During my sophomore year in college, I worked in a Mexican restaurant. Many of the staff were middle aged Mexican women who had immigrated to the United States with their families. They had difficult lives and because of this were deeply knowledgeable about the ways of the world. When the restaurant was slow, I enjoyed practicing my Spanish and getting to know them. Once, I expressed to several of them my desire to get married and have a large family. One of the women responded that she would pray that I would have many children and that they would all be boys. She explained how difficult it was to be the mother of a daughter, to watch her go into the world and suffer the injustices and heartaches that are particular to women. The life of a woman is filled with suffering and hardship. I didn’t understand what she meant then, but now that I have a daughter of my own, I am aware of all that I hope to shield her from.
I’m convinced that much of the hardship women experience is the result of society’s warped interpretation of beauty. Every little girl desires to be beautiful, but when they seek beauty, they are not desiring to be physically attractive but to be interesting, worthy of time and attention, lovely, captivating, delightful. But we live in a culture where beauty is nothing more than a commodity that can be bought in the cosmetics aisle or the doctor’s office, that fades as we age until its gone altogether, that can be bartered for attention from the opposite sex. Even worse, this fickle and fading concept of beauty seems to be the main measure of a woman’s worth. If a woman does not fit into the current fads and fashions that define physical beauty, she is relegated to a secondary role. Yet, if she does meet societal ideals, she is treated as an object to be used, to be enjoyed temporarily before her beauty begins to fade. Women, we are worth so much more.
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| When will she first feel she's not beautiful? |
I look into the eyes of my sweet baby girl and I wonder how long I can protect her from this worldview. How long do her daddy and I have to teach her that she is beautiful and a cherished child of God before someone tells her that she is not worthy because of her physical appearance? Will it be long enough to instill in her an understanding of true beauty shaped by love, kindness, and faith?
Mandi is wife of two years to David and mother to six month old, Lucia Rose. She blogs about their life together at Catholic Newlywed.
I have three boys and one girl (so far) and I only worry about her. Her self-worth, her self-esteem, her virtue, her will power. In our society women are the ones who have to say "yes" and so everything is geered toward pressuring them to do so. Whatever the request may be. There is so much pressure for them to give in, and rarely anyone there saying that they don't have to do what everyone is asking of them unless they truly feel it is right and just. I hope o save her from some of the times that I said yes when I should have said no, but didn't have the courage. And right now, I am thankful I only have one daughter, if there were more I would fear that I would more easily lose one along the way. Isn't that sad? Faith and prayer, faith and prayer.
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