Lilia and I have recently started having play dates with other babies and moms. Yesterday we met up with a new Chinese friend and her 11 month old baby. This mom lives on one of the university campuses that is a short walk from our apartment… there is a lot less traffic on campus, and a lot more trees…which makes it a good place to go for a stroll. While we were waiting at the place we were supposed to meet our friend, Lilia played the role of “foreign super star baby.” People gathered around us, making clucking noises at her, touching her hands and face, and saying over and over “Bee-yoo-tee-full.” At one point we must have had about 10 people leaning over her, all trying to get her to smile (which is, fortunately, not too difficult to do).

Once our friends got there we found a little clearing where some other moms and babies had gathered. I was telling her about the scene she’d just missed, and my friend said (in Chinese): “She is beautiful. She is much, MUCH more beautiful than you.” Then in English, she said “No offensive.” :)

I thought it was funny. I wasn’t offended, as I know that Lilia is more beautiful than me (and want her to be). I just wouldn’t have ever said it that way myself. Yet another example of how the supposedly indirect Chinese are often very, very direct.

I was babysitting ESL study block at my old high school yesterday morning when I saw the desktop background on a Chinese student’s Acer Netbook.

“Is that a girl?” I asked.

The student, a teenager from Guangdong, looked slightly shocked and annoyed. “No! Of course not!”

“Are you sure?” I smiled and she and her friends knew I was just joking. But honestly, I was only half-joking. Here’s the photo:

It’s Korean pop star 金范, but I don’t know his Korean name.

Sometimes my northern Chinese friends mention how they think southern Chinese males, especially Taiwanese, are too feminine. They laugh at the way they talk and they way they look. Sometimes they say that Western (white) women are too masculine. I had an American co-worker in Tianjin who smoked, and she was constantly told that this made her too masculine.

Now, I’m not saying men can’t 打扮打扮 if they want. But I’d be lying if I pretended that young urban Chinese masculinity ideals — or at least Chinese pop media masculinity ideals — don’t sometimes appear a little feminine to my Western sensibilities. And the women, at least the young and trendy relatively privileged urban ones and their pop culture role models, seem like they’re trying to embody an extreme femininity: anemic, weak, passive, desperately in need of a male’s strength and assertiveness (there’s even a term related to this: “little birdie leaning on a man”/小鸟依人). It’s like gender identity in general plays out a little more toward the feminine side of the scale in China.

Westerners have been getting this impression for generations, as have the Chinese themselves (“feminine” is one of many adjectives Lin Yutang uses to describe Chinese masculinity). There are lots of reasons why Chinese and Westerners perceive each other as too masculine or too feminine — some of it’s biological, but a lot of it’s cultural. And this post is really only talking about the thin slice of Chinese society that foreigners interact with the most: the urban, educated, relatively privileged with enough disposable income to enjoy a consumerist lifestyle. (If foreigners in China spent most of their day-to-day lives with peasants, I wonder how our gender impressions might be different.)

Ever since my first major cross-cultural experiences in rural Uganda and Tanzania, where my language teacher and new friends explained in all sincerity that fat women are more attractive than skinny women, and then laughed so hard (once they got over their disbelief) when we told them that in America it’s the opposite, I’ve been aware that a lot of the specifics of what we “naturally” find attractive (fat/thin, dark/pale, tall/short, muscular/weak, smooth/scruffy, manicured/”man-hands,” etc.) have a lot to do with the families and cultures we grow up in.

Other posts about Chinese/Western beauty ideals:

• Please stop paying attention to my… (by Jessica)
• Beauty is all in the eye…lid? (by Jessica)
• White is beautiful… (by Jessica)
• The Men and the Boys
• 小鸟依人 (“little birdie depending on a man”)

Just when I start to think that I’ve gotten used to something over here, a whole slew of things will coincide to test that assumption and prove to me that I’m not nearly as used to (whatever) as I had thought. Sometimes this “whole slew of things” doesn’t all happen to me, but is shared experience spread out among myself and friends. I’ve mentioned before here how people, especially salesladies, like to make comments about body shape and size…sometimes grabbing and touching as well, to illustrate the point. I think I have discovered now that it’s not just salesladies, its women over a certain age (about 40 years old)…and it just so happens that most salesladies fall into that range.

All that to say, recently there was a weekend in which the experiences of myself and several of my friends proved to me that I’m not nearly as used to these comments as I had thought. While at the gym, a good friend had the following experience (quoted from an email to her family) which sort of seemed to kick off a whole weekend of people paying entirely TOO much attention to foreigner’s body shapes…especially the hind end. :D

On that day, my friend said:

One of the many people who decided to converse with me (that day) was one of the cleaning ladies. She is really nice and I usually say some little nothing to her most days, even though her accent makes her hard to understand. Here’s my favorite paraphrased and truncated excerpt of her conversation with me: “WA! Your face is getting really thin. But your butt, back here (pointing in case I wasn’t sure which butt she was referring to), is still very big. Why don’t you try to lose some weight back there? It’s not very attractive. Everyone says. (I LOVE that part) Do you understand me when I speak Chinese? (She asks this 2-3 times every time she speaks with me) You’re upper body is thin too but, aiya, that butt….” I said something like blah blah genetics blah blah taking time but on the inside I was laughing really hard.

It should be noted that my friend is of a pretty average size for a North American…curvy, but not to an unusual extent. I’m proud of her for being able to laugh it off at that point…that’s how you know you’ve started to get used to this kind of comments. When I first came, comments like this made me want to go home and cry. Now, I’ve also gotten to the point of laughter most of the time…however, when the comments keep rolling in, all in a short period of time it gets a little harder to just shake off.

Later that afternoon, I went to the mall below the gym looking for some summer clothes. I located a rack of capri pants that were on serious sale, and started looking through them. As I was looking through them, the saleslady came over to me…and trying to be helpful, picked up a pair of shorts from the rack of MEN’S shorts. Assuming that I didn’t speak Chinese, she pointed at me, pointed at the shorts, and then pointed back at me again. Meaning, in the universal language of “gesture”: “I recommend you try these.” Not only were these men’s shorts, but they were the BIGGEST pair of shorts I have ever seen in my life. I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that I could have fit my whole body (with room to spare) in one leg of these shorts. Um, thanks for the recommendation, saleslady. So, I finally managed to say something along the lines of “Hey, those are men’s…and they’re way TOO big!” To which she replied, “Well, you definitely can’t wear those pants that you’re looking through, there aren’t any big enough for you!”

The next day, the same friend quoted above and I decided to go clothes shopping. We went to a favorite local market that sells mostly clothes that were intended for export (meaning: they often have clothes in foreign sizes!!!). My friend found a pair of linen trousers she wanted to try on and asked the lady if there was a place where she could try them (most of these shops hang up a sheet behind which you can try on clothes, but this one didn’t have one). The saleslady took one look at her, looked at the trousers and said “Nope. You can’t wear those. You’re too thick back here” and proceeded to pat my friend’s butt. Then the saleslady pulled a pair of trousers (five or six sizes bigger) off the rack and said, “Here, try these.” These trousers were obviously far too big, and my friend said so. However, the saleslady just shrugged her shoulders and turned to the next customer. We gave up on the linen trousers and went to the next stall. As if that part of her body hadn’t garnered enough attention in the preceding 24 hours, within five minutes of this conversation, a random passer-by also happened to run her hand over my friend’s rear-end.

There were more incidents that factored into this particular weekend, concerning both myself and several other friends, but in the interest of brevity (ha! no hope for that!) I’ll spare you all the gory details. Suffice it to say, it helped me realize that I’m not quite as used to all this commenting as I had thought. The occasional comment is easy to laugh off (which is progress), but by the end of a weekend which seems like it has been chock full of comments toward yourself and your friends…it gets much harder and more frustrating.

Now that time has passed (and the comments have gone back to normal levels), the humor in all of this has returned. I don’t want what I’ve posted above to be taken only as a vent though, because it actually has triggered some interesting thoughts and important realizations on several levels. I hope I can blog more about some of this stuff later on, but for now, I’ll just list a few of the thoughts below.

1. The notion of customer service in China is entirely different from in North America. In China, the customer ISN’T always right. Salespeople consider themselves to be experts in their fields and the “service” they are providing is that of telling you straight out what you can and can’t wear (and why). There is no need to flatter and cater to the customer’s whim…because with a population this big, the loss of a customer or two is no big deal. This can be a jolt for the foreign customer…who expects not only to be fawned over a bit, but is also not expecting (what she considers to be) personal comments regarding body size/shape.

2. It seems like a possibility that body shape/size/looks may be, particularly for older generations, a less important factor in self-worth than in North America. I was telling a friend of ours who is Chinese (born and raised in Taiwan) but completely bi-lingual (educated in international schools and graduated from college in the US) about these incidents and she said that she feels like these women are that direct about body shape/size because to them, in the end, it really doesn’t matter as much. Somehow less of who one is is invested in their shape, size, or looks…and that makes it okay to make comments about things that are obvious to everyone. This is an interesting idea, especially juxtaposed against the things that I hear from my young Chinese friends which indicate to me that, even if the above has some truth to it, body image and looks have shifted to become more important somewhere in the last several decades.

p.s. To top it all off, when I told my teacher (who has heard about this same phenomenon from many students) about all the comments/touching incidents within that one weekend she first sympathized (she gets comments from salesladies too), but then responded with the following “说实在的，我有的时候也想摸一摸你们的屁股!” or roughly, “Hey, to tell the truth, sometimes I want to feel your butts too!” Hilarious…though I still haven’t quite figured out whether this is just plain curiousity speaking, or because patting someone’s butt is some kind of affectionate gesture…or quite possibly, it’s a mixture of both.

Given the talk I overhear on a daily basis in the ladies locker room at the gym and in the halls at our school, it’s evident that in China – as in the rest of the world, I’d imagine – body size/shape is an important element of female beauty standards. It’s also talked about much more directly than in the US, where it’s usually fine to comment on someone’s thinness…but not at all okay to comment on someone’s fatness.

But here in China, just like friends often greet each other with “You got whiter!” or “You got darker!” it’s also not uncommon to hear “你变瘦了!” (You got thinner!) or “你变胖了!” (You got fatter!). Sometimes this will be shortened to a simpler “瘦了!” (Thinner!) or “胖了!” (Fatter!).

It’s also not uncommon for random people (especially salespeople in markets for some reason) to grab hold of one’s upper arm and exclaim about how fat one is. Especially when one is a foreigner. At that point, it’s quite common that the foreigner has to work hard to restrain the urge to punch the lights out of this person who not only invaded valuable personal space, but also pushed the sensitive “weight/size” button. Then most of these salespeople go on to try and sell us their fabric or vegetables or whatever, and wonder why exactly we’re NOT inclined to buy. Yes, I’m speaking from personal experience here, though at least no one has dared to pat my tummy yet and ask how far along I am (another foreign friend has had this happen more than once). Yet this doesn’t just happen to those of us that are bigger, it also happens to foreign ladies that most of us would consider to be of “average” build.

I should point out, however, that the above interactions were all between females. I think guys around the world have enough common sense to know that it’s best not to be quite THAT direct when talking about a lady’s body size/shape. As an illustration of this, last week I got a compliment from Mr. Lu and the other old guys that sit around on the corner and repair bikes all day. However, their way of paying me a compliment was pretty indirect and really interesting.

Last Friday night, Joel and I went for a walk in the park. On the way to the park, we stopped at the corner to chat for a few minutes with Mr. Lu and company. As soon as we walked up, Mr. Lu started to chastise Joel. “大江！ You’re not being a very good husband these days!!! You’re not taking very good care of your wife!” We both looked slightly surprised at this unusual start to the conversation. Mr. Lu continued by asking Joel, “Why aren’t you giving your wife enough good food to eat?” At the puzzled looks on our faces, he grinned a little bit and said “She’s gotten too thin!!!”**

At this, we laughed and I began to explain that Joel is taking care of me just fine, but that I’ve been exercising lately. Apparently not quite satisfied with this explanation, or (more likely) just out of the desire to mess around with Joel a little bit more, he turned to Joel again and said, “Don’t bully (欺负） her to go exercise!” Then he turned to me, still grinning, and said, “He’s bullying you to go exercise, isn’t he?! He must be for you to have gotten this thin…what did you weigh before?” (At this point, one of the other old guys hit him and said something to the effect of “Hey, what are you thinking..You can’t ask her that!!!”) Mr. Lu backtracked a little and said “Well anyway, he must be bullying you to go.”

I told them that we’ve actually both been exercising, and that we decided since we’re still young and don’t have a family we should use this time to pay more attention to our health. We all laughed together for a little bit, they all warned Joel that he shouldn’t lose any weight (and spent a minute or two miming what would happen to Joel if he got any thinner), and then we headed for the park. I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be very culturally appropriate for these older guys to tell me “You look nice”…so they disparage Joel’s skills as a husband in a roundabout way of paying me a compliment. I have to confess that even though the compliment was at Joel’s expense, it was still really nice to hear, and I was pretty tickled by their creativity.

**For the record, there’s no need to worry that I’ve suddenly turned into a beanpole or something. Having peeled off the requisite 15 layers of winter clothing and started to get into better shape, the appearance of change is probably far more dramatic than any changes that have actually occurred. :D

I seem to be unable to share these posts about beauty in anything that resembles a timely manner. The fear that what I’m posting is misrepresentation paralyzes me, at least a little. It seems that as soon as I begin to think that I’ve come to an understanding of some of the local beauty standards, I inevitably end up having a conversation or two where my previous thoughts and understanding get contradicted a little or thoroughly rearranged. These kinds of events make me wonder whether these thoughts about beauty, and beauty as seen by the Chinese, bear any relationship to reality at all?

I think one reason for these seemingly contradictory conversations and my continuing inability to pin things down more clearly is the ever broadening influence of Western culture, piggybacked in by movies and media. Obviously, some people have been more influenced by these things than others, unknowing recipients who slowly become conditioned to appreciate the current forms of “beauty” being marketed in media from the West. Of course, this is just one factor of many.

I guess in a way, this is just an illustration of how the definition of “beauty” and what we come to see as beautiful is a complex thing. Aesthetic sensibilities, historical frame of reference, cultural and sociological conditioning, and genetic predispositions in a given population all play a part, not to mention personal taste and preference. What is seen as “beautiful” changes over place, time, and location. It’s hard to define. Perhaps my fears about misrepresenting what is considered beautiful here in China actually have less to do with the specific situation here, and more to do with the reality that worldwide our definitions of beauty seem to be in continuous flux; shifting and changing within our various cultural contexts, shaped by the past and present and impacted by outside influences.

Now that I’ve made my very large disclaimer, I’ll carry on as planned. The next post should be something regarding the female body. After that, there should be another on “sexiness” and then, if you’re really lucky, some thoughts that my female friends have shared with me about what makes a guy “really, really ridiculously good looking.”

Today I was told that I’m beautiful. Not only because I’m really white (this actually was said with a sigh and a slightly envious tone…and I’m NOT exaggerating at all), but because I have “双眼皮” (double eyelids) instead of “单眼皮” (single eyelids). Actually, thanks to my Native American ancestors…I’ve always thought that I don’t really have much in the way of eyelids at all…eyeshadow is just about useless for me. I tried to tell my friend this, but she refused to believe it. So, after making me take off my glasses and close and open my eyes a few times, she pronounced that my eyelids are indeed double eyelids, though maybe not very deep. I guess that depth isn’t the most important criteria though, what counts is that the double lid is present.

Now, this “double eyelid” is not to be confused with the triple eyelids of the camel…there really is only one eyelid, and the term double has more to do with the shape of the lid and the presence of a crease in the middle of it. For those of us who don’t pay much attention to people’s eyelids at all (most of us, I think) I’ll post a couple before and after pictures of people with “single eyelids” that got surgery done to create the apparently beautiful and extremely desirable “double eyelid.” Since Asians tend toward “singleliddedness” this is also (reportedly) the most popular cosmetic surgery in this part of the world.

There…now I’ve passed on my recently acquired beauty knowledge to you. Why does this matter? Well, Chinese believe that “double-lidded” eyes are much more beautiful. I’ve heard from several friends that some Asian born actresses and models that have become famous in the West are, in their own part of the world, not considered beautiful at all…and the lack of a double eyelid is sometimes part of the criteria for this. These friends also told me that they couldn’t understand why foreigners think that Asians have beautiful eyes, given the dominance of single-liddedness. When I tried to explain that most of us are referencing the “exotic” (to us) shape of the eyes, and that many people may not have even paid much attention to eyelids or lack thereof…my explanation was met with a bit of amazement and a hint of disbelief. How could such an important beauty standard not even register on our radar screens? How could shape be a more important factor?

Some of me wonders how much this is a classic case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. We’ve got “double lids” and they want ‘em. They’ve got the “exotic shape.” Neither side is satisfied, and people on both sides go get cosmetic surgery done to change what they’ve got. Fortunately, since my eyelids have been pronounced “sufficiently double-lidded” by a Chinese friend, and “slightly exotic” by Western friends, I guess I can rest easy in both beauty standards. :D Living in a world where some more obvious beauty standards (body size and shape, in particular…more on that in the next post) are decidedly NOT in my favour, it’s nice to at least have one or two things that are.

Okay, I know it’s been a while. I won’t promise to turn over any new blogging leaves, because every time I do…I don’t write again for six months or so. However, Joel bribed me into writing this one (he’ll arrange dinner if I write) and if he keeps making deals like that, you may hear from me a little more often.

This may actually end up being a post series…I keep getting into these really interesting conversations with some of my Chinese friends and keep uncovering more and more fascinating little tidbits that just beg to be shared. Lately, most of these have been regarding the differences between what Chinese and Westerners think of as “beautiful” or “attractive.” I’m not presenting any textbook facts here, or citing any surveys to support anything I’m about to say…just sharing a few anecdotes from recent conversations that have been pretty interesting.

In Taiwan, it was not unusual for some of the older ladies to come up to me and make a big fuss about how white my skin is. At first I thought, wow…I must look really sickly for them to be making this big of a deal over it. Then it dawned on me that I was white and that they LIKED it. It’s nearly impossible to buy any kind of moisturizer or beauty product over here that doesn’t have added “whitening” components. There are whitening creams for parts of the body that I had never even dreamed might need whitening. When friends (foreign or Chinese) go get facials, even I can tell that they have become whiter. It’s also not unusual to hear ladies that haven’t seen each other for a little while say something along the lines of (in a very excited tone of voice) “你变白了！” （You got whiter!)…or (in a “What happened to you?” tone of voice) “你变黑了！” (You got darker…).

My best joke lately has to do with what happens if someone as white as me goes and gets these “whitening” beauty treatments that are available everywhere. I tell my friends that I’m afraid I’ll turn clear…and then they won’t be able to see me. I also have another foreign friend (who is also pale) that recently got engaged to a local guy. On hearing that she must (as part of her preparation for the wedding) schedule a whole round of these beauty treatments, we joked… “What if she turns invisible? Then her husband won’t be able to find her!” Okay, maybe you have to be here and be surrounded by the obsession with whiteness for it to actually be humorous, but we thought it was a knee-slapper.

Having never paid much attention to my own skin color, or that of those around me (except for “working on my tan” while camping in the summer), it’s a bit disconcerting to know that one of the first thoughts that run through the minds of people here (mostly other women, I think) when they meet me has to do with how white I am. I don’t know why this is so disconcerting, except that from my viewpoint, the difference between my skin color and the color of my Chinese friend’s skin is minimal. But from their viewpoint, or at least judging from the things that are said, it seems like this is a very big and important difference between us.

It’s also been fun to watch the reaction from my Chinese friends when they hear about beauty ideals from the Western side of things. Though the idea of a “healthy tan” may eventually get more popular, at this point the idea of intentionally trying to get darker is not only a beauty crime, it’s viewed as borderline insanity.

From my desk-top at a fantastic history lecture by Tim yesterday morning:

It says, in white-out: “Liú Zhōu-chéng [hearts] Guō Jìng-míng.” (Awww…)

Beauty… with Chinese characteristics
Ha, I’m really going overboard with that phrase. There’s not been much to report lately, since other than go to class and study and practice we don’t do much… not that that bothers me. Funny episode in class this week, though: After seeing photos from my glory days, my teacher thanked me emphatically in class for cutting my hair and shaving my beard. She just can’t believe that anyone would actually choose to look like that, and finds it even harder to believe that Jessica liked it. I asked her why, and took the opportunity to ask what the deal was with Chinese people’s obsession with white skin, and she said white seems clean, and darker skin or facial hair looks dirty. Scruff is out. If you didn’t already know, in China it’s the whiter and cleaner the better. No cowboys, and forget playoff beards. Our friends even saw armpit whitening cream in the store the other day. We’ve seen whitening products for body parts I won’t mention here; just take our word for it that in China, white is beautiful.

[Edited to add...]
I just found a description of the apparent “enduring beauty standard” of the Chinese on ChinaCulture.org, thanks to The Journal of Intercultural Learning. Both links have the article’s full-text, and it’s a nice introduction to general traditional Chinese perceptions of feminine beauty, sans reference to feet. But what’s weird is that it gives the impression of describing present day China, as if this traditional perception of feminine beauty still dominates:

…a rosy plump oval face, new-moon-shaped eyebrows, delicate and soft limbs and fingers, and fine porcelain skin. More than skin deep, a Chinese beauty should also have good manners, temperament, tastes, and style of conversation.

Perhaps it still does – most of the teachers at our school seem to be aiming for that standard, actually – but as the Journal points out,

We find the article very interesting, but one might come across very different views when you ask the younger generations, particularly those who were born after the opening-up, i.e. the-post-80s-generation.

Either way, it’s a short article worth the read. I’d be curious to know how the different generations of today’s China feel about it.

I also found it interesting that an article on ‘the’ Chinese perception of beauty, which completely avoids anything negative and upholds a traditional emphasis on feminine morality, happens to come from China’s Ministry of Culture.

Pop quiz: Distinguish the men from the boys. Mouseover each picture for clues.
(Bonus Hint: “pablum face”)
 

 
A recent poll on TMB* asking, “Ladies – do you prefer a Clean-cut or Rugged man?” is split down the middle. I’m beginning to suspect that the equivalent poll to an audience of Chinese women would produce pretty different results. (Seems the poll forgot to consider McManhood.)

It’s no secret that what we find attractive has a ton to do with the families and cultures in which we are raised. My language tutor in Tanzania laughed out loud at the idea that white men prefer skinny women over fat women; he could hardly believe it. In the comments on this post we got into stereotypical differences between Chinese and Western perspectives re: what makes an attractive man. It’s a topic that came up occasionally with friends in Taiwan, too. One used the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean as anecdotes, saying that in Taiwan Orlando Bloom was the runaway heart-throb in LOTR, partly because Aragorn was too dirty. But he wasn’t so well received in Pirates with the little bit of scruffyness he’d tried to get going.

Recent personal anecdote: On Sundays in Taiwan I wore jeans and don’t shave because it was our day off. One weekday a young woman who normally only saw us on Sundays walked into the school and saw me in my teacher clothes (shirt and tie), “Oh, today you are so handsome! Not like Sunday.” (Yes, they really can be that straightforward in Chinese cultures; the foreigner blog world has all kinds of stuff on Chinese ‘compliments.’ It doesn’t offend us – it’s actually really funny – and it’s not as shocking as it was when we first got here. And of course the kids say stuff all the time.) But anyway – rugged is out; metro is in.

All this reminded me of a conversation I had a couple years ago with a guest lecturer from Hong Kong, and this perhaps touches on the historical legacy of ethnocentricity (“Middle Kingdom” = center/zenith of civilization) and xenophobia (foreigners = barbarians). During the mid-class break I asked him what he’d say to North Americans who wanted to live in China. He looked at me – and my beard and long hair – and said, “Well, it really helps if you try to look Chinese as much as possible.” Not what I was expecting. I suspect it was his polite, indirect way of saying, “If you go to China without a makeover, you’ll be a hippie freak show.”

Of course these are just anecdotes and stereotypes, but I still think they reflect significant differences in how beauty is defined in our cultures. The anecdotes are just instances where we bump into these differences.

——

*If you’re not married, at work, and/or not a fan of explicit sexual discussion, you might not want to click this.

Issues
If you want people to read your blog, you have to have issues, preferably personal issues that masquerade as concerned citizenship. And you need to complain about how certain people are mean and/or stupid and are messing up the world. And say things that make people mad. And tell everyone how think. Sort of like what I’m passive-aggressively doing right now. This is especially effective if you’re young, white, and rich, and maybe a little paranoid.

We make a conscious effort not to do that on here too much, and we’ve sworn off politics – our blog is doomed! But by golly if this one didn’t just burn my biscuits…

Beauty
In parts of Africa fat women are sexy. In Japan, it’s slender men. But in the West? We like ‘em fake. We might think this is normal and no big deal. Call me paranoid, but I think living with stuff like this really messes us up. From CampaignforRealBeauty.ca:

And, of course, we can always ask questions about emotional manipulation, reverse psychology, and why a company that makes beauty products would care to fund something called “Campaign for Real Beauty”:

I’m convinced that the media to which we expose ourselves affects us deeply. But bigger questions remain, like “Where does a person’s worth and value really come from?” And, “How do we decide what is ultimately, truly beautiful?”