in re- vaguely like Joan Rivers) re- claiming our realm-that we de- minding me of the truth: we cide what's acceptable for our- decide what's beautiful. It selves and allow others 'the doesn't come in a formula freedom to do the same. Look like a recipe: people who at that zit, remind yourself that decide that everyone must it's part of being human, and use the same amounts of ( say, "Damn, I'm so gorgeous." oregano and basil in a to- And get your beauteous butt to mato sauce for it to taste class. WRITERS NEEDED For The Phoenix! Call us at x860()