I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.
Interpretation
Many women conform to societal beauty standards and feel pressured to alter their appearance.
Stella Young's quote highlights the internalized pressure women experience to adhere to patriarchal beauty standards. She openly acknowledges her own participation in this system, which reflects a broader societal expectation for women to modify their appearance through makeup, hair dye, and carefully chosen clothing, ultimately emphasizing how these standards influence self-perception and social acceptance.
In practice
In a discussion about societal expectations of women, this quote can underscore the pressure to conform to beauty standards.
We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.
In my own home, where I've been able to create an environment that works for me, I'm hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.
We fill our lives with all sorts of things that make it easier for us to get along in the world: wheelchairs, crutches, grabber sticks, hearing aids, canes, guide dogs, modified vehicles, ramps, as well as other kinds of services and supports. Disability does not necessarily mean dependence on other people.
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.
In many ways, I'm incredibly lucky to have been born with my impairment and that it's visible. It means my path has been predictable.
I truly, truly believe that beauty is something that comes from within.
I don't want to have to be beautiful all the time. I want to be able to look cruddy in my weekend sweats, with a pimple on my face and pimple cream on top of the pimple. The expectation to always be beautiful bothers me.
I wear make-up, and it gets a little bit thicker every year.
I can't tell you how many doctors try to sell me a facelift. I've even gone as far as having someone talk me into it, but when I went over and looked at pictures of myself, I thought 'What are they going to lift?' . . Frankly, I think that in the art of aging well there's this sexuality to having those imperfections. It's sensual.
When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.
That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.
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