After reading mypsyche’s recent post, Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful, and Mark Pritchard’s earlier post, Question for Beautiful Women, I started thinking about French women. The French women I’ve known, and this includes French women from Quebec as well, really do have a certain je ne sais quoi. They carry themselves with a true sense of self-confidence that is so alluring. It shows in everything they do; how they eat, wear a scarf, walk, sit, sip a glass of wine, even smoke, you name it. This confidence makes ALL French women appear beautiful. It emanates from their core, and like a beautiful flower, it attracts birds and bees alike. 

So where do they get all this confidence? And why is it so elusive in North American society?

 I have a snapshot in my head of an early experience that speaks to this. I am in the bathroom with all my kindergarten buddies. At one point, I look towards the mirror and see myself amongst my playmates for the first time in my life. The very first thing I do, and what I can remember so distinctly now, is judge myself. My head appears larger than everyone else’s and my pixie cut just doesn’t look as good as Janet’s, my dress isn’t as pretty, I am either too tall or too short. I can still see that mirror image in my head.  

So, why does this self-assessment still resonate with me 43 years later? And what could I have possibly learned by the age of five that would make me judge myself so harshly?  

Well, I don’t think it is so much about what I’d learned prior to that but more about what I didn’t learn after that age. My Dad loved us and told us, my mother, sister and I, that we were the most beautiful of any, but that didn’t hold much water in the real world. As young girls, we are taught that it was egotistical to like yourself or to think yourself pretty. If you wanted to lose friends fast, just be the prettiest, best dressed, most confident girl in class. Or just think you are. Get a boyfriend before all the other girls in your class; you must be a slut. The criticism I first levied against myself quickly became the same criticism that girls levied against each other on a regular basis.

Whatever we were supposed to be, it was only to be found out there. It was always what someone else had and pretty much unachievable. And it was a Catch-22 because if you did manage to achieve it, you were ostracized by the very friends whose very acceptance you coveted. And so, burdened with all this baggage, girls trudge towards womanhood in the hopes of finding a worthy mate and life. But worthy of what? Worthy of the person we wish we could be or worthy of the person we think we are? How many years do we waste in therapy, retail or traditional, trying to come to terms with these conflicting images?

Mark thinks that women are being disingenuous when they reject compliments. But in truth, this knee-jerk reaction is part of our programming. It is expected. To do otherwise is to face the taunts of the other girls and to risk losing friends. You can be good, and you can be pretty, but don’t be too good or too pretty. That is the law of the land—well it is the law of North America.

I think this sucks. I think it is the root of many of our troubles on this continent, from weight problems to credit card debt. Despite being burdened by beauty, mypsyche found her inner compass, and along with that, self-acceptance. But too many women wrestle to find self-acceptance through dieting or acquiring more clothes, jewelry, trinkets, etc. We never truly get to know ourselves, thus we eat the wrong things and often buy the wrong things (hello velour track suits). This makes a lot of retailers and diet gurus rich and happy, but it does nothing for our womanly self-image.

We’ve allowed advertising and fashion industries run by men for the profit of men to define beauty. It is time we define beauty on our own terms. So, today I declare myself a French woman. I am not going to wonder whether I am beautiful, I am going to KNOW it, I am going to walk it, and I am going to live it.

Today, I’m going to wear my best jeans and a beautiful scarf—to Home Depot. And I will not wear mascara, (screw you Maybelline). Rather, I will know that my eyes are beautiful without that crap because they are the window to my soul. And I will invite everyone who looks upon me to peer inside my beautiful soul without making them crawl through greasy black gunk to get there.

I declare this day, October 24^th, 2009, My Beauty Emancipation Day. And I ask all North American women to join me. Today, dig out that beautiful scarf you’ve been hiding in a drawer and carry yourself like a French woman. You are beautiful. Own it.  

Screw you Hugh Hefner. And screw you Karl Lagerfeld. And yes, screw you Calvin Klein and your kiddy porno ads. The women of North America are all beautiful just the way we are.

I know the women of OS are all beautiful because I read it in every piece. I want you to declare it in this comment thread – no caveats allowed. Join me. Be a French woman. Accept that you are beautiful. I know you are; now you need to know it too.