Madison Walters: The beauty dilemma

Dear Warriors, here’s what I have to say. Heres my love, I hope it helps. Maddy xx

The Beauty Dilemma

I consider myself recovered from my eating disorder, which I never thought I would say. There are many layers to these mental illnesses, and I am extremely passionate about not trying to find just one reason that I struggled for so many years with bulimia. I was mentally ill, yes, and that is what it boils down to, but there were also other factors that contributed to my intense self loathing and dissatisfaction.

I have always wanted to be everything that everyone wants me to be, even in my eating disorder recovery when I surrounded myself with people and influencers telling me that I was perfect the way I was and that I didn't need to change myself. As a woman I feel the need to be everything at once: sexy and cute, bold and timid, reckless and careful. There is always some extreme and - oftentimes - harmful length that I feel like I need to go through in order to be adequate and worthy. On the opposite side, as a person recovered from an eating disorder I feel the need to be body-positive, to accept every part of myself, and to ditch diets and beauty standards that have become so ingrained in western culture.

I can honestly say that I love my body - or at least the parts of my body that I feel appropriate to love. What people don’t tell you in recovery is that afterwards you are still going to feel the need to alter parts of yourself that are completely natural and human. I shave and put make-up on and curl/straighten/bleach/dye my hair. I hide my teeth behind my lips when I smile because I have insecurities about the way they look or when I worry if they’re white enough.

The question I’ve been asking myself lately? Why do I still participate in an industry that harms my mental, physical, and emotional health - and the health of all women? Well, because it’s hard to escape. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements for lotions and potions and procedures that will make us “perfect,” or at least to get us as close as we can. We are taught

from TV, films, books, music, and social media that our worth comes from our outward appearance. More specifically, that our worth comes from conforming to the appearance that the beauty industry has set as acceptable.

In the next couple of sections I am going to cover some topics that I find especially important when discussing ditching the beauty industry: our cultural obsession with youth, stereotypical femininity, and reclaiming the beauty industry. I hope that this connects with you in some way, and maybe we could have a chat about it, no matter your opinion.

Control over women’s (perfectly fine) bodies

If you pay close enough attention to media outlets, you’ll notice that there is never any push for men to remain young. They are allowed to have gray hair and wrinkles; this is often praised as attractive (gotta love a “silver fox”). It is completely opposite for women. Women are expected to remain youthful in all aspects of their physical appearance. This can be seen in anti-ageing products, but is especially noticeable in an obsession with shaving. The only time I was hairless was pre-pubescence. I am well past that point now. I can’t tell you how much money I have spent on hair removal devices, oils, creams, and wax strips to rid myself of one of the most natural things in the world. I am not a child, I am an adult woman who grows hair and I am not sure why I feel like I need to be ashamed of that or feel less feminine because I have hair on my legs.

I want to touch on a growing movement celebrating parts and functions of your body that have been taboo: having a period and different variations of the female body. I have benefited a lot from these movements, but I still feel like there is something missing.

I remember being super critical of my vulva when I was a senior in high school because of a post I saw on instagram. I would pinterest ways to make it “prettier.” It sounds silly now, but

I would spend so much money in the feminine care aisle of the shop looking for ways to change the appearance and feel of a perfectly natural part of my body. Of course, I found the research and read up on how these products are completely unnecessary and do nothing for you. In fact, some of them can negatively affect your pH balance and cause infections. So naturally I stopped buying these items. Since then I’ve started to feel weird about buying the same products to change other parts of my perfectly natural body, such as my bare face and body hair; products that are completely unnecessary and often cause damage whether that be physically or emotionally.