"In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful".
~Alice Walker
"Aboriginal" beauty doesn't always satisfy the "Western" view, this video of shows Ethiopian cultures and their creative and heart felt senses of themselves and appearance.
“Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”
~Nadine Gordimer
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Notions of beauty have changed with popular culture. Tatoos have become main stream and are sported by accountants, lawyers, and even doctors. Body piercings have moved from the ears and nose piercings of the early 1970s to navel, eyelid, genital, and breast piercing. Young people in particular are choosing to add plugs to their ears, adding plugs of larger dimensions every few weeks in order to stretch the lobe (childhood memories of National Geographic essays on Amazonian peoples).All is done in the name of beauty, individuality, and treating the body as a personal statement, a canvas on which to create.
Left, Vogue Magazine cover; center,Great Britain's Lesley Hornby, aka "Twiggy" helped to form 1960s body image trends; right, Queen Latifa.
Twiggy turned 60 this week and to honor the 1960s legend, British Rose Breeders and Growers along with Harkness Roses named one for her. When we looked at Twiggy in the 1960s, we thought "too thin" but we also desired her image. Which came first Twiggy or Anorexia? Anorexia, of course, but the popularization of her dangerously svelte form created more Twiggy Types including Helen Hunt,Paula Abdul,Sally Field, and Calista Flockhart.
Do you know that anorexia is PROMOTED and supported by over 400 websites that first appeared around 2000? They are targeted to teenaged girls who empathize and support each other on their personal roads to distruction. CLICK HERE for an article about Pro-anorexia sites that is a proactive help source for parents and friends.
"Everybody then was Twiggy, except me." ~Sally Field
"She's not a legend," 79-year-old Bacall said of Kidman, 37, on Britain's GMTV. "She's a beginner... . She can't be a legend, you have to be older."~Lauren Bacall
Three of the women below are legends, now and forever. Lauren Bacall, probably best known for her lead roles in The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947) was born in 1924. She is the widow of Humphrey Bogart. Her sultry looks and husky voice make her instantly recognizeable, even today.
Dame Helen Mirren will be 64 this year. Born as Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov, Mirren has "Ma and Apple Pie good looks"(yet she is a Brit).The Queen won her the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress.
The legendary singer,Lena Horn, was born in 1917 and lives in New York City. If you are a child of the 1960s you may best remember her appearances on the Perry Como and Ed Sullivan Shows.This American beauty is also known for her work in Civil Rights. "She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi the weekend before Evers was assassinated." (Wiki) [
Above, left to right, Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall, Helen Mirren at aged 61, fames singer, Lena Horn.
Beauty is,Iram Saeed, above, a Pakistani Acid Throwing Victim. Her plight is like that of many women and girls, attacked for many reasons. "In some cases it is because a young girl or women has spurned the sexual advances of a male or either she or her parents have rejected a proposal of marriage." Now more attacks are taking place against men and older women for revenge and a miriad of reasons. Acid Survivors Foundation
Women have been physically attacked to obliterate their senses of beauty and self-worth. A MOVEMENT AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, is a blogspot blog which in May, 2009, focused on Men disfiguring women. Historically, there have been many carefully calculated atrocities in which women are the victims. Disfiguring includes the removal of the labia and clitoris as well as mutilation of breasts, cutting of hair, and distruction of facial tissues including blinding.~
Pictured above, second from the left, Paula McGinley 46, a BBC Radio 4 producer from Camden, North London who underwent a micro mastectomy,Always beautiful, Robin Roberts finished her Chemotherapy a year ago.
Our BREASTS are part of our identity, indeed, we have linked them with our very womanhood. In the age of anorexia, BIG BOOBS are still desired by women and med alike...hmmm. Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham is reported to have her implants removed to change her "Cup" size from a 34DD to a 34B. Tennis star, Simona Halep,17, is planning on a breast reduction this year. In fact, women athletes have been know to bind their breasts to lessen the discomfort that they feel while in the game. A NEW YORK DAILY NEWS article reports that last year, about 140,000 women underwent reduction while "356,000...had a breast augmentation... About 46 percent of the women who had breast reduction were between the ages of 35 and 50, while 30 percent were between 19 and 34."
Breast cancer stats from www.cancer.org. Some women are tested for "THE GENE" and like Christina Applegate, they undergo Prophylactic (Elective) Mastectomy in order to remove that possibility.
Beauty isn't just skin deep. I hope this visual blog has given you pause as will this wonderful Helen Keller quote, "The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."
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