What is Beauty?

The latest buzz regarding Susan Boyle’s stunning performance on Britain’s Got Talent, (stunning only to the people who stereotype what someone with a big voice should look like) has stirred up discussion around body image (see Ellen Goodman’s take on it: http://www.insidebayarea.com/columnists/ci_12292180) and whether or not Susan should have succumbed to the makeover given her after her initial introduction to fame.
An exercise girls do through the Uniquely Me program in Girl Scouts starts by giving girls mirrors in which they are to describe what they see. Initial comments are often negative: “a fat girl,” “a big nose,” etc. Through the program, girls have the opportunity to journal about how they feel about their looks, the messages they get from the media about how they look and ultimately are led around to a discussion and connection with their own inner beauty.
As we are often bombarded with messages, we often don’t distinguish what is our voice, from what is the voice of Madison Avenue, telling us what we should be, how we should look, what we should wear. The Uniquely Me program is designed to help girls find their own voices. The challenge of course, for all women, is to have the courage to choose differently from the popular fashion voice. I know as a grown up that there are choices I make about my appearance that have more to do with the cultural voice and standards than my own. (My staff at the battered women’s shelter in which I worked years ago would tease me that as our financial condition became increasingly dire my “fundraising skirt” became shorter!) I also know there are times that perhaps I am not clear as to what is my voice and what is the fashion standard voice I have unknowingly taken as my own.
Through sponsorship with Dove, Girl Scouts is helping girls get in touch with their own voice, their own standard for how they would like to look, what choices they want to make. Sometimes we may see the compromises we make to fit in and choose to compromise, other times, we might see the path that is clearly laid out for us and choose our own unique pathway. Through this program, girls learn to distinguish those voices, so that when other choices are laid out before them, they make the healthy one. I know that I can’t follow around my daughters (10 and 11) as they grow into their teen years, I can only hope through the Dove program and others, they have learned to discern when they are choosing to go along with the crowd, and when they are courageously forging a new path.