BEAUTY AND THE BEST OF ENVY
by Sharmin Jahan Nadia
All girls would love to be good-looking, wouldnt they? But to be beautiful, going by the experience, is something to be dreamed..
John Keats wrote that a thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases, it will never pass into nothingness, but still will keep a power quite for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health and quite breathing.
The poets words are typical of the commonly held view that if you are beautiful, your life is blessed in every other way, as though aesthetic charms can shine on all areas of ones existence and make them equally perfect.
Those who are blessed with good looks, however, know that can be a handicap. For close friendship can extremely be difficult, especially among women. Girls in a group can be particularly cruel. They choose to persecute as a gang in order to have maximum effect on their victim.
Recently, a sixteen-year-old girl realised every teenagers dream when she won a modeling contest. But when glamorous pictures of her appeared in magazines, her classmates taunted her. The bullying became so intense that she stopped going to school. It is usual for beautiful girls to have happy memories of school days, but they also remember being hurt by whisperings behind their backs over minor issues. Teenage girls are not always made of sugar and spice. They can be a concoction of insecurity, envy and greed at a time in their lives when they are in limbo between being girls and becoming women. It is no surprise that the girl who won as top model was greeted by jibes _ such as Who does she think she is? _ every day at school and her life became a misery. The girls who taunted her are simply cowards, whose only gripe is that one of their peers is prettier than them. Being good-looking or attractive is hardly a crime that deserves punishment. Beauty is something a person is born with; it blooms at different stages in different people. In some, it never develops to the extent they would wish, and as a result, they bear a constant grudge against those they consider their superiors in the beauty stakes.
When I was writing this piece, I had strong reservation as to whether I could write about beauty without being pilloried by my friends and family. I was brought up in an atmosphere of relentless, harmless teasing, and one of the best bits of advice my mother gave me was that I should be able to laugh at myself. Never take yourself too seriously was the edict she impressed upon me and my brothers. And if there was ever any hint that one of us was becoming even slightly conceited, it was knocked out of us. Armed with this background of self deprecation, I was unprepared for the instances when my looks were taken seriously in later life. I dont consider myself to be anything other than ordinary looking and, like most other women, have always wanted longer legs and thicker hair _ traits many believe are the ticket to a career of your choice.
It is true that in some jobs, looks are a bonus. I dabbled in modeling but I certainly was no Claudia Schiffer. Being young (ish) and pretty may help you get through the door of an interview, but it certainly wont get you the job. It is a double-edged sword, because some employers do discriminate against looks.
The real test for me was when I embarked on my career as a writer. I realised that I had to be taken seriously and not as some itinerant flibbertigibbet dabbling in writing in order to prove I had some grey matter under my hair. Undaunted, I have continued with my chosen career and have carved out a reasonable niche for myself in what is a highly competitive market.
It is difficult not to make rash assumptions about people based on their appearance, but so often one is wrong. Again, women are particularly skilful at this sort of criticism. I have a friend who can never bring herself to say that another woman is beautiful. There is always something to hit, even if her target is a real life goddess. She will say: Sure, she is great looking, but did you see that hair coming out of her nose?
What we should be getting much more worked up about is the huge amount of influence wielded by womens magazines, which suggest that if our physical features and appearance are less than super model standard, then we must rush immediately to the nearest plastic surgeon for a bit of silicon here, a nip and a tuck there and bingo! You will then become an acceptable human being, capable of taking on the world. But a world full of Claudia look-alikes would be a frightening place. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and we all have a chance to be loved by someone, whatever our looks are.
Only if we could cast aside our envy of others!
