My journey of being ugly.

Magic mirror, who is the fairest one of all ?

I have always been asking myself if the amount of time I take to embellish my physical appearance is self-affirmation or a sort of expel from the nametags I have been given : fat, ugly, chubby… The way I get frustrated if a pimple shows up on my periods or if my belly is showing is far from being normal. Because the normal woman I should be is a put together one, with a fair skin and a shaped body.

The idealized body image we all get from the unattainable beauty standards extinguishes one’s confidence, and so it did for me. My experience of not being beautiful enough led me into eating disorders, self underestimation and social withdrawal in a period of my life. At some point, I realized that self harm was my one and only alternative to appeal the love I wished for, the job I dreamed of or the future self-projection I had.

Before scrolling Instagram, there were TV shows and fashion industry that used to give us the right image we should all follow. Although it was typically eurocentric, we unconsciously accepted to be considered as second degree people, the ones that would never get an overwhelming positive first impression.

Now that everyone is damning these standards, brands got the solution as always ! Desguised tokenism.
Companies as Gucci and Calvin Klein have launched new marketing campains for underrepresented people, the ones with unwanted body figures, cellulite or hairy legs. The perfunctory effort they are currently making for minorities or past rejected groups would never, for me, erase the absurd weight of selfrejection we got to overcome over decades.

As a person who is still considered fat, I radically reject the reconciliation attempts beauty companies are making. It’s because they are simply giving us a second chance of being beautiful. While what we surely need is a second chance of being ourselves.