Back on November 19, Democrats proposed enacting a five percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures as a way to raise six billion dollars to pay for the nation’s healthcare system overhaul. Immediately dubbed the “Botax” by pundits, the idea drew instant fire from cosmetic surgeons, dermatologists and women who enjoy free access to the cosmetic procedures that enhance their appearances and often their self-esteem.
One of our areas of greatest interest and academic study is the intersection of beauty and the brain. A great deal of research has shown that having cosmetic improvements improves one’s mood, self-image and quality of life. It’s not known yet whether that improvement is purely due to greater confidence and pleasure in seeing oneself looking younger and more attractive, or whether there is a mechanism that affects brain function (akin to reports from women with Botox injections that they have a harder time crying). What remains clear is that improvements in beauty tend to correlate with improvements in mental state. So what does lawmakers’ willingness to tax breast implants and tummy tucks say about our attitude toward beauty?
Let’s use other popular taxes as a parallel. The most common tax on elective “lifestyle” choices is the “sin tax” placed on cigarettes and hard liquor in most states. These taxes are levied in part because smoking and drinking are perceived as potentially harmful activities that are basically recreational luxuries; the taxes are, in part, a way of the government saying, “If you’re going to do these things and cause potential problems such as drunk driving and lung cancer, we’re going to tax you for the privilege.” So, by this logic, is Congress saying that cosmetic procedures are equally frivolous and harmful choices made primarily by women (who, by the way, make up only 91 of the 535 seats in the legislative branch)?
That might be overstating, but it’s clear that the message being sent is that Botox and the many other procedures upon which women (86 percent of patients are women) spend billions per year are a somewhat frivolous luxury primarily enjoyed by rich people with too much time on their hands. This could not be more wrong. First of all, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 60 percent of women who get work done have household incomes between $30,000 and $90,000 a year. These are not the idle rich, and a five percent levy would have a real impact on their lives.
More importantly, while a small minority of cosmetic procedures may be playthings for desperate cougars trying to defy time, most women are simply trying to look and feel their best, correct what they see as defects, and enhance the quality of their lives. Beauty matters; it shapes our self-image, our relationships and our career opportunities. It is not an idle luxury nor a socially costly habit like smoking two packs a day, and it should not be forced by a tax into the “sin” category. Beauty, and the doctors and patients who pursue it, should be given their proper respect.
Recently, the author of the Fox Medical Blog, Dr. Keith Ablow, published a piece debunking the supposed connection between the fashion industry’s obsession with rail-thin models and the “epidemic” of anorexia and bulimia among young girls that is supposedly the result of that obsession. In keeping with Fashion Week, Manhattan’s Super Bowl of haute couture, we thought it appropriate to weigh in on this from a woman’s—and a beauty—perspective.
To cut to the chase, this comment by Dr. Ablow seems to minimize the complexity of the issue: “If size zero fashion models cause anorexia, why have decades of exposure to them resulted in an epidemic of obesity among young people?” That seems fatuous or naive at best. Dr. Ablow’s take on the topic is that the whole idea of marketing and media making healthy people more susceptible to things like eating disorders, smoking and violence is nonsense. In the simplest way, he’s probably right: exposure to a flood of magazine images telling her that only being a size four or smaller is beautiful will probably not make an otherwise emotionally healthy young woman say to herself, “You know, I think I’m going to start binging and purging.”
But treating that as the end of the issue oversimplifies it. First of all, we know that childhood exposure to extreme stimuli can produce extreme behaviors. For example, as psychologist Craig A. Anderson wrote back n 2003, solid studies show conclusively that “violent video games are significantly associated with increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect.” But are five-year-old girls watching modeling reality shows and reading Vogue and later becoming anorexic? Insufficient data.
However, what we do know is that unrealistic body images do exert subtle but real negative effects on women who are exposed to them. In their article “Media and Body Image,” published in the 2003 journal Media Effects, Jennings Bryant and Mary Beth Oliver showed that in a majority of studies, women who were exposed to images of ultra-slender models showed a substantial drop in satisfaction with their own bodies.
The point is not that such effects don’t directly drive women to develop bulimia and anorexia. It is that the saturation of images that convey an unattainable (and often unhealthy) ideal produce damage self-esteem in ways that can manifest as a range of behaviors. Those can manifest as depression, social anxiety, yo-yo dieting (surely a contributor to the obesity epidemic) and yes, anorexia and bulimia. It’s the subtle message that starvation-thin bodies are normal, and you’re not quite acceptable unless you have one, that’s partially responsible for our culture’s dysfunctional relationship with food.
Finally, about the supposed non-increase in anorexia and bulimia, says who? This material courtesy of the Harvard Mental Health Letter, released September 25, 2009, puts the lie to that:
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported that hospitalizations for eating disorders have increased in the new millennium. The most common diagnosis was anorexia nervosa, accounting for 37% of hospitalizations in 2005 to 2006, an increase of 17% over those reported for 1999 to 2000. The next most common diagnosis was bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating followed by purging, which accounted for 24% of hospitalizations in the year ending 2006.
Add to that the extremely disturbing increase in websites dedicated to anorexia and bulimia as a lifestyle. It’s hard to imagine anything more unhealthy for a young girl than online communities that promote these deadly disorders as paths to healthy weight maintenance. Ignoring these facts in favor of a “So why do we still have all these fat people” view overlooks the most important issue: balancing our unhealthy “body culture” with images and education that teach women of every age that there are many ways to be beautiful, and that nothing is more beautiful—regardless of your BMI—than total vitality and total self-confidence.
Coming from different aspects of the beauty continuum as we do, we’ve both had a longstanding interest in beauty and the perception of beauty and how they can impact how people feel about themselves and one another. Two of the biggest things to impact teens’ psyches are weight/body issues and acne, so we decided it would be interesting to conduct an image-based study quantifying exactly how acne can alter others’ perception of teens. The study coincided with National Acne Awareness Month, and the results were very interesting.
Working with the American Acne & Rosacea Society (AARS), we asked thousands of teens and adults to offer their first impressions of teens based only on photos of their face. One face was without acne and one had been digitally enhanced with acne. The results showed that teens with acne are more likely than teens without acne to be perceived as shy (39% vs. 27%), nerdy (31% vs. 17%), and lonely (23% vs. 13%). Perhaps not surprisingly, the opposite also proved true: teens without acne were more commonly perceived as self-confident (42% vs. 25%), happy (50% vs. 35%), and leaders vs. followers (49% vs. 29%).
We were expecting the results of the study to show that having acne would be difficult for teens, which it does, but what we both found most distressing was the extent to which acne can really skew the way society perceives teens. We live in a very visual society and based on the survey results, people do make snap judgments about teens with acne. The results illustrate the fact that unfortunately, acne does play a role in how teens are viewed by both their peers and adults. So, what starts as a purely medical condition can have emotional and psychological implications for young people who are often already dealing with social, sexual and cultural chaos.
Our colleague Dr. Diane Berson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and a founding board member of AARS said, “What surprised me most about the survey was confirming the length teens will go to improve their acne and what they are willing to sacrifice.” According to the study, if they could have clearer skin, 59% of teens would go cold turkey on Facebook for one year, 30% would give up dating for 12 months, 13% would take their mom or dad to the prom (now that’s a sacrifice), and 11% would be OK with seeing their grade point average drop. That’s testament to the desperation with which teens view acne and its role as a kind of marker of social stigma—a modern-day Scarlet Letter, if you will.
To us, this indicates a strong and urgent need to connect with teens about what acne is and who develops it so that we can bust the myths surrounding it and foster greater self-esteem in those unfortunate enough to develop it. Human beings of any age have a hard enough separating appearance from intelligence and moral character. How much more difficult must it be for youths who are in the process of slowly (and sometimes painfully) discovering who they are and developing own their body image? By teaching teens that acne is a disease, not a verdict, perhaps we can help foster greater understanding and kindness while making one of the obstacles on the path to adulthood a little easier to climb.
The global news cycle has been dominated by one name since June 25, of course: Michael Jackson. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends, and especially his three children. What a sad end to a brilliant and troubled life.
But we come here to dissect the King of Pop, not to praise him. More to the point, to take a look at Michael Jackson from a beauty perspective, because it’s hard to think of another person in recent times who better embodied the self-destructive power of a cancerous sense of Inner Beauty. As you know from our many discussions, Inner Beauty is the core of all true beauty, and it’s within our minds and hearts. It’s the most vital aspect of the Beauty-Brain Loop, the interlinked quartet of Inner Beauty, Health, Outer Beauty and Environment that creates every person’s total beauty picture.
The foundation of Inner Beauty is self-love. Call it self-esteem, self-worth or whatever you like, the idea is the same: you must cherish who and what you are and find yourself precious. That’s not to say you can’t and shouldn’t improve yourself, but if you’re healthy that improvement will stem from the desire to be the best person you can be. When self-change comes about as a result of self-hatred, desperation to please others, or the desire to change and leave a poisonous past behind, that’s when it can mutate into something dangerous. We see that regularly in patients who have substance abuse problems. It’s all born of the same impulse, to become someone else, anyone else.
It’s not a stretch to say that the late Michael Jackson was the patron saint of such self loathing. Just look at how he changed physically from his 1979 Off the Wall album to the bizarre and sad years and months before his death. In 1979, we saw a young, slender and handsome African-American man. But over the years, Jackson slowly whitened his skin, shaved down his nose until there was almost nothing left, and seemed not only to want to shed his tumultuous family past but his race, his gender and even his humanity. What was left in his later years was a pale phantasm who rarely went into the sun, wore a surgical mask over his face, and looked more like a figure at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum than the stunning, beautiful young man who brought us Thriller in 1982. Eva lived not far from the Jackson family and witnessed Michael’s overworked childhood and meteoric rise to success. That cold, disruptive upbringing most likely led to an inability to develop a healthy self-esteem.
What was Michael running from? What had corroded his sense of Inner Beauty so terribly that he could not stand to be who he had been born as and seemed to be obsessed with morphing into something new each minute? What had caused him to develop not just body dysmorphia but what could be called “self dysmorphia?” When he looked in the mirror, what did he see? The sad irony is that, even as he became stranger and stranger in what seems to have been a desperate attempt to transform his identity—to be happy, one assumes—popular culture began to see him less as a genius and more as a sideshow. His obvious self-hatred overshadowed and eventually eclipsed his incredible talent. He was a casualty of life, unable to see in himself the beauty and electricity we had seen in him.
The global pop culture machine will mourn for a while. Quick books will be turned out. Commorative DVDs and plates will be stamped out. Spontaneous shrines will linger for a while. Television retrospectives will air and perhaps a tribute concert will be staged. Eventually, something else will dominate the news. But while we won’t ever forget Michael Jackson and his music, we should also never forget his lesson. Success is defined within, not by record sales. If the King of Pop couldn’t find joy and self-love with his riches and fame, no one can. Inner Beauty is more important than money or notoriety.
So the news broke this morning that President Obama will nominate Sonia Sotomayor to fill the Supreme Court vacancy about to be created by the retirement of David Souter. Reactions have been all over the board depending on which side of the political aisle you’re on, but we think it’s a thrilling choice for women. Sotomayor, if confirmed, would become only the third woman ever to sit on the land’s highest court, following Sandra Day O’Connor and Rose Bader Ginsburg, possibly the next justice to retire.
What makes this such an exciting choice is that it represents another instance in which a woman is being considered for an imporant position based solely on factors that have nothing to do with her appearance. On the heels of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, that’s extraordinary.
For Sotomayor, the only thing that matters is her legal, judicial and intellectual pedigree, and by any account it is exceptional: rising from a modest upbringing in the Bronx and overcoming diabetes to attend Princeton, graduate from Yale Law School, edit the Yale Law Review and go on to become a New York district attorney. She is largely regarded as the most important Hispanic jurist in the country at this time. Aside from the abortion or gay marriage questions that will be posed by some special interest groups, those are the only qualifications that matter for Sotomayor. That’s marvelous.
As we have said before, intelligence is part of Inner Beauty, which informs and shapes overall beauty. A women like Judge Sotomayor makes us hopeful because whether she is ultimately confirmed or not, her selection sends yet another message to young women that what you achieve in this world is less about how pretty you can make yourself look and more about what you have between your ears, what you accomplish with the gifts you’re given, and most important, what you give back to others. As Obama introduced his nominee, her mother, Celia Sotomayor, sat in the front row of the press room, weeping tears of joy for her daughter. Only she knows all that Sonia has had to overcome to reach this pinnacle.
So this is a day to celebrate. Another woman of incredible substance and accomplishment stands ready to join the ranks of the finest leaders in the country. It’s a truly exciting time to be a woman…and an American. We’ll keep you posted on the comments, attacks, and news that comes up about her progress toward a Senate vote.
Faster than a speeding minivan. More powerful than a bunch of seven-year-olds on Capri Sun. Able to leap through professional glass ceilings in a single bound. You get the picture. In our last post we talked about all the incredible effects that Michelle Obama has had on the perception of beauty in this country, and on ideas about what a woman can be and do. Now we focus on the flipside of women’s empowerment, or rather, over-empowerment. We’re talking about the Superwoman Phenomenon.
This is, at its core, a self-esteem issue: women trying to prove their worth based on their ability to multi-task and achieve as much as men while also filling the traditional roles of mother and keeper of the home fires. It’s as though feminism has come full circle and with, the Law of Unintended Consequences has come into effect as well. For decades or more, many men have defined their self-worth based on their careers, earnings and possessions. It’s the American pastime: showing off how much you make and how much you have. But women, locked out of higher professional positions, based their self-esteem largely on being wives, mothers and community nurturers.
Now, with women climbing the corporate ladder and redefining business and culture as fast or faster than men (Oprah? Michelle Obama?), equality has come full circle and it’s not always pretty. More and more women are being told—and believingt—that in order to be fully realized human beings, they have to “have it all”—be career climbers who still manage to have water births and tend organic gardens. That’s the Superwoman Syndrome: making our self-worth about what we do, not who we are.
Of course, it’s a trap. No woman can do everything. Something always has to give, whether it’s career or children. That’s why you can jump on an online forum about being a working mom versus a stay-at-home mom and watch the sparks fly. The pressure makes us take sides. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways to remain balanced and avoid the Superwoman trap. Here are some ideas we’ve found to be effective (and as doctors and mothers, we’ve used a few of them ourselves):
Ignore the expectations of others. Society tries to force us into roles with passive messages that say, “You’re not good enough unless…” But these are lies. The only voice that matters is the one that speaks to you from inside. Strong self-esteem is in part heeding only the opinions of people you know and respect.
Pamper yourself. Sometimes, you’re going to be going 100 miles an hour with your perfectly done hair on fire. It’s inevitable. When you are, take care of yourself. Exercise. Meditate. Eat right. Take quiet time with friends. Be kind to your body and mind and you will handle stress with far greater success.
Delegate. If your friends kid you about being a control freak, you probably are. Let go of the reins; you don’t have to do everything. Learn to trust others with tasks and spend your time on the things you enjoy the most and the things you’re best at…which often are one and the same.
Reallocate your time. What do you love most about your life? Make that the object of most of your attention. If you’d rather me a mom first and a professional second, find ways to devote more time to family and less to work. That could mean telecommuting or even cutting back hours. You might have to make some choices that are hard in the beginning, but when you’re living the way that brings you joy, multi-tasking will become much easier.
In the end, Superwoman is a myth. We’re all doing the best we can. So maybe the best advice is to forgive yourself and give yourself credit for what you do well. Because it’s probably quite a lot.
This week, the news media has been abuzz with coverage and analysis of Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office. While that’s traditional, we would like to start a new tradition of feting the First Lady after her first 100 days as the nation’s most visible wife and mother. And who better to start with than Michelle Obama? There’s probably never been a woman in a better position to transform the American image of beauty—on the inside and the outside—than the First Lady.
Let’s break it down according to the four stages of the Beauty-Brain Loop, which we introduced in our book, The Beauty Prescription: Inner Beauty, Health, Outer Beauty and Environment…
Inner Beauty: There has never been a first lady in our lifetimes who has been such a powerful person in her own right. Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt was as strong an influence on culture, but she didn’t have Michelle’s style and grace to go along with the strength and resolve. Ms. Obama exudes confidence and a sense of purpose, but it goes beyond that. Perhaps it’s because of her generation: she’s the first First Lady to come of age in the feminist era when it was no longer acceptable for women to smile in the background while their husbands dominated the podium. Were she not Mrs. Barack Obama, Michelle would still be arresting and no doubt leave a big mark on the world.
But as the wife of the president, she has done more to show her Inner Beauty. She has somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between the brilliant lawyer, the career woman driven to bring positive change to the country, and the wife and mother trying to help her family get through the impossible transition into the White House as easily as possible. As her husband was entering the Oval Office, her focus shifted to her daughters: getting them set up in school, getting them a dog, making sure they had time with their father every day at the breakfast table and doing homework. She was a mother and wife first, a First Lady second. Perhaps that’s why, according to America Online, her approval ratings are higher than the president’s. She knows what matters most to her and gives her joy: her family. That’s where her attention goes. She has already declared that much of her attention will go to helping American families—especially military families. Part of her Inner Beauty is knowing who she is, what she is and what in important to her and apologizing for none of it.
Health: One of the first projects Michelle took on was to plant a “kitchen garden” on the White House lawn with the aid of some DC schoolchildren. She said that its purpose, other than to give her family fresh vegetables to eat, was to promote healthy eating and home gardening. Can you imagine Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton down in the dirt planting carrots? Neither can we. The insistence on being her own person, despite what protocol or tradition might dictate, is as much a part of Michelle’s Inner Beauty as her dedication to Health. And after all, her husband is pretty much shattering tradition as the first African-American president.
The First Lady, because she tends to focus on “soft” issues such as school and healthcare, can have a huge impact on these vital areas of our country. It’s great to see Ms. Obama already working on spreading the gospel of health and living a healthy, balanced lifestyle in what can be the world’s most stressful environment.
Outer Beauty: This is the most obvious difference in Michelle versus past First Ladies. She’s not dainty. She’s bold and beautiful. She’s got curves and she’s not afraid to show them. She’s also got biceps and she’s not afraid to display them, either. And of course, she’s African-American. She is already setting a new beauty standard for black women in this country, a standard that implicity says you can be feminine and stylish but still strong, forceful and proud of your heritage.
Certainly, Michelle has set the fashion world on its ear with her bold style, starting with the still-talked about dress she wore on election night. She’s no wallflower, no Jackie O with pillbox hats. The first Michelle Obama fashion book is about to hit bookstores, and she’s all over the covers of major magazines from Vogue and Ebony to Essence and People. But it’s not just her striking looks or sense of bold style that makes her so magnetic, we think. It’s also that she’s so grounded, so clearly happy. Half of her magazine covers are shots with her family, and she clearly loves being a wife and mother. That makes her gorgeous. There are plenty of women in the world who are more physically stunning than Michelle Obama; there are few if any in the public eye who seem so radiantly happy, balanced and confident in their looks and their lives.
That said, she’s also making it more than OK to be a statuesque, curvaceous, toned, strong-boned lady. She’s taking back some of the territory claimed in recent years by the underfed, size zero waif, and that’s just fine by us.
Environment: What could say more about Michelle’s effect on the Environment than the fact that she still has date nights with her husband, even if they are in Prague? The world’s most powerful man and his wife still find time to snuggle over a romantic bottle of wine? OK, it’s a little less romantic when you add all the Secret Service agents, but that’s not the point. The point is, it sends a message: if the president and First Lady can find time in their schedules for some alone time, can’t the rest of us turn off the TV, quit Twittering and sit down over candlelight with the ones we love?
Michelle Obama seems determined to use her place as an icon for women and African-Americans to make the world a better place. Whether that comes as a result of her total devotion to her family, her dedication to healthful living, her style, her work with families or some other project, she is sending a powerful message to the world through her example: no one can define you but you. It’s an incredibly positive message for self-esteem. During the campaign and after, political pundits have tried to define her as an angry black woman, an America hater, someone who defied protocol and so on. Michelle hasn’t cared, and she hasn’t apologized. She has nothing to apologize for, because no woman should ever apologize for takign on the role and following the path that fills her life with love, purpose and joy.
You go, Michelle. We give you an A+ for your first 100 days as one of the defining new icons of beauty. We can’t wait to see what the next three-and-three-quarters (and maybe more) years will bring.
You’ve probably seen her. If you haven’t, go to YouTube now, type, “Susan Boyle” in the search field, and watch her appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent” (the inspiration for “American Idol.” Go ahead, we’ll wait…
Now, wasn’t that amazing? OK, for those of you who haven’t seen the video and are in a situation where you can’t watch it right now (like at work), we’ll recap: Susan Boyle is a 47-year old virgin spinster from a small village in Scotland, and she’s not what you would call a superficially attractive woman. She’s stocky, beetle-browed, has a hairstyle right out of the 1950s TV series “Hazel,” walks strangely, and has a cocky, cheeky attitude that just begs to be made fun of. In other words, in our beauty-driven culture she’s good for only parody, sympathy or outright scorn. That’s how shallow we have become; if you’re not gorgeous, you can’t possibly be talented or worth paying any attention to.
That’s what made her appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent” so amazing. She walked out on that stage and you could feel the stereotyping going on in the minds of everyone from the judges to the folks in the back row: “She’s frumpy and ridiculous, and she has no idea. This is going to be excruciating.” And don’t even get us started on the double standard for men versus women on these talent shows; were Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard dreamboats? Hardly. But that’s a post for another day.
Clearly, the judges were humoring her, assuming that a woman who looked like Susan and carried herself with such oblivious self-assuredness had no business being in their spotlight. They were going to grit their teeth, let this self-deluding little woman shatter her dreams all over national television and move on.
Then Susan Boyle opened her mouth and started to sing. And she changed. She became beautiful as an incredible voice soared out of that squat, pudgy body. The best part wasn’t watching her sing, but watching the judges’ jaws hit the floor. We were both delighted beyond words as we watched them realize that they had pre-judged this woman’s talent based solely on her looks—that because she wasn’t pleasing to look at, she also couldn’t be stunning to listen to. And they were so, so wrong. She brought down the house with a voice that belonged on Broadway. And it wasn’t a coincidence; search “Susan Boyle Cry Me a River” and you’ll find a recording she did of the torch song standard for a fundraiser in her town. This woman can sing: sultry, plaintive, and gorgeous.
Instantly, the crowd was on her side. No more making fun, no more snickering. Susan Boyle had become beautiful through the power of her voice. The video of her appearance is the most popular clip in the history of YouTube and she’s become an overnight celebrity. Why? Because she shamed us and reminded us. She shamed us because we, too, assumed that this dowdy “cat lady” would croak out a song in a warbly soprano and make a fool of herself, and we assumed that because we equated appearance with virtue and ability, as we’re prone to. But she also reminded us that within every single woman and man, no matter how plain or beautiful, dwells something of incredible beauty: talent, compassion, charisma, something that has the potential to knock people off their feet with admiration. That’s what we call attractiveness. When she strutted off that stage, Susan pulled TV networks and print reporters into her orbit like she was Jupiter, when before they wouldn’t have given her the time of day except to laugh at her.
Susan Boyle’s mind-blowing performance reminded us all that everyone has the power to be attractive and magnetic and earn a standing ovation because of who we are and what we do, not how we look. But it also serves as a marvelous, stirring, tears-in-the-eyes reminder never to underestimate anyone because of their looks. We’re hard-wired to respond to beauty, but we can choose to overcome that wiring and honor the potential of the person within. That’s Inner Beauty…something Susan Boyle clearly has in spades.
Eva here…I had a delightful encounter that I thought was perfect for the blog, because it says so much about inner beauty and the myths of aging. We spend so much time dreading age and the effects of aging that we forget that age can bring with it so much beauty, wisdom, poise, knowledge, class, and charm. No one dresses with more panache than a woman who came of age in the time when ladies wore minks, pearls and hats to the opera or theatre. No one is more courtly, polite and winning that an older man who grew up in a period when men still held doors for women, called everyone “Ma’am,” and knew that a wink and a smile was infinitely more powerful than a lewd comment. Nothing against feminism or modern culture, but sometimes, I wish we could find a balance between those old ways and today’s society.
A week or so ago, I was at lunch and saw a very handsome, dapper older gentleman. I sat down and we started speaking, and I found out that not only was he 83, but a former mayor of Miami Beach. We chatted for a while and he was very charming and debonaire, and then a beautifully dressed and made-up older woman came along, politely interrupted us, and he excused himself and left with her. Later, I ran into this woman, and out of curiosity (people are my profession, after all), I started talking with her. Not only did I find out that this simply lovely elderly lady was 103 years old (!), but I learned that she lives at The Flamingo, an apartment complex for young singles!
A while later I ran into my older gentleman friend and teased him about abandoning me for this astonishing older woman. He smiled and said, “Sorry, I like older women.” Talk about charming. He was old enough to be my father and she to be my grandmother, yet they were just about the most attractive, fetching people in the restaurant. Age had nothing to do with it, and neither did a sense of curiosity that they were up and around at advanced ages. They were turned out in a way that showed they cared about how they looked and what others thought of them. They were witty, had savoir faire, and a sense of humor about themselves. Talk about inner beauty.
It was wonderful to see that not only could old age (and even extreme old age) come complete with a sense of fun, attractiveness and even playful sexiness, but that a woman of 103 could have the moxie to live in a building with a bunch of twentysomethings and feel right at home. If Debi or I are lucky enough to live that long, I want to be just like the lovely lady who stole the ex-mayor’s heart right out from under me.
Unless you’ve been living on the moon, you know by now about President Obama’s unfortunate Special Olympics comment made on The Tonight Show. Obama was talking about his weak performance on the White House bowling lanes and said that it was “like the Special Olympics.” The presidential spin machine went into overdrive immediately, knowing that what would be a forgettable flub from anyone else instantly becomes national news when it comes from the mouth of the Most Powerful Man, etc. While we know that the president was not trying to be derogatory or cruel to people challenged by mental or physical conditions, the incident serves as a reminder of how easy it is to hurt such men, women and children with thoughtless words.
This issue hits home with us because Eva’s daughter, Marissa, was born with hemiparesis, weakness on one side of the body. She was teased about it from a very young age, and though she has been extremely courageous in dealing with this condition and has grown into a proud and lovely young woman, it has still been hard for her and her parents to deal with the comments, the looks and the self-consciousness that comes with it. We’ve touched on this question before, but it bears asking again: why is it so hard for us to find beauty in those who are different from the mainstream?
Of course, the irony is that we’re all different in some way. No one is perfect. Everyone has a blemish, a tic, a scar, a stutter—something that makes them less than ideal. So why has the Special Olympics, one of the most admirable organizations in the world for the way in which it helps people with intellectual disabilities compete in sports, get physically fit and bolster their self-esteem, become synonymous with lack of coordination? For that matter, why is it OK to ask someone who fails to see something obvious, “Are you blind?” when millions suffer from visual impairment?
Our view is this: we all deserve to be recognized and respected for the beauty within—the beauty of our actions. No matter what a person’s physical or mental condition, every one walking this earth has something about them that’s beautiful, admirable and unique. That deserves recognition, not idle, even unintentional scorn. Some people may accuse us of making a mountain out of a molehill, but the fact that Barack Obama or anyone else can even casually (and later, regretably) toss off a comment about the Special Olympics, AIDS, deafness or any other condition tells us that deep down, we still only value physical and psychological perfection…or at least the appearance of it. We are still shallow. We still venerate celebrities who look flawless while exhibiting emotional problems and snicker at physically challenged individuals who exhibit compassion and kindness that humbles the rest of us. If we’re ever to truly mature as people, that’s something that’s got to change. And it’s something we’re going to continue to call out.
