A question of (over) confidence

Here is a question for you.

If a woman regards herself to be beautiful, and she carries herself with confidence and in a way that shows she is happy in her skin, do we immediately criticise her for her arrogance?

Is the fact that the woman feels compelled to announce to the world in the UK press that she is beautiful the point at which it becomes acceptable to open fire at this woman for her arrogance?

This is a complicated issue. For decades, women have been encouraging each other to have greater belief in themselves, to stop looking at the negatives and to focus on their positives. As a gender we have pulled together through national campaigns, initiatives etc to highlight the importance of natural beauty and how to love yourself despite any flaws you have worried about your whole life.

What Samantha Brick did yesterday is to put her head high above the crowd and say "hey everyone, check me out! I am gorgeous and I am comfortable with that".

On the face of it, well done her in my opinion. I mean, it is not something I would be comfortable to do, as i would worry about the tsunami of abuse that would surely follow, but at first glance, part of me has to admire that confidence.

Dig deeper though and you start to see that she isn't just saying how lovely she is, she is also saying that women resent her beauty and that they are threatened by it. This is not so good.

I can relate to what she is talking about to an extent....every woman can I'm sure...you know what it's like when you walk into work feeling great in your new outfit, and someone feeling less great will give you a quick all over look that makes you feel so uncomfortable you doubt yourself just for a moment......we have all fallen out with other women for a myriad of reasons and we have all probably upset other women at some point in a social situation. What do we do? We get over it and move on. Simple.

So has Samantha crossed the line? Yesterday saw her as being the second highest trend on twitter. Her article in the Daily Mail attracted around 18,000 comments. Clearly, she has provoked strong opinion. But to what ultimate gain?

Will the article make her more popular with other women? Doubtful. Is she likely to be propelled into celebrity as a result? Unlikely

Has she set us back a few years in the battle for women of all shapes and sizes to openly view themselves as beautiful? Quite possibly.

Redefining Beauty Through Bravery

A group of Texas school girls have decided to forgo wearing makeup every Tuesday in an effort to redefine the popular view of beauty.  And more shocking even that that is the news that the young men are in agreement that they look better!

The whole point of the exercise is to increase self confidence and empowerment among an age group which most of us would remember as being one of self-awareness and embarrassment.

The idea started small, with just a few girls deciding that they would venture out exactly as nature intended after finding a website called Operation Beautiful which promotes the concept of natural beauty in preference to the increasing pressure to wear a cosmetic mask.

Gradually the concept grew and it has now become so popular within the school that the girls wear special purple T-shirts with the slogan "Redefining Beauty" on the front and "One girl at a time" on the back.

Feedback from the guys at the school has been really positive, with the consensus being that the girls look just as lovely without make up and that they don't need make up to be the wonderful people that they are.

This is such a positive news story that I just had to share it with you.  Regular readers will know that I hate anything to do with cosmetic surgery for reasons of vanity and it is a matter of great concern to me that young girls today are under so much pressure to be perfect.

It would be absolutely amazing if this concept could catch on and schools across the world decided to try it out - I know that it would be of huge benefit here in the UK, for sure.

So spread the word.....natural is great.  And thank you the young ladies of Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas - your bravery is inspiring and I wish you every success in redefining beauty.  Lord knows, it's time! 

Is Beauty Only Skin Deep?

When you think of the ideal physical attributes that a man or woman should possess, who do you picture in your minds eye?

I would imagine it is unlikely that you would picture yourself as an example of physical perfection (although if you do, I greatly envy your self confidence!).  The simple fact is that there are very few people out there that meet the popular definition of beautiful.

The usual suspects in a situation like this are the Angelina Jolie’s and Scarlett Johannsen’s of this world…..those that I like to refer to as “the beautiful people”.  But what makes them beautiful?  And are they truly born more beautiful than the rest of us or it is cosmetically assisted beauty?

It is no secret that Hollywood – in fact celebrity in general – is riddled with surgically enhanced physiques, and it is getting harder to find a natural beauty in amongst the sea of nose jobs, boob jobs and eye lifts

What worries me is that with all of the surgical intervention that we know is going on, how can teenage girls benchmark themselves against this beauty in anything other than an unrealistic way?  I am a grown woman and I find myself occasionally judging how I look against the ideal woman.

Fortunately I am grounded in reality enough to realise that I am never going to match up these days – I mean if I wasn’t all that when I was 22, I am not likely to transform into a siren in my mid-thirties now am I?!

I have toyed with idea of cosmetic enhancement – sadly I was not as blessed as I would have liked in certain areas – but I have always shied away from it on the basis that although what I have isn’t quite how I would wish it to be, it is at least, my own!



Russell in a skirt (wouldn't say that to his face!)



Then you have the consideration of personality versus looks.  I believe that looks are only part of what makes a person attractive.  For example, if you have someone who is absolutely gorgeous – total perfection – but they have a mean spirit – would you find them more than superficially attractive?

My favourite example of this phenomenon is Russell Crowe…..bear with me!.....I loved Russell in Gladiator.  I had a huge crush on him after that film and thought he was so attractive it was ridiculous.  Then he allegedly punched someone.  He did successive interviews where he appeared to be sullen and grumpy and self-obsessed.  And my love was gone.  Personality (as perceived through the media at least) was horrible, therefore his beauty was no longer visible to me.

Aaah....Bless him!

Then you have someone like Steve Carrell.  Not the world’s most handsome man – more quirky and funny I would say.  But he seems to be such a nice man, and he is funny, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Therefore if Russell and Steve both wanted to take me out (and my husband was open to the idea – which is never going to happen!) I would choose Steve.  Every time.

So what we need to do is try and encourage young women to understand that there is more to attraction than how long your legs are/how big your breasts are/how skinny you are.  I don't know how we can achieve this in a world where magazines and movies thrust the idea that beauty is everything down our throats at every step, but at least we can take some small consolation in the fact that as these young women grow older, they will come to realise that often it is worth looking a little further than skin deep when deciding how truly beautiful a person is.