elham

I am not opposed to women enjoying their beauty. Women have used beauty and femininity to gain leverage in a man’s world for millennia. There is nothing new or revolutionary about that. But I am tired of the framing. And I am discontent with temporary concessions, gazes and trinkets. When beauty is primarily described as a tool to utilize or exploit or manipulate others with, it keeps women in a survival mindset. It assumes the world is fundamentally male, competitive, and unequal, and that our bodies are strategic assets within that structure. That may be pragmatic, but it is not liberating. The unique and beautiful parts of being a woman are not merely instruments for navigating a man’s world. They are a perspective of their own. A way of being. A value system. A creative force and artistic expression. I want a world where womanhood is not primarily defined in relation to men at all. A world in which a woman’s beauty and being inspires the world to slow down. Enjoy your youth. Enjoy your beauty. And enjoy it because it is yours, not because it is leverage. The less a woman sees herself as a victim fighting for survival in a rigged system, the less she will view her body through the eyes of others and in purely utilitarian terms. There is something deeper available to us than optimization. And I think many of us, men and women alike, are longing for that.