I
have a friend, who posts a new picture of her every single day on social
networking sites, tries to get noticed in terms of number of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’,
and replies thank you messages to each of these. Out of curiosity, I just asked
her why she did this. “Why, you jealous?”, came the flat reply! After some
friendly banter between the two of us, I asked her what was the idea of
thanking each and everyone for an attribute of hers (Yeah! She is extremely beautiful!!),
which she was simply born with and did not have to do much with. “Oh! I do work
a lot for it: parlour, make-up everyday for 2 hours, work out and timely touch
ups!”, she exclaimed, almost fuming at me for undermining her efforts!
When
I was back in my tenth grade, we had a session as part of Value Education on
friendship and anti-discrimination among peers with respect to religion, gender,
colour and looks. The teacher (who was new and had introduced the topic herself)
talked to a group of about 150 students, “… So one should not judge a person
based on his looks. Befriend everyone, not just the good looking people, but
also the not-so-good looking.” At this point, a small group of students started
giggling. She continued, looking at them, “ Yeah! Even for making girlfriends
and boyfriends. Tell me, if you only choose a girl from the set of good looking
girls, where will the not-so-good looking girls go?” – “To the not-so-good
looking boys!”, came the prompt reply; so prompt and so relevant that the teacher
did not question him again.
Right
from our very childhoods, our parents have given special importance to looks.
“Awww!
That baby’s so cute!”
“Oh
my! She has such pretty eyes!”
“She’ll
grow up to become an actress!!”
To
think of it, babies are born with a good sense of right and wrong, indifferent
of looks. Read Research
by PhysOrg.com. But us giving so much importance to grooming and
manners makes them believe that beauty is an important thing to judge and be
judged of. And before we know it, by the time girls turn teens, they are
already thinking of breast enhancement surgeries, nose jobs and wanting the
latest branded lipsticks. Boys on the other hand, dream of Greek-like bodies,
hit the gym and apply the latest skin whitening creams (for men!) Even the
advertisements show that application of X cream makes you beautiful, and (more
importantly) this beauty will lead to self confidence to achieve greater career
goals. And while we know (I assume this, at my own risk of knowing my readers!)
that such products are very less effective, the teens are left with low self
esteems and confidences- over something, which is realistically beyond their
control. Companies have gone to the extent of blaming mothers for skin problems
and to use their product to correct them. See Safi’s ad on
#IHateYouMom campaign.
Even
moving ahead in life, one’s looks play a major role in university and job
interviews: Forbe’s
study. The famous teddy bear syndrome in the US also stands testimony to
this fact: in the past decade, most of the ‘blacks’ in top CXO positions in the
US are accepted, since they possess a warm happy brown faces which relates them
to the genial teddy bear. Of course, they are extremely talented and
accomplished in their works, but when it comes down to differentiating between
two almost equally talented men, it comes to looks.
Is
it fair? To be judged upon on an attribute you have very little control on? Are
we so fickle-minded to make friends with only good looking personalities,
ignoring most of the other intellectually important attributes first up? Maybe
it is the role of the social networking era that influences such choices. But,
in my belief, this thinking is very much innate and is a subconscious activity.
And if we are not born with it, as studies show, then it must be our upbringing
and moulding that plays a major role.
And so,
the only way to change such thinking is to bring up little kids with
encouragement in the things they do, their thoughts than to how they dress (or are
dressed by their parents) and how cute they look. To build confidence in their
actions, their efforts to play ball, be fair and kind-hearted- to such an
extent that they influence other kids to do so as well. It’ll be difficult to constrain
oneself to disregard the innate eagerness to call a cute little girl, cute. But
it is important to do so, to make her focus on building her intellect, slowly
and gradually. Here’s a brilliant blog which gives some specific hints: Lisa
Bloom at Huffington Post.
Till
such a time comes, sadly, it’s really looking like Darwin’s theory of evolution
has evolved to survival of the prettiest.
