Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 6: beautiful lies Ft. Kalpana Mohanty

Transcript

6: beautiful lies Ft. Kalpana Mohanty · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

• 0:00
  Beauty rituals can be joyful. Yes, there is great artistry and self-expression involved,
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  as well as a real sense of community. But beauty culture functions to separate the margin
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  from the center with real material consequences for those who can't or won't conform.
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  The sun shines out of you and into me. Hello sun shines and welcome to re-imagining
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  with I understood a podcast where we reframe rethink and re-imagine everything
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  standing in the way of love and liberation. I'm your host I under and I am delighted,
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  enchanted, ecstatic, overjoyed to have a slice of your precious time today.
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  Oh my goodness, hello Kalpana, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for being here.
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  How are you today? I'm so happy to be doing this with you I am done. Yes, I read your piece.
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  I remember exactly where I was. I was in Joeburg with my family sitting down on the couch. I sometimes
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  read the baffler articles and I saw yours and it was called Beautiful Lies and the subtitle was
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  I does our public discourse on beauty remains so shallow and I was like yes, this is me.
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  And I read it and I was like oh my goodness, I literally wanted to turn this piece into 100 TikToks
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  because it's so so so powerful. It really resonated with me and just spoke to a lot of things
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  that I'm constantly thinking about when it comes to beauty culture and especially the idea that
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  you have in there about being included in beauty as the assumption being that it's an innate good
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  and I'm so excited for my listeners to learn more about the piece and about you and your story
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  and how you came into this way of thinking but I just want to say thank you so much for being here
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  and for the work that you do. I'm so excited to continue to follow and read and support your work
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  along the way. That's such a lovely introduction. That's so kind. Thank you. Of course. So I'll start
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  with trying to get to know you. I'm so excited and I'll read you a quote that I absolutely love
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  by Audrey Lord and then pose a question. So the quote from Audrey Lord is what are the words you
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  do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt
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  to make your own until you will sicken and die of them still in silence? So with those powerful
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  words from Audrey Lord what Kalpana do you need to say? Such a great quote. Something that I've been
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  thinking about recently and actually discussing with friends that I think is somewhat tangential to
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  this is as a person with chronic illness and disability the thing that I need to say or the
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  thing that I need to do for myself and this is my goal for myself going forward is being able to
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  articulate the things that I need even when it's at the risk of making other people feel even
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  slightly uncomfortable because that is something that I find myself doing a lot not so much in close
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  personal relationships which I feel like I'm very good about boundaries with but with people that
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  not as close with just tiny things like I need to sit down or I need this or I can't do this anymore
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  and I think a lot of us find ourselves in those situations but if you are a person with chronic
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  illness or disability it can literally put you in physical harm's way and so that's kind of
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  what I want to say. Yes oh my word thank you for sharing that experience with us that is so
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  true and so powerful it's so important to have a culture that lets people be needed and need
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  especially from a disability justice standpoint kind of share the load of asking what could have been
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  something that someone around you that you felt like you needed to sort of boundary with I could
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  have done to also support you. I think it's well access intimacy like what does that look like to
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  yeah so I think something that first of all all of my close friends family and partner are
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  excellent about modeling this behavior so when I go to visit a friend the thing that they will
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  ask me is what is your capacity right now because the thing with most chronic illness and disability
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  is that it isn't static it goes up and down it's always in flux so what is your capacity right now
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  today and then we can build our plans around that which I think is a really empathetic way of
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  going about it. I love that what is your capacity right now what is your capacity look like today
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  that's beautiful that's such a powerful question and something that I feel like many people can
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  benefit from both being asked and asking so I think that's amazing thank you for sharing that as
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  well. You've mentioned how boundaries and like your support system and how chronic illness has
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  affected how you these relationships and deepen them in a way like who are you in your own words.
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  Yeah so this is going to be a not very exciting answer this is just the most
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  technical one but I am a Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard as well as a
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  trivial scholar and I work on the history of medicine, British imperialism, gender and disability
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  in India so I am the way I would put that is that I'm interested in embodiment in the various ways
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  that it presents itself and I think the essay that we're going to talk about today goes into that
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  so the ways in which a person is embodied by gender race disability beauty etc etc so not
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  just the ways that you think about yourself but the ways in which other people project identities
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  onto you. Yes that is so powerful okay embodiment I love that and the focus on India and on
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  like coloniality and British empire that's so important thank you so much for your work and I
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  absolutely love how you're in academia but you're making your work and your thoughts and the people
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  you're reading like through your Twitter so accessible and you're using like I know you have a
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  piece on colonizing wellness in teen vogue that's just amazing I feel it's so exciting to have so
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  many more voices really be with the people because I think often things are also written in such
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  an inaccessible way so it's amazing that that accessibility shines through what you've written so
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  far I'm so excited to continue to follow that so outside of what you do academically what fills
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  your heart with joy I think discussing popular culture and just analyzing things with my friends
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  that is I think our passion my friend and I were talking about this the other day our passion is
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  chatting our passion is chatting to each other about things nothing brings me more joy than that
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  yes absolutely do you have like a favorite pop culture moment or person or topic that you and your
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  friends like love talking about most often I think something that comes up again and again is
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  choice feminism I'm not sure if you're or yes you are as a person of the internet I'm sure you
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  are very aware of what that is but I guess for your listeners that's just the idea that yes please
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  thank you I think there was a period of time in which we were really made to believe that anything
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  that a woman chose was a feminist act because she chose it and so just the ability to choose something
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  was a form of empowerment and now a lot of scholars as well as other writers have unpacked that idea
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  because something that you choose for yourself can be empowering for you as an individual but not
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  necessarily whatever group you're part of as a collective and those are very different things
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  absolutely I love that is so many angles where it's like who has access to making a ton of choices
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  what are those choices rooted in and the way that socioeconomic status class ability so many things
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  affect what choices we can and can't make and inherently pleasurable choice for one person could
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  be predicated on unexploiting another person so there's so many different angles someone needs to
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  be really moved by something to write a piece on it so I'm curious what disturbs you the most
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  about beauty culture today the thing that really has disturbed me about beauty culture is
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  it is a constantly shifting bar and I think I say in the article that we're going to discuss
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  that advertisers have become really savvy to the fact that you can no longer overtly market
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  products by making people feel bad about themselves and so they've kind of adapted into this
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  empowerment jargon like buy this under eye cream as a form of self care I mean self care is like
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  that can be unpacked further right but if you love yourself you will buy this lipstick and so
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  it becomes this form of self esteem really buying beauty products I think I'm not sure how old you
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  are and but I if I compare the amount that I knew about skincare and makeup and hair care and
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  fragrance when I was 15 years old versus now and just the amount of information that's out there
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  about it it has changed so much when I was in high school we were putting on eyeliner like that's
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  what we knew about you knew about eyeliner maybe you knew about mascara that that is what you
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  knew about and now I think the average teenage girl is equipped with the arsenal of a makeup artist
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  like a full makeup artist that's not necessarily inherently bad or good but it is worth
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  commenting on also the thing about beauty culture is so I listened to a lot of podcasts I should
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  probably get more comfortable with silence but the ones that I listened to before I go to sleep I
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  need them to be kind of very calm and non-high stakes and so there was a period of time where I was
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  listening to a lot of beauty podcasts and I'd be about to go to sleep and then they'd say something
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  that really bothered me there was a lot of you know we support everyone's ability to choose
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  whether they want to go through fillers or Botox or plot all of this kind of stuff like it's
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  your right like I would never tell someone not to choose that and I think the choice feminism
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  me aspect of this is yes that might empower you as an individual of how could it not in a society where
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  beauty is very much a currency where you will you're more likely to get a job you're more likely
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  to be treated well at the grocery store like in all these different ways of course then if you
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  get filler you're gonna feel better because other people are treating you better and that's being
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  done without zooming out and being like is this an equitable system is this one that's benefiting
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  anyone? I absolutely love that on my word I absolutely love what you said about how the beauty
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  industry has co-opted this language and made it seem like we are doing right by ourselves and being
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  better feminist and better people by enacting and like by supporting beauty culture and the way
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  that that's really manipulative and so unfair and especially what you said about empowerment and
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  how can those be the expectations that we have of or the definition we have or allow of empowerment
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  and then the second thing you mention about what we know now about beauty versus when we were 15 so
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  I'm 27 I completely agree so interesting how in the same moment that we are having more and more
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  conversations on equity and on inclusion there is this complete expansion of the demands of what
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  you must be doing to yourself to be included or even just to be normal it's so like the bare
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  bones skin care routine or a natural makeup look or all of these things have the demands of that are
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  so high and it's so sad that it's been happening in such a subversive and yet so explicit then I
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  absolutely also love what you said about the podcast and how like there's a soothing drum to it
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  sometimes but then when you listen to what they're saying it's just really really concerning because
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  a lot of them have huge platforms and so it's really important to not conflate it with choice
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  feminism so with those thoughts I absolutely love what everything you said I would love to have you
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  if you would be so kind read your piece to us I would love to make sure that everyone hears what
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  you have to say in this I think it's so critical and I know that my audience is going to love it so
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  does that sound good to you that sounds perfect okay so beautiful eyes why does the public
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  discourse around beauty remain so shallow the clean beauty brand process recently announced
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  a new product the revealer foundation this foundation comes off the back of the brand's
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  popular revealer concealer so named because kosa's founder shina iitanez never liked the word
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  concealer I don't want to hide my face even though the product was designed to do just that at this
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  point such cognitive dissonance is hardly novel meaningful social change will never occur at the
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  hands of a profit driven company with access to empowerment buzzwords and conflating
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  your sense of self with the makeup or skincare we use at best allows us to be better marketed to
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  at worst it deludes us into thinking we have done the work of activism by buying a product
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  beauty has never been and will never be an apolitical currency but we have increasingly been
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  led to believe that if we simply expand its definition it is an intrinsic good there's a stark
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  discrepancy between the strength and pervasiveness of beauty cultures marketing and our woefully
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  simplistic discourse around it over and over again we're sold the idea that a more diverse array
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  of people can be beautiful if they just lean in this was the message of amish humor's 2018 film
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  i feel pretty in which the comedian realizes that the only thing stopping her from being treated
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  well is her own insecurity not a value system designed to exclude anyone whose appearance deviates
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  from the white thin cis gendered and able bodied ideal unlike other forms of hierarchy whether race
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  gender sexuality or disability beauty like class is a type of advantage we are convinced is within
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  our reach there are kinds of social privilege i will never require but if i buy the right products
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  eat the right foods where the right clothes and hire the right surgeon i too can tap into the
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  currency of beauty this veneer of individual agency hides a dark underbelly beauty rituals can
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  be joyful yes there is great artistry and self expression involved as well as a real sense of
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  beauty culture functions to separate the margin from the center with real material consequences
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  for those who can't or won't conform to disguise this fact make up and skincare companies have
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  realized that they can no longer simply sell products to fix so-called flaws they must encase them
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  in the language of social justice in 2021 an Indian advertisement depicted a lesbian couple
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  preparing for the hindu festival of carva job a north indian hindu tradition in which women
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  fast for the help of their husbands by using face bleach the fiercest backlash came from India's
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  conservative hindu right which objected to the couple's sexuality what received far less mainstream
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  pushback was the idea that including lesbians in this medically dangerous ritual of facial bleaching
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  was somehow progressive the advertisement was in its own bizarre way inclusive but is inclusion in a
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  toxic set of practices and ideologies a good thing wow that question yes oh my gosh and that
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  example oh my gosh okay sorry this question is often hand-waved away with the rhetoric of choice
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  instead of sitting with the uncomfortable reality that some things we love may be harmful to
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  the collective the logic becomes that anything that feels good must be good Linda Hirschman coined
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  the phrase choice feminism to describe the misplaced idea that if a woman makes a choice then it is
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  inherently empowering because she has chosen a pound of her own free will this type of thinking
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  disincentivizes any effort to understand what structural factors make any one choice feel like the
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  best one as the journalist Jessica Daphino points out in a world where capital of all kinds is
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  distributed based on physical appearance there is no doubt that someone would feel better after
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  getting filler injected into their cheeks but instead of democratizing beauty as many publications
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  would claim procedures like these further entrenched beauty ideals that are materially out of
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  reach for many people some arguments in favor of beauty culture also seem to contain a measure
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  of self deception like the common refrain I put makeup on even when I'm not going to see anyone
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  so I must be doing this for myself it's possible that wearing a full face of makeup at home
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  indicates a true passion for makeup artistry but it may mean you've become so thoroughly trained
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  that you now discipline yourself wow the zeal is which we consume and share skincare routines
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  well documented on cult beauty websites like into the gloss indicates that the process of beauty
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  has become nearly as valuable as the result the subject of a beauty profile buys luxury products like
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  biology, Grisha, Shea, P50 or skin suitable CE for relic serum because they take themselves
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  seriously the actress millie bobby browns makeup line even went so far as to sell highlighters
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  in the shades self love self worth and self respect all yours for the price of sixteen dollars each
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  it is in this manner that many women's media outlets publish articles about the top skincare
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  investments everyone should make by their very definition assets that have a chance of appreciating
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  or appreciating over time the authors of such articles are perhaps more correct than they realize
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  sociologists jesslyn wong and andru penner found in a year long study of more than fourteen thousand
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  people that it was not innate attractiveness that corresponded with higher salaries for women
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  but rather evidence of having put more effort into their grooming routines the fetishization
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  of discipline is baked into such routines and evident in the language used to sell beauty and
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  skincare products even outside of traditional ads in april 2021 a heavily affiliate linked
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  british rogue article taught us five ways to whip our skin back into shape for spring in september
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  of that same year l informed us that the perfect brow isn't birthed overnight it takes a lot of
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  training threading or waxing and an arduous search for the perfect brow gel as though having
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  eyebrows is a full-time job if this language sounds curiously close to the coded jargon of
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  diet culture the management the surveillance and the numerous products required to help you achieve
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  your aesthetic goal none of which work long term it's because they're both part of the same system
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  the flip side of this phenomenon is an advertising approach that insists that you are already
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  and therefore should buy a particular product perhaps the most famous example in recent years
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  is the well-intentioned dove real beauty campaign which launched in 2014 one viral advertisement
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  from 2013 featured a forensic artist drawing women based on how they describe themselves
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  and then based on how strangers describe them when comparing the two sketches the women observe
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  that when they describe themselves they look closed off and fatter sadder too the video ends with
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  the banal and infantilizing slogan you are more beautiful than you think rather than questioning
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  how fundamental beauty seems to be in the lives of these real women the advertisement doubles
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  down on beauty's importance beauty is a deeply valuable and highly unequal commodity but don't
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  worry because you're more beautiful than you think the real beauty campaign was so successful
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  that sales of dove rose from 2.5 to 4 billion in its first 10 years and it has shaped much of the
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  modern landscape of advertising to women American women's media came perhaps the closest
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  it ever has to a real referendum on beauty culture when Emily Radikowski published her essay
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  collection my body in November 2021 like a modern day Helen of Troy Radikowski's consideration of
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  her own beauty launched a thousand thank pieces in essays about her lived experience as a famous
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  model whose looks have amassed her both popularity and wealth Radikowski shows how her success came
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  with steep costs including the dismissal of her intellect rampant insecurity and even sexual
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  assault in many ways it is useful to hear from a woman who sits at the very top of the beauty pyramid
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  if the system is failing even her then it must be rigged but it also invites the question
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  what does Radikowski really know of the sharp end of beauty politics as someone who has always
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  been its beneficiary like all collections of personal essays Radikowski's focuses on her
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  own life as it should but it opened a broader conversation about the various kinds of
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  mistreatment she experienced are these insults as she alludes only the purview of the exceptionally
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  beautiful condescension sexual violence financial precariousness and physical self-consciousness are
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  not just the drawbacks of being a professional model they are often the consequences of living as a
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  woman period Radikowski's essays attempt to puzzle out whether commodification of your own appearance
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  can ever be truly empowering without stopping to ask how many of us possess beauty that others
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  are willing to buy in the first place we are all perpetrators and victims of the system she
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  describes so well but few of us however will ever explicitly profit from it indeed many more of us
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  will pay the price the burdens of beauty culture are not evenly distributed the need for people of color
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  trans people non-binary people and people with disabilities to be perceived favorably
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  physically is far from an issue of vanity it can often be a question of survival this is where we
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  start to see the distinction between engaging in self-decoration out of a sense of joy and self-expression
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  and beauty culture as attacks practices like hair removal initially framed as elective
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  procedures have become so commonplace as to now be considered basic forms of hygiene a word
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  intimately connected to morality the most dangerous iteration beauty culture is when
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  attractiveness serves as a metric for humanity which of course is not new the sentiment was
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  explicitly put into writing in the form of America's so-called ugly laws which existed from 1867
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  up until 1974 in some states one law passed in Chicago in 1881 prohibited people who were diseased,
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  maimed mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be unsightly or disgusting object from appearing
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  in public spaces similarly women of color have long been used as a foil to white women's innate
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  beauty and purity their difference from the white norm used as rationalization from everything
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  from sexual violence to enslavement more recently the iconic Afghan girl portrait by Steve
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  McCurry of the Pushstone girl Sharput Gullah demonstrated how beauty can shape conceptions of who
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  is worthy of humanitarian aid originally taken in 1984 it was recirculated in the early 2000s during
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  a push by the Bush administration allegedly for women's rights during the American occupation
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  of Afghanistan the discourse around this photograph imbued with what scholars like in the Paul
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  Grewall would call the colonial desire to reveal what lay beyond the veil was focused on Sharput Gullah's
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  beauty in the words of Subindrini Pereira her captivating green eyes such was a frenzy around this
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  photograph that national geographic readers donated 22 million dollars to use biometric technology
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  to hunt down Gullah's whereabouts 17 years later among others the reaction to McCurry's
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  photograph raises the question if a refugee is not beautiful do they not matter would a child
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  without piercing green eyes eyes that are legible is beautiful to a western gaze prompt a similar
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  response perhaps one day we will be able to conceive of the absence of socially determined physical
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  beauty as the presence of something else inner beauty is a patronizing way to make kindness
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  creativity humor and intelligence runners up to the real prize however far the beauty industry
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  thinks it has come the fact remains that year by year the percentage of people who feel bad about
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  their physical appearance grows beauty culture as it currently stands isn't serving us oh my goodness
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  thank you so much that was phenomenal oh my gosh it just so emphasizes the stakes of this conversation
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  it's so pervasive and i'm so happy because it feels like this is the air that we're breathing
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  and you're calling our attention to how toxic it is and the ending there where you say that you
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  know despite all of this supposed empowerment however far the beauty industry thinks it has come
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  the percentage of people who feel bad about their physical appearance grows it's so true i just
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  love that you're questioning what role does beauty actually play versus like how can we just
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  make it play a role for more people include more people in it so as you reread this are there any
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  parts that really re-resonated with you all over again or stuck out to you now or anything that
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  have happened you wrote this in March of this year i'm just curious to get your reactions to your
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  own amazing words yeah definitely reading this again first time struck by it wow i really thought
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  about this a lot the past but i think something that is sticking out is that really there's a
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  conflation with signifiers in beauty so it's not again about how someone looks innately it's about
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  the signifier that they are the type of person who's willing to discipline themselves right so i
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  think that's what that one paragraph is talking about and then also the Emily Radikowski of it all
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  is really that some of these things that she's talking about being objectified being harassed
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  etc etc are not exclusively things that are experienced by incredibly beautiful women and
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  they're things that are experienced by all of us but i don't know if anything has shifted since then
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  and then being exposed to so many influence series celebrities etc i think we all know that it's
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  fake and i think in our in our heads we like to believe that oh i'm too smart to fall for that kind
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  of thing or certainly i like to think that i'm sure we all do we know that social media is fake
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  at this point we all know that but i think the scope and the pervasiveness of it is such that
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  it really does start to affect us and so for example i will say with these beauty podcasts
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  i know that there essentially forms of marketing and they are selling a lot of products and so i go
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  in and i am trying to do research for this article etc etc but i did notice that after listening to
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  them for two months my consumption of beauty products went up i bought more things and so
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  implicitly it does get into your head and so i'm sure it is the same for social media we all know
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  we've all watched that documentary of the social dilemma we all know that it's fake right but
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  i think possibly the human brain wasn't built to see 50 stories that are each one second from 50
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  people that you know before breakfast in the morning and so i think it's happening at such a speed
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  and with such a scope that even though we do know that most of it is completely fabricated i don't
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  think it sinks in that is so true and i think it's almost become its own kind of category of
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  reality where we know it's not real but we're so deeply exposed to it as you mentioned the scope
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  and the speed that it surrounds us at it is so pervasive that it feels like it has this
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  hyper reality and even though it's a performance and even though there are beauty filters and there's
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  makeup and there's surgery there's Botoxes everything involved um we're so regularly exposed to
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  these faces and to these forms of fake reality that it becomes through that consistency it's
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  own kind of category of reality and so it's not enough to simply have the data and have the stats
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  and know that like this isn't real because reality is also created through consistent exposure
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  like if you tell someone the same thing every single day that's going to become their reality
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  and that can be used for good but frequently is used for the exact opposite and so since so many
• 29:22
  people are spending hours and hours of course on these apps that are engineered to be so addictive
• 29:27
  as you mentioned the social dilemma unpacks this they are then we are then so seeped into it that
• 29:33
  who are we to even say at this point that it's not real you know it is our culture it is what we're
• 29:37
  living and breathing it is affecting the conversations we're having the types of things that we are
• 29:42
  feeling about ourselves the way that we look in the mirror is filtered through this very
• 29:48
  unreal real lens you know what I mean and so it's really really so disturbing it's surreal even
• 29:54
  and then just to add further nuance of course we know that this is a vicious cycle because it's not
• 29:59
  as if this culture exists outside of us um the way that these tech companies are manipulating these
• 30:05
  base human needs and desires we have to be loved to be attended to like oh my goodness to be
• 30:11
  attended to to have attention that's something that we need on a spiritual level to have people's
• 30:17
  attention and their admiration and love and respect and so this becomes such a diminished and
• 30:24
  reduced reductive version of that that manifests in our culture where people want to be they want
• 30:30
  friends they want love and they want the support of other people and the recognition like hey I
• 30:35
  exist and I am relevant and then this never ending quest for relevance has you participating in
• 30:42
  the system that you dislike and so it's like for me for example like I will I used to post like
• 30:48
  I used to take like 250 photos just to post that one effortless shot that looked so like she didn't
• 30:56
  even try and she just looks like I mean I mean I actually did definitely look like I tried it's just
• 31:00
  such a vicious horrendous cycle and I'm not of course not the first person to talk about this but
• 31:05
  it remains ever true that even as we feel the crushing weight of like all of these things of
• 31:11
  never feeling enough we then also I know that my photos have definitely made someone else feel like
• 31:16
  oh my life like myself or my image may not be enough because it's also filtered like it's so
• 31:21
  filtered not only in the sense of like the filtering down of how many pictures are actually posted
• 31:26
  but then also the actual filters that are applied to that and then also the emotional filter of like how
• 31:32
  you actually felt in that moment versus what it looks like you felt and and that's kind of the
• 31:37
  underlying current of photo I've been in situations where it looks like everyone is having so much fun
• 31:42
  everyone is just on their phones pretending to have fun again I'm not the first person to say this
• 31:46
  what I also love about your piece is you're able to really hold on to the nuance that like we do
• 31:52
  know that a lot of people love participating in beauty culture so I'd love to unpack that further
• 31:56
  that nuance there between you know I've been speaking about the ugliness of beauty but of course
• 32:01
  there is so much there's so much joy in the practice of it but so can you say more about that and
• 32:06
  and again I have always highlighted that I'm against the beauty hierarchy not necessarily the practice
• 32:13
  of it but the fact that we should have a practice at all like that that's a demand and as you say
• 32:18
  that that is a signifier of something I think that is so deeply rooted in the systems that are
• 32:23
  trying to as you mentioned like discipline us and reward those who are willing to discipline
• 32:27
  themselves so that to me is just inconsistent with the kind of true true true capital E empowerment
• 32:35
  that we are seeking there is an argument to be made which many people have of how makeup
• 32:41
  and self-ruling practices can be hugely joyful and affirmative to trans people and non-divivinary
• 32:48
  people but I think it also does become a beauty tax that they have to perform as well and I think
• 32:55
  the activist and thinker alok the menon makes a really good point when they discuss the ways in
• 33:06
  which being hairy has made them feel like they are not as worthy or as beautiful of a non-binary
• 33:17
  person as other people maybe and so I think it is also disengling the parts of beauty that are
• 33:26
  affirmative and joyful from the ones that aren't I don't know that any person is innately and
• 33:35
  intrinsically more joyful by covering the bags under their eyes I don't know that's a thing
• 33:42
  whoo that's so true um I love how you frame that I would love to learn more about how this shows up
• 33:47
  for you on a daily basis like how does beauty show up for you I think the thing that I'm sure a
• 33:53
  lot of us have experienced is the different ways in which we're received in the world depending
• 33:59
  on how much effort we put into our appearance that day I find that the discrepancy between the days
• 34:05
  in which I'm literally doing all basic hygiene things I've showered I've brushed my teeth and I've
• 34:10
  left the house versus days when I've put thought and effort into it I'm wearing the concealer the
• 34:16
  eyeliner whatever it is are different to the degree that I find it quite disturbing actually
• 34:24
  because it's the same person and it's someone who's just put us slightly more effort and labor
• 34:30
  into their appearance and it probably shouldn't be affecting the way the person who's checking out
• 34:35
  your groceries is treating you and I think the thing that we can flate with beauty so often is that
• 34:41
  it is intrinsically linked to desire or that being beautiful is about being desired sexually I think
• 34:48
  we have reached this level where it intersects with that but it also exists separately in that there
• 34:56
  are people who will treat you better and you will be treated better in the world what do you think
• 35:01
  is the relationship between ableism and beauty specifically I mean I think it's similar to the
• 35:08
  relationship between race and beauty in that disability is positioned as oppositional to beauty
• 35:14
  and what that reveals to us is really that the beauty ideal is fully constructed I've often
• 35:21
  noted the ways in which beauty functions as a tax that we have to pay the further from the norm
• 35:26
  we find ourselves and I don't think it's an accident that I often feel the need to wear more
• 35:31
  makeup when my skin is going through intense periods of cystic acne which happens often to me
• 35:38
  I don't think it's an accident that during a period of my life or I used mobility scooter I felt
• 35:43
  the need to leave the house wearing makeup no one told me to and at the time I don't think it
• 35:48
  even registered that I was doing it but in retrospect I'm like wow that was quite messed up
• 35:55
  and why did I think I had to atone for the sin of being visibly disabled by paying a beauty tax
• 36:04
  I don't know thank you so much for sharing that that's so frustrating just shows the underlying
• 36:08
  logic of how disability is functioning exactly as you mentioned as something opposed to beauty
• 36:14
  similar to how race is and being racialized is so I think that was such a beautiful framing beauty
• 36:20
  has been constructed in such a way that it is always already abled and how can we also ask a
• 36:27
  much more expansive question of how can we reimagine a world where no one has to look any certain way
• 36:34
  where you never have to compensate for anything because that is inhumane and then also when we
• 36:38
  think about who can decide to put on makeup or afford makeup or actually physically be able to
• 36:45
  get out of bed and do the things necessary to be deemed acceptable it's so rooted in ableism
• 36:51
  and I think this is what disability activists have been saying for so long the liberation
• 36:56
  necessitates disability justice so disability justice is a term that was coined by Patty Byrne
• 37:03
  and the disability justice collective which was this amazing group disabled that asked mostly queer
• 37:08
  and trans people of color disability justice is really looking at creating a world where everybody
• 37:13
  every mind regardless of how it shaped or moves or functions in the world has a place and understands
• 37:21
  that disabled folks have a lot a lot a lot to offer to our communities and in the same vein it's
• 37:28
  grounded in the agency and self-determination of a person who identifies you know like identifies
• 37:34
  neurodivergent that my agency and self-determination is prioritized over right things like the medical
• 37:42
  industrial complex or saying that there's something wrong with me transformative justice is also
• 37:48
  about agency and self-determination right and people have understanding that we are all empowered
• 37:54
  to change our lives and to change behaviors and to transform the culture that we live in
• 37:59
  disability justice is also trying to transform the culture that we live in to be you know
• 38:03
  bigger and allow for more agency and self-determination for more of us so that intersection is a
• 38:09
  super sweet spot because yeah we're all fighting for that same thing which is that we get to exist
• 38:16
  in the world without fear of harm that was Elliott Fukui he is a queer disabled activist who's
• 38:23
  been doing social justice movement work for the past 20 years his venmo is in the show notes
• 38:28
  but it's Elliott two L's to tease Seiji on venmo if you have the means please do venmo him let's
• 38:34
  support disabled queer activists who are doing this amazing work that is going to lead to a more
• 38:41
  just world for disabled people and for all so I appreciate you okay love you given that beauty is
• 38:48
  both local and global I would love to explore some of the differences in how beauty manifests in
• 38:55
  India specifically I think the answer to that question is to part I think on the one hand because
• 39:01
  of the internet beauty culture everywhere is converging I know you've probably read the article
• 39:07
  Instagram face by geotalantino for your listeners if you haven't please do she describes how the
• 39:13
  ideal of beauty on Instagram is this bizarre amalgamation of facial features from various different
• 39:20
  ethnicities that no one person can fully occupy it starts to get a little cyborg but on the
• 39:28
  other hand I think that that kind of analysis also detracts and flattens from the very real
• 39:36
  regional specificities of beauty in different parts of the world and really imposes this
• 39:42
  universalizing western beauty standard and I think beauty politics function distinctly in
• 39:50
  India I don't know what your level of familiarity is with Bollywood but I think it's safe to say that
• 39:56
  anytime the women of Bollywood give us a very top-down understanding of what the beauty standard in
• 40:04
  India is at that very moment and so colorism plays a massive role as the face bleaching ad that I
• 40:13
  discuss in the article shows so there's actually a scholar at Cambridge called Mobine Hussein who works
• 40:19
  on the history of skin lightning practices in colonial India and so I'm excited to eventually
• 40:24
  read her work but yes in Bollywood all the women are exceptionally light-skinned which is bizarre
• 40:32
  given that the majority of the country is not and so it's not representative in any way of what
• 40:39
  most people skin tones look like and by darker skin I mean truly only marginally women are
• 40:46
  used as leading ladies in Bollywood films they are almost always shown to be more promiscuous because
• 40:52
  darker skin is associated with a sort of promiscuity whereas the lighter skinned women in these movies
• 41:01
  are more wife material that is also a term that could be unpacked why is that no the ideal end point
• 41:10
  in these people's lives but colorism in India is so massive that the marriage advertisements in
• 41:17
  newspapers and now online often request that a bride have a wheatish complexion this is something
• 41:25
  that they always say and this is now often accompanied by must be well educated and have a good
• 41:31
  paying job so there's all these other things that we've stacked on but despite all of that there
• 41:37
  is always a beauty tax that doesn't go away and I keep saying women here but this really applies to
• 41:44
  all genders however you identify but the other crucial dimension to colorism in South Asia is that
• 41:50
  the beauty standard is positioned implicitly or let's be real explicitly against obivocies or
• 41:58
  Bella people who are perceived to be darker skin and I think frankly if you dig deeply enough
• 42:04
  into the beauty standard in any region of the world it will reveal a lot about what group of people
• 42:10
  it's positioned against and you will often find that it's positioned against the most marginalized
• 42:18
  people in whatever society you're looking at thank you so much for the context you've shared
• 42:23
  on beauty and colorism and classism in India and the role that Bollywood plays in kind of
• 42:31
  setting that infrastructure that way of thinking and ensuring it exists within the public
• 42:38
  consciousness I mean I think that is the role of media and entertainment is to really solidify
• 42:44
  in people's minds the hierarchies that the state intends to have in place and so it's no mistake
• 42:50
  that the groups that countries want to demonize most then get defined as ugly the groups that
• 42:58
  they want to incarcerate the groups they want to abuse to cage to get rid of to eradicate
• 43:04
  are always then labeled as ugly and that's no coincidence it's a co-constitutive process of
• 43:11
  ugly-fying black dockskinned poor fat trans people for example and ugly-fying
• 43:19
  Dalit women it's such a similar process but that magnification serves to normalize the violence
• 43:25
  that is and even legitimize the violence that is then done onto those people and those bodies
• 43:33
  and so it's a form of violence it's a form of erasure and it's really interesting to see those
• 43:39
  parallels and I think the skin lightning and skin bleaching industry in India I mean is huge
• 43:45
  and I think that Unilever renamed fair and lovely to something else but kept the underlying
• 43:51
  product exactly the same and so these companies continue to benefit in such a perverse way
• 43:57
  from colonialism and from the aftermath of colonialism from colonialism the mindset that
• 44:05
  whiter is better the mindset that lighter is better and the way that from India to Nigeria
• 44:10
  to Brazil to the US like all over the world this logic lives and breathes on and I think that's
• 44:18
  so so much why I'm committed to this work is that it can seem frivolous on the surface to think
• 44:24
  of beauty but as we've discussed and unpacked at length it's so so so profound and it is so
• 44:31
  profound not only in terms of self-esteem and self-image and self-love how it's often framed in
• 44:37
  this very individual way but actually at a state violence level we can see the same logic of
• 44:44
  beauty and we see that it actually functions on such a huge scale to um aglify to eradicate to
• 44:53
  get rid of those people that the state wants to define as a problem and to reinforce cost
• 44:59
  systems there's so many parallels that what you've said brings up for me in our conversation and I
• 45:04
  think in order to end these forms of violence I really believe we need a transnational movement
• 45:11
  against beauty I think that there's this underlying current that so many people have in common
• 45:18
  and actually can use each other's kind of like resources and minds and thinking to really
• 45:22
  reimagine what beauty could be and to end the violence that it's doing on the people who actually
• 45:28
  should be most protected in our society but instead most marginalized and I think it's really
• 45:32
  important to highlight that that process when we say marginalization beauty plays such a key role
• 45:39
  in that beauty as defined by these deeply exclusive deeply classes deeply ableist deeply anti-block
• 45:45
  deeply racist forms of value and human life which are then deeply internalized by individuals
• 45:52
  who then act and behave in ways that are beneficial to the systems of power and oppression that
• 45:58
  seek to eradicate those people that seek to discipline them so much so that they discipline
• 46:03
  themselves and I really think that this is so interesting and I hope to continue conversations across
• 46:08
  cultures so that we can really like unpack the underlying currents of marginalization that are
• 46:14
  happening and how many of those are happening through the lens of beauty so now the podcast is
• 46:20
  called reimagining so I would love to know from you how would you reimagine beauty reimagining beauty
• 46:27
  as not just something that we perform on ourselves and form of self-discipline but something that we
• 46:34
  are open to absorbing in the world or beauty not just as the decoration of the self but of
• 46:42
  appreciating the beauty around us if that makes any sense of us being the beholders of beauty.
• 46:48
  Beauty is in and of itself not like an evil thing it's one of the most fundamental parts of being
• 46:55
  alive and being a human I think it plays a really important role in our lives in an almost
• 46:59
  spiritual way like to behold beauty and I think we've become fixated on human beauty in the human form
• 47:07
  and particularly for women and for non-binary people and I think we should remember that we get
• 47:15
  to be the beholders of beauty and the beauty can be art and architecture and music and fashion and
• 47:20
  nature etc and that beauty as something that inspires awe is really important in our day-to-day
• 47:28
  lives like we should feel in awe of something particularly given that religion is playing
• 47:35
  increasingly less important role in our lives there should be a sense of awe yes yes it's almost
• 47:41
  like we on a human level and a spiritual level long for beauty and we love being in awe of things
• 47:47
  and what's happened is these consumerist capitalist forces manipulated that longing for their own
• 47:52
  ends and in that process we've allowed such a perverse form of beauty to be at the center of our
• 47:58
  lives when there's so much more actual like awe and genuine wonder at the world that many people
• 48:05
  either don't have access to experiencing or are not actively trying to experience and so we can
• 48:10
  actually turn what they've taken from us into its natural and like most generative state this
• 48:16
  session we have for beauty should be applied to the world and under at each other that really did
• 48:21
  something for me okay I love that I love a good concise way that is exactly what I was trying to say
• 48:26
  that's thank you yeah that's exactly amazing that's such a powerful idea I love that I haven't
• 48:31
  thought about it in that way that's so cool I'm gonna like think about that even more because I
• 48:36
  truly love that and then I also love the question of like what are we actually being included
• 48:40
  into have we thought about the role this is playing and also where this came from this as a
• 48:44
  principle this is an ideal why does it exist in our culture and the way that it does and are we
• 48:48
  even aligned with those roots I would say that Sabrina streams book fearing the black body
• 48:55
  is a really good example of that I decided I would try to trace the transition in the western
• 49:01
  world from valuing voluptuous figures to valuing slender ones and what I found was that it had
• 49:07
  everything to do with the growth of the slave trade and the early years of slavery voluptuous
• 49:13
  physiques were prized because slavery and the Renaissance were cult terminus and by a couple of
• 49:20
  centuries on in the middle of the 18th century it was very common for race scientists to suggest that
• 49:27
  hmm race is not just about skin color it's also about behavior and appearance we know that europeans
• 49:34
  are the most superior most disciplined most rational of all the races and that's why they are at
• 49:42
  the top of our racial hierarchies but we also think that black people are overly sensuous they
• 49:49
  love sex they love food and as a result they are chock full of venereal diseases and they are
• 49:58
  overweight so from this we have the seedlings of our current aesthetic system which suggests that
• 50:07
  white slender bodies especially women's bodies are valuable but fat bodies and especially
• 50:13
  fat black bodies are worth denigration it's not just about health this is clearly about aesthetics
• 50:20
  this is about disciplining women often and it's also about population management people often feel
• 50:26
  uncomfortable with fat bodies and so they do not want people themselves to feel comfortable
• 50:32
  gaining weight or being fat especially when those people are women and that goes back to the
• 50:37
  legacy of slavery and the ways in which the male gaze is often trying to regulate women's bodies
• 50:43
  such that they only have the right to look in particular ways wasn't until the 1980s around
• 50:50
  that's the medical field start to use BMI BMI they admitted was both flawed and arbitrary but they
• 50:57
  adopted it anyway and we can see the wreckage that has resulted from that decision there could have been
• 51:03
  almost no racial diversity in the studies that were used to create BMI and we would today call
• 51:09
  this a form of colorblind racism i love that you gave hearing the black body as an example i would
• 51:14
  love to learn what are your favorite books podcasts voices i know you're active on twitter every time
• 51:20
  you repost an article and i read it i'm like oh my gosh this is amazing i just read Alice Wang's
• 51:25
  piece she's amazing but on constant cravings it's like constant cravings on life with a feeding tube
• 51:30
  it's beautiful i'll put it in the show notes but yeah i'm just curious like which voices do you
• 51:33
  lean on on the internet first of all i think that's very generous to see that i'm active on twitter
• 51:39
  academia is in this very weird space where you're supposed to be a public academic on twitter
• 51:44
  i don't quite know how to go about it and i have to balance my need to be a professional with my
• 51:51
  need to ship post essentially and just post funny memes and so it's a very tight line to walk
• 51:58
  but it is one that i hope that i'm walking that Alice Wang article was incredible but i'm very happy
• 52:04
  to talk about my favorite books podcasts and voices online i really love the newsletter maybe baby
• 52:10
  by hali naman maybe baby she is one of these writers who will take a concept that i think i fully
• 52:19
  understand or that so many others have covered before and just flip it on its head she was one
• 52:25
  of the first people who wrote this critical essay of the emrata article in the cut that came out
• 52:33
  a while back and she's the one who kind of introduced the whole choice feminism thing to me
• 52:38
  other scholars have come up with it before but she brought it to the masses so to speak
• 52:43
  and then a book that i've literally been evangelizing about is The Right to Sex by amya
• 52:49
  frina vassan at this point the amount of people who oh my goodness i have either bought the book for
• 53:00
  or who have now i'm a frina vassan please just contact me i'd feel like oh my goodness
• 53:07
  incredible incredible what an inspiring work of scholarship that is doing exactly what you're
• 53:13
  saying it is so rigorous it is so nuanced but it is also so accessible even if you're not
• 53:20
  academic it's so well written and then i will say the book it's either what we talk about when we
• 53:26
  talk about fat or what we don't talk about when we talk about fat by obry garden yes it's really
• 53:32
  really good i haven't read it but i can see the cover in my mind okay thank you all these things
• 53:36
  that we're talking about because obry garden also writes in a really interesting way about fat
• 53:43
  and fat phobia and how it plays into desire and beauty culture in such an interesting way so i
• 53:50
  would really recommend that and then the podcast maintenance phase that she and this other person
• 53:57
  co-host but that really each episode debunks a health myth so they have an episode on goop they have
• 54:07
  an episode on the keto diet they have an episode on celery juice and it kind of contextualizes
• 54:14
  these trends and gives it a historical backing to understand how we got to them and really shows
• 54:21
  how bogus they are so they have one on the calorie they have one on bmi and the racial origins of a
• 54:29
  lot of these things it's super interesting wow yes okay thank you so much for those ricks everyone
• 54:34
  they'll be in the show notes so you can go and check them out that's so cool i love those
• 54:38
  actually i'll give one book recommendation back there is an amazing book i don't know if you've
• 54:42
  heard of barely of the beast by dachuan haricis have you heard of that book it's so good i think
• 54:47
  you'll like adore that book i really recommend that i'll send it to you it's amazing i will add
• 54:51
  one more book recommendation you can tell i'm very excited about this uh thick by trecy
• 54:56
  mcmillan caught him oh my word it's so good that first essay she writes about beauty culture and it's
• 55:03
  that one essay where she calls herself ugly and people get up in arms on the internet how could you
• 55:09
  do this and her repositioning is i am not saying that i'm intrinsically ugly i am pointing the
• 55:16
  finger at the fact that i have been made to feel ugly i'm really bastardizing the way that she
• 55:24
  said it and she's articulated it so well but trecy mcmillan caught him also just brilliant thinker
• 55:30
  yes brilliant thinker i absolutely love that essay it's phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal
• 55:35
  and also like blanking on specifics but like i remember there was one line where she says basically
• 55:40
  like beauty is like whatever blackness isn't and like whiteness is also whatever blackness it
• 55:44
  just so fascinating and so good and her own as you said reclaiming ugly and more like
• 55:49
  aglification of what's been done to her but also how people are so threatened by people reclaiming
• 55:54
  that language oh i have a book for you that you i know will love it's called perfect me have you
• 55:59
  heard of this book it's so sensational oh my goodness you'll love it because it's like a philosophy
• 56:05
  book on beauty it's called perfect me by hither widows hither widows it's about like beauty as an
• 56:10
  ethical ideal i think it's so fascinating maybe we'll have to have the back on this one yeah
• 56:15
  yeah initially i was an english major in undergrad and i really wanted to write i think i wrote an essay
• 56:23
  which the execution i don't know if it was that great but it was about the ethics of beauty in
• 56:30
  romantic poetry so words worth and gang and the fact the beauty was as an ethical ideal yes
• 56:40
  oh that's so cool go you that's awesome yes that's so cool okay amazing this is so great i'm so
• 56:45
  happy we have these suggestions and we're going to end today with a fill in the blank and then
• 56:51
  any final words that you might have of course so i five fill in the blank questions to close
• 56:55
  if you could say whatever comes to mind at first and i'm excited to hear your view and i ask
• 57:00
  this we who are we i'm the royal we but fuck the royal family but anyway yes so i dream of a world
• 57:10
  where we can reimagine the things that we take for granted i wish i had known sooner that
• 57:18
  it's okay to make other people slightly uncomfortable if it means that you are asserting your
• 57:24
  needs love that and brings us to where we started that's beautiful to me love means
• 57:30
  accessibility that's beautiful can you say more about that am i allowed to break my own rule you
• 57:35
  can say no i don't even that was just the first thing that came up and even outside of it just a
• 57:41
  disability justice framework it is making the world accessible for those that you love in whatever
• 57:48
  way shape or form that may be and it will look different for everyone and i think it goes back to
• 57:53
  the what is your capacity today which i think can be adopted and applied for able body people as well
• 58:00
  yes definitely yeah i love that and i think it's also such a good like self-question like
• 58:05
  self-reflective question to ask yourself because we often are not aware of the answer to that question
• 58:09
  and then wait i think i know where i got this but i don't want to actually steal someone else's work
• 58:15
  i think it is the activist Mia Mingus who wrote that accessibility as well she's on the podcast
• 58:22
  yes she's amazing yes i haven't episode with her oh my gosh she's amazing i cannot believe that i'm
• 58:28
  sharing air space in any way shape or form with Mia Mingus okay so i'm fairly sure that's her idea
• 58:34
  so i'm fully plagiarizing her but that came from the recesses of my mind love is accessibility
• 58:39
  oh my word i love that oh my gosh she's so amazing everything she says i'm like oh and does i'm
• 58:45
  just like an icon literally yeah i love that the when you said that it actually literally reminded me
• 58:53
  of her because because she wrote it and i fully wrapped it yeah and also in one of her pieces or
• 58:59
  even in the interview she speaks about how like she doesn't come up with ideas she like names them
• 59:03
  they like had to already exist and so i feel like that's amazing that that came to mind but i mean
• 59:08
  that's also such a humble thing like she definitely has come up with so many things but anyway so
• 59:13
  this may be related but i feel safe when i trust myself love it and then i want people to reimagine
• 59:22
  would it be too on the nose to say i want people to reimagine beauty culture yeah i do not at all
• 59:28
  yeah i love that no that's perfect hopefully we helped people do that today i wanted to ask if you
• 59:33
  have any closing thoughts or words or questions and then also how we can find and support your work
• 59:39
  love your voice and would love to make sure we direct people to more of it yeah thank you this has
• 59:44
  been really fun you can find me at culpano mojante on twitter amazing okay perfect thank you so
• 59:52
  much culpano i loved meeting you that was so beautiful i love learning more about like how you've
• 59:57
  been thinking about this and it sounds like we both been obsessing over this topic for a while so
• 1:00:01
  that's just like lovely and i can't wait to read and listen to everything that you shared with
• 1:00:05
  us i hope you enjoyed being on the podcast was so grateful to have you here and i'm so excited for
• 1:00:09
  more people to hear your peace and your voice and perspective so thank you for your time and for
• 1:00:14
  your energy and i hope you have such an amazing sunday evening and i can't wait for everyone to be
• 1:00:20
  asking everyone else what is your capacity today thank you thank you so much ayanda
• 1:00:28
  that's it sunshine's thank you so much for listening to reimagining with i understood a
• 1:00:33
  podcast where we reframe rethink and reimagine all things standing in the way of love and liberation
• 1:00:41
  please follow my work on substack at i understood dot substack dot com and subscribe if you have
• 1:00:45
  the means as well as on tiktok and instagram at i understood i would absolutely love to hear from
• 1:00:51
  you if you have good things to say i am a cancer please be nice to me i am sensitive okay follow our
• 1:00:56
  podcast community the i g handle is reimagining with i understood please leave a rating on the podcast
• 1:01:02
  if it is five stars again i'm a cancer okay i love you have a wonderful day nourish yourself and
• 1:01:09
  nourish each other