When I make up I rarely use lipstick. I recently noticed it and realized that for years it has always been natural for me to focus most of my make-up on my eyes and completely forget about my lips. Thinking about this automatism, I realized that unconsciously I deliberately neglect the lower half of my face because it is the one I like least.
Evidently, although I am not a great expert in either fashion or beauty, I have introjected years and years of advice on how to emphasize the parts of the body that “work” and limit the impact of those that “do not work”. Whatever this means.
The body in one way or another always ends up under the magnifying glass: women happen to constantly receive comments, as happened to Emma and her Sanremese look. She happens so often that sometimes it is not easy to realize how much the judgment of others conditions us. Yet, despite we live in a society that is used to commenting on women’s bodiesanalyze and dissect it in all its parts, to specify what it would be better to wear depending on the shape, size and proportions, this same company is careful not to express an opinion openly when shape, size and proportions are in a range infrequent, they are inside the tail of the Gaussian, they belong to disabled bodies.
A journalist who refers to Emma’s legs as “important”, who expresses himself on the clothing she should or should not wear, what would he say to those women who do not fit into any ideal parameter he considers? Women who not only do not have “important” legs, but who may not have legs at all?
I’ll tell you: probably nothing. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that people feel entitled to say anything about women’s bodies, as long as that body doesn’t quite clearly fit into the untouchable fence of disability.
This does not mean that people do not have unpleasant thoughts about our bodies, they do, but the feeling of shooting at the red cross is so strong that when they try to imagine expressing them, it wins – as Diego De Silva said in one of his books. – that very powerful social inhibitor referenced to the vague but unmistakable voice «Pare Brutto». And in fact, when a woman with a disability finds herself in an environment that according to the collective imagination does not belong to her, maybe she is in a magazine or on a catwalk, most people do not have the courage to dig under the blanket of discomfort and the comments slip from her to those who have decided to put her in that context. When Gucci chose Ellie Goldstein for one of its beauty campaigns, numerous comments on social media accused the brand of exploiting disability, when probably those people felt only uncomfortable looking at their prejudice in the face.
It would be enough to think of this enormous hypocrisy to understand how much judging people’s bodies is a truly meaningless thing. There is nothing terrible in starting to tear apart those poles that keep us anchored to a preconceived idea of the body. Because otherwise with the intent to include more and more people, we will see that famous bar drop over time, but never really destroy yourself.
Source: Vanity Fair

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