Vanity

I noticed something the other day while I was on the bus. People continuously look at themselves. At night, when you can see your reflection in the glass, it’s nearly impossible to not look at yourself. It’s human nature. Everyone looks once in a while and they always do a certain pose or facial expression that they use when they look at themselves, and it’s quite funny to see.

The point that I’m trying to get at here is that everyone is more obsessed with the way they look then they would care to admit. It’s pretty embarrassing to be caught checking yourself out. People are vain in every way that you can imagine, whether it’s the way they look, personal achievements, or just the way they live their life. In The Beauty Myth, Wolf discusses “the area of appearance that seems to be one where women feel they can most easily exert some control over how they will be responded to.” (43) Somebody might be judged for taking too much pride in their appearance, but it’s true that people will judge you based on appearance. Anything from what you’re wearing to the color of your skin, it changes the way people perceive you.

“To tell a woman she is ugly can make her feel ugly, act ugly, and as far as her experience is concerned, be ugly.” (36) This quote from The Beauty Myth what a huge affect other people’s opinions can have on a person, and the way somebody looks is a huge factor in what people think of them. If you tell someone something negative about them, they’re probably gonna end up thinking about how they can fix that part of themselves for hours, if not days. So when the marketing industry not only implies that there’s something wrong with women if they don’t look like the women in their ads but also offers them a solution then they’ll get customers. I’m not saying anything is wrong with taking care of your appearance, I’m just saying it’s not right to judge people based on it.

So how can we fix this? How can we stop people from judging others based on appearance? I’m never 100% certain about anything I suggest for the entirety of the world but if I had to suggest one thing, I would try and eliminate stereotypes. Stereotypes of all kinds are what us judge without knowing one another and I really think that if stereotypes became a thing of the past, then people would stop worrying so much about how people view them.