Defining Beauty by Allison Hubbard

It is a sunny Saturday afternoon in April, and I find myself surrounded by elegant lace, shimmering satin, and the sparkle of crystals reflecting in a room full of mirrors. I am with my sister and my grandmother on the day that is supposed to be one of the most exciting days of a woman’s life. Today, my sister is searching for the perfect wedding dress.

 When we enter the boutique, my sister’s eyes light up like a child in a candy store. She can hardly wait to try on the dresses that she has been dreaming about her entire life. My grandmother and I wait patiently on the pink plush sofa as my sister slips into the first gown. To our surprise, the smile that we saw only moments ago has turned to a frown of insecurity, and tears fill my sister’s eyes. She stands in front of the mirror and complains about hips that are too wide, shoulders that are too broad, and the fact that she will never be “beautiful” on her wedding day.

 My grandmother, who is ninety years wise, wraps her arms around my sister and says sternly, “Honey, you stop that nonsense right now. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? Do you know that when I was your age, people were dying to look exactly the way that you look right now? You. Are. Beautiful.”

 As my grandmother continues to rid my sister of her unnecessary insecurities, I consider the words that she has just said, and I wonder: Since when has being beautiful meant looking like a Barbie doll? Since when has society put so much pressure on women to look so perfect that they lose all confidence in themselves? Why must my beautiful big sister feel so self-conscious on what is supposed to be the happiest day of her life? What is beauty, anyway?

 I go home and attempt to find the answers to these questions in my grandmother’s old photographs and magazines that she has kept throughout her life. The first photograph that I see is a picture of my grandmother as a baby, surrounded by her mother and her aunts in the mid 1920’s. Every woman in the picture has an almost masculine figure, with zero curves whatsoever. They are flat-chested, have no visible waistline, and all wear their hair short and dyed black.  I ask my grandmother about the strangely dressed women in the photograph, and she laughs as she explains that they were the image of beauty in their day. Back then, it was unfashionable to have any curves at all, and women even wore “flatteners” to make their chests appear smaller. I stare at my grandmother in disbelief, thinking that in today’s society, women would not be caught dead wearing such a device.

 I flip the photo album a few pages farther, and find several pictures of my grandmother as a young girl in the 1930’s. She is with her mother again, yet here, her mother almost looks like a completely different person. Now she has soft, wavy, blonde hair and a much more feminine figure. Her ivory skin is now a golden bronze. “Grandma,” I say in amazement, “what happened to your mom? She looks so different here!”

 “Yes,” my grandmother replies. “I remember going with my mother to get perms about as often as we went to the grocery store, and watching her cover herself with baby oil before we went outside, just so that she would get the perfect tan.” As I consider this, I realize that what was beautiful just a few years before was now extremely unattractive by the new standards of the 1930’s.