Heavy Is the Head That Obeys
The beauty standard is nothing without you.
By the time you noticed, it had already become a part of you.
At first, you didn’t mind the weight, you realized with a wicked glee that you had finally been rewarded, chosen, even! It wasn’t a halo, it was a crown; a prize for belonging in the realm of the admired. The ornamental pressure felt like proof that you belonged, and it as it sank deeper into your skin, its golden plates nestled behind your ears, it gave you a strange sense of security. You wore it willingly, proudly, feeling the room turn towards you in longing admiration.
As it grew more opulent with time, you told yourself you could take it off whenever you wanted. Hideous insecurity laughed at the thought, as the crown had become your insurance, proof that you were nothing before it, and would be nothing without it. Your crown, precious and admired, is the feeling of ice sliding down your back, judgmental eyes boring into you like stones. The hollow drop in your stomach, the urgent craving to change, to fix, to make it stop. You treated this judgement with reverance, and after awhile, you were consumed by its visions.
The crown you wear, heavy and unbearable, is the beauty standard.
It’s the proof you always find to convince yourself youre lacking. Society didn’t place it on you, you crowned yourself, tightening it each time you traded your own judgment for a stranger’s. Adding jewels whenever you learned to see yourself through their eyes. You called it power, thought yourself a ruler, but it’s a lie. Power lies within, not without. And removing the crown would mean facing the truth: you never wanted freedom. You wanted to be chosen.
Our society is consumed with the idea that the beauty standard has ruined their lives. I cannot, in good conscious, pretend for any longer that this vanity is worthy of sympathy. The standard is not an emperor, not a law, not a god.
Hear me when I say: you are not oppressed by beauty standards, you are the one who upholds them.
But instead of facing this, we lie.
You fill your wardrobe with things you’ve been told to like, schedule out appointment after appointment for unnecessarily cosmetic ‘enhancements’, inject yourself full of toxins that claim to make you as thin as you want. All of this, every ounce of it, pushes you further and further away from who you are. The beauty standard is a farce we’ve perpetrated to cover up our real fear, the possibility that if you stopped following this standard, you would fade into oblivion. The idea that people might not find you attractive anymore, they might look past you, and onto someone else. The possibility of being less desired, less chosen, less studied. You’re chasing compliments, not character. And do you know what will earn you the highest level of praise? Compliance.
It’s almost seen as bravery, to openly discuss this kingdom of vanity, as if like some like some biblical force, the Beauty Standard hath been forced upon thee, impossible to avoid. We speak openly about our hatred of ourselves, dissecting our ‘flaws’ in full public view, Oh, I’d give anything to look like that…If I could just fix this one thing…I’d trade places with them in a second…To be young again…
To plague yourself with such horrible thoughts is a sin.
You do not need to look like anyone else, to rearrange generations of beauty for the sake of what? Of looking like someone else? You don’t hate the beauty standard, you hate not living up to its expectations. And, that, my friend, is not the same thing.
Wanting to be told that you are pretty, that you are worthy, is not oppression.
You may think you’ve been crowned, the beauty, the muse, the one to be looked at. But this is no kingdom you can rule. There is no throne, no subjects, no sovereignty. The crown is not a mark of dominion; it is a mark of obedience. You wear it to be allowed inside the gates, only to find there is nothing on the other side.
And because it gleams in the right rooms, you convince yourself it’s worth the ache.
Each day, you have a choice.
You have full autonomy. You are not being forced. The addiction of external validation will cease when you no longer feed off it. When you no longer place your value against the perceived worth of someone else, someone you dont even know. But every single time you waste your precious breath to criticize the beauty standards while still running to meet them, you prove exactly why they work. They don’t work because they’re powerful. They work because you keep them alive. You take pride in upholding them, in pleasing them, in being the best, the winner, their champion.
When you contort yourself for admiration, you are not serving anything divine. You are not oppressed by a standard that continues to change, evolve and grow, you are obedient to it.
Please hear me when I say that the pursuit of acceptance is not the same as freedom. Acceptance inside of something outside yourself will never give you freedom, its impossible, all it can ever provide you with….is standards. Standards you will have to live up to, to gain approval. Do you see how twisted this is? How we have contorted our minds? Ah, but heavy is the head who wears the crown.
I want you to know, that I think you, as you are right now, in this moment, are magnificent.
You do not need to change anything about yourself to become beautiful. If someone else disagrees, it is a shortcoming on their part, not yours. You do not have to bear the weight of someone elses standards. Put down the crown, and walk away.
Look in the mirror, don’t you remember what we were told as children? Or at the very least, what you should have been told, that we are like snowflakes, each one of us unique? As unique as our fingerprints, or the iris’s of our eyes? When you look down at your hands, the same hands that fascinated Michelangelo for decades, are you not impressed with the grace you possess? Have you ever taken a moment to place your fingers on the nape of your neck, and feel your heartbeat pulsing, the loving flow of blood defying gravity every day, just for you? When you take in a sharp breath on a frozen winters night, can you see the white plume that exits? Do you realize that exhale wasn’t just made by you, but for you, through the explosions of stars in galaxies that no longer exist? The privilege of seeing our breath crystalize in the cold night air, watching the bridge between consciousness and life form from within you, that is beauty worth seeking. That is the self worth finding.
Do not forget: the beauty standard is nothing without you. Your compliance is the oxygen it breathes, and your refusal is the hand that closes its throat. Do not allow yourself to suffocate under the weight of impossible, invisible measures.
You serve no masters, you are bound by no gods.
The beauty standard is nothing. You are everything.
With great personal aesthetic,
Alexandra Diana, The A List
