what’s so incorrect with fairly? [lifestyle]

My transfer to Providence in August of this 12 months started with a humbling initiation: the worst haircut I’ve ever obtained. My advantageous hair has at all times been considered one of my greatest insecurities, second solely to the persistent hormonal zits that’s extra indecisive and temperamental than an angsty teenager. Thanks to years of constant deep conditioning remedies and the abolition of sizzling instruments from my routine, my hair lastly grew previous my shoulders and has, at instances, even held a reasonable shine. 

Just days earlier than Brown’s orientation, and on the day after my birthday, I made a decision to deal with myself to a elegant new minimize, desirous to really feel contemporary and fairly for my first steps onto campus. But, after a hurried snip, the stylist at a hip downtown Providence salon spun me round, yanked off the chopping cape, and ushered me out like a pageant contestant who’d been introduced as first runner-up after an unimpressive response to an on-stage query. I barely had time to catch a glimpse of myself in a distant mirror. Oh…oh no! I paid, compelled a smile, and rushed to my automobile, clutching the ends of my newly guillotined locks.

I averted the automobile mirror the entire drive dwelling, unwilling to face no matter catastrophe awaited me. When I lastly appeared, my coronary heart crumbled. Six inches shorter, uneven, and as dry as stale bread. My worst concern was realized. I appeared…ugly. With tear-filled eyes, I attempted to twist, curl, and straighten my manner again to fairly, and repeatedly failed. I felt hideous. I spent the subsequent few weeks in both a excessive ponytail or a slick bun to hide my embarrassment. My identification, so usually wrapped up in my look to others, hung within the steadiness of my asymmetrical tresses. As my confidence shrank with each uneven strand, I started to surprise why my sense of self-worth was so entangled with one thing as superficial as hair. 

Why did feeling “pretty” maintain such energy over how I moved by way of the world? 

That query lingered weeks later as I scrolled by way of protection of two shiny cultural comebacks: the return of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and the newest Miss USA competitors—a stage I as soon as sought to overcome. 

Victoria’s Secret, disgraced by cultural jurors, disappeared from the limelight to reinvent itself and appease a extremely essential viewers. Similarly, Miss USA has been mired in scandal after scandal, desperately clinging to relevancy. The revived VS Fashion Show promised to signify all ladies, showcasing a various ensemble on its glittery pink runway. After the present, discourse spitfired as suppose items sprouted in each nook of the digital panorama. Enthusiasts ooh-ed and ahh-ed as cynics picked and prodded. Pop tradition analysts at dwelling on their keyboards volleyed assessments weighing the professionals and cons of supporting the revitalization of a model that traditionally upheld the concept there was one common customary of magnificence. A nonbeliever referred to as out their distaste for the style present in a remark beneath a video that includes the final word archangel, Candice Swanepoel: “We can’t forget that this is just capitalism that positions beauty as the ultimate goal.” This remark obtained tons of of likes. A pointy retort fired again: “What’s so wrong with being pretty?” 

Initially, I agreed with the cynics. The VS Fashion Show does revenue off of girls’s our bodies in crude methods, embedding a sure concept of magnificence and desirability into the minds of women and girls of all ages. What we see on TV shapes our worlds and our minds; like every company, VS needs to be held accountable and acknowledge the methods wherein they’ve distorted ladies’s self-images with the strain to evolve to a dimension zero. Both the VS Fashion Show and Miss USA have sought to rebrand and reimagine their identities and what it means to be lovely in 2025. It feels pure, then, to pose the query: Have they succeeded? But I itch to ask one other. Can industries anchored in unrealistic requirements of magnificence ever be…higher? 

On these levels, is there room for tangible enchancment, or ought to glamorous parades of girls as soon as displayed on TV be consigned to the archives of outdated YouTube movies and VHS recordings of early trend exhibits and pageant runways? Miss USA’s social media posts pair closely edited photographs with lyrical captions comparable to “Empowering the new era of beauty queen” or “More than just a pretty face.” Modern pageants declare to be creating a brand new future for aspirational and pushed ladies. But the prerequisite stays: You should be lovely. As a former Miss USA contestant, I can guarantee you that the notion of empowerment is a ruse. 

The group touts a mission to uplift the subsequent era of girls. In reality, their efforts revolve round bodily magnificence, thinness, and glamour. They lean on the notion that the swimsuit contest is about well being and wellness, solely to feed contestants pizza and hen tenders all through the competitors. Contestants dedicate hours to their bodily presentation, adhering to at least one customary of magnificence, solely to carry out on stage for lower than three minutes whole, talking for even much less. The profitable system is easy: Smile on the judges; apply vaseline in your enamel if wanted to keep up mentioned smile. Hit a pointy T-pose on the finish of the runway; should you really feel such as you’re about to fall, squeeze your butt! And above all else, be fairly. Like, actually fairly. If you’re not, you don’t stand an opportunity—however they need you to consider that you just do. They’ll let you know that you just as you’re is sufficient. It’s not. 

When magnificence turns into a prerequisite, each lady’s price is positioned on a fragile basis. Any deviation from the best—a nasty haircut, not being a dimension zero—can really feel like failure. I’ve lived that abdomen drop in entrance of the mirror, at Miss USA and right here in Providence, mistaking aesthetic disappointment for private defeat. But the strain to be fairly isn’t just particular person, it’s systemic. It governs who will get consideration, alternative, even credibility. Pretty turns into the password to social standing and finally, belonging. When we maintain rewarding magnificence above all else, we train women and girls that being seen issues greater than being heard. 

The newly topped Miss USA, Audrey Eckert, is a younger lady from Nebraska. She is a former NCAA Division 1 athlete and a advertising and marketing coordinator for a Certified B Corp trend firm. The high remark under her crowning photograph reads: “Miss USA is boring now, they only crown ugly women.” Ugly has change into the final word insult. It’s extra dangerous than uneducated, unkind, or unsuccessful. But perhaps it is just after we cease fearing it that we are able to start to be freed from the shackles of fairly. Audrey just isn’t ugly. But even when she have been, what’s so incorrect with ugly?