Are You Beautiful or Average? The One This Woman Chose Made Me Cry

[sheshe2]

I’m not going to lie, my eyes are a little watery right now after watching this new Dove web ad. In the past year, so many products have launched advertising campaigns that empower and promote those who purchase their products. The Always #LikeAGirl campaign was one of the most notable.

When given the opportunity to go through two doors, one that says “Beautiful” and one that says “Average,” women were forced to decide how they view themselves. The doors were placed all over the world in different languages and time after time I watched women who don’t see themselves as beautiful.

(READ MORE: Model Cameron Russell’s TEDx Talk: Image is Powerful, and Superficial)

Model Cameron Russell’s TEDx Talk: Image is Powerful, and Superficial

In October of 2012, American super model Cameron Russell gave a TEDx talk titled “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model.” She began her talk by walking onto the stage wearing a wee-short little black dress and heels so high they would make anyone’s toes cry “uncle,” and introduced herself. She then promptly began to change her clothing, adding a long wrap-around skirt, a sweater, and flats.

“Image is powerful, but also image is superficial. I just transformed what you thought of me in six seconds,” Russell said. “How we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives.”

“So today, for me, being fearless means being honest. And I am on this stage because I am a model,” she said. “I am on this stage because I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry we call that a ‘sexy girl’. And I’m going to answer the questions that people always ask me, but with an honest twist.”

Russell answers the questions that she perceives the audience of having and exposes the flawed perception of beauty and privilege that is put on display on magazines and runways by professionals that “build” these women, constructing them into objects of desire — sometimes before they’re even old enough to have had a boyfriend or their first period. Russell realizes she’s won the “genetic lottery,” stating she’s the “recipient of a legacy” that history has defined “not just as health and youth and symmetry that we’re biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures, and femininity and white skin.” She backs up that claim by revealing that in 2007 a NYU Ph.D. student counted every single model on the runway, and out of 677 models only 27 were non-white.

Newsflash to women everywhere: You’re beautiful. Whether you think you’re too skinny or too curvy or you’ve got the post-kid sag, or you’re just leaving the gym and sweat is dripping down your ass and you you feel icky. You’re still beautiful.

I loved the mom who pulled her daughter over to the “beautiful” door when she tried to go through the “average” door. Good for mom. Watching this made me want to hug all of these women and look them directly in the eye and tell them how beautiful they are. All of you.

http://bluenationreview.com/beautiful-average-one-women-chose-made-cry/