cleolinda:

deafmuslimpunx:

cleolinda:

fozmeadows:

madamethursday:

deafmuslimpunx:

How convenient.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. THIS THIS THIS. 

And waiting for the people to chime in and tell me I’m taking it too seriously and it’s not about race or any other thing like that and that she’s just pretty and that all these beauty measurements aren’t AT ALL tipped in favor of white folks who present themselves in certain ways. Nope. 

Like deafmuslimpunx said in tags FUCK BEAUTY STANDARDS. 

I especially love the part where they actually SAY IN THE ARTICLE that a “fair complexion” is one of the “classic signs of beauty”. FUCK THAT NOISE.

Interestingly, People just today named Beyoncé their World’s Most Beautiful Woman.

Not to be Captain Obvious, but do I really have to point this out? Beyonce happens to be light skinned and voila—- has BLONDE HAIR! (Don’t get me started on women of color who constantly dye their hair blonde in order to be more “beautiful”) She’s often been mistaken as white in photos and ads. She’s just another celebrity feeding into the white beauty standard machine.

Which I’ll re-reblog to reply—I added a flip counter-link without elaborating, but I did think that aspect was interesting, that it kind of cuts two ways (particularly since I do remember that controversial, over-shopped cosmetics ad where she almost looked bleached). On one hand, People’s “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” isn’t lily-white like the “scientifically” “most beautiful” “not enough sarcastic quotes in the world” one (what does that even mean, even taking symmetry into account aesthetics are subjective), so it’s like, conceptually, “We’re willing to choose a woman with dark skin, yay!” On the other… “We’re willing to choose a lighter dark-skinned woman with blonde hair! We can have our cake and eat it too, and that cake is white.”

I mean, tl;dr, I agree. (I apologize for just throwing that link out there, I hope it didn’t sound like POW! THIS MAKES IT ALL OKAY.) It’s more subtle than the LILY OF ENGLAND thing, which I guess makes it insidious. I mean, girls can see that People  cover and, depending how they view it, be inspired in good ways (“I finally feel represented!”)… and “inspired” in bad ways (“but I still have to change myself!”). Like even validation can’t come without a bitter aftertaste.

/hoping not to be an ass

To be the fairest of them all… It’s like the sickest bits of Snow White, like there is no way that chasing that ideal of beauty will do anything but poison your sense of self.