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.
It used to bother me - having bigger, fuller brows. I even plucked them once so I'd fit in, but I hated them and couldn't wait for them to grow back. Now I embrace them. I realized the quirky things that make you different are what make you beautiful.
When I was young and beautiful, I never appeared on the cover of a magazine.
How I grew to believe Black hair has power, genius, and magic in it, defying gravity and limitation. I mean, look at how marvelous it is: Black hair grows up and out.
Beauty is God's handwriting — a wayside sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank for it Him.
I truly, truly believe that beauty is something that comes from within.
Beauty comes from within, not from what you wear.
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