# The Idealization of Low Self Esteem



## superodalisque (Jul 28, 2014)

i saw this article about songs focusing on guys telling women they are beautiful. okay . i think we can pretty much appreciate that aspect. but do you think we we really need to be told we are beautiful to actually BE beautiful ? and that culturally speaking we are never really supposed to wake up to our own beauty independent of public opinion or even the opinion of that one special guy. for me it does kinda feel like i shouldn't know my value until somebody else tells me-- like somehow i'm not qualified or i'm a bad person if i could know on my own. i have felt for a long time that part of the issue of low self esteem in women has been that it has been romanticized but i was never able to put it into the right words somehow. i think this article does it well. do you think society has romanticized low self esteem? is that part of the reason low self esteem is rampant--because it is a romantic ideal/ or is it just the media etc...


*Let’s Stop Singing Songs About Women Who Don’t Know They’re Beautiful*

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebo...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

John Legend’s “You and I” is the latest in a tradition of songs by men that assume women’s beauty is all for them.
posted on July 14, 2014, at 3:33 p.m.
Arianna Rebolini


Last week, John Legend released the video for his single “You and I,” and full disclosure: It made me cry. The video is a unique case in which a song about the natural beauty of women is paired with truly diverse images, and it’s uplifting to see these women — of all ages, sizes, ethnicities — in the spotlight. But the song itself rubs the wrong way from the beginning, with opening lines to a woman who, wouldn’t you know, doesn’t realize she’s beautiful:
You fix your makeup just so / Guess you don’t know that you’re beautiful / Try on every dress that you own / You were fine in my eyes a half hour ago / If your mirror won’t make it any clearer I’ll be the one to let you know

If it sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a pretty tired motif: the woman who is beautiful, but doesn’t know she’s beautiful, and who absolutely needs to be told that she can be liberated from her makeup and mirrors. In “The Way You Are,” Bruno Mars knows that when he compliments the object of his affection, she “won’t believe [him],” insisting, as the title suggests, that she’s beautiful just the way she is. In “She Will Be Loved,” Adam Levine’s girl’s got “a broken smile” and he just “want to make her feel beautiful.” Sammy Kershaw’s titular woman in “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful” is ignorant to her allure — even though, “time and time [he’s] told her so” — because she’s “not that kind.” And then, of course, the worst offenders: the One Direction moppets who, in “What Makes You Beautiful,” assured an audience of “insecure” girls — whose beauty is apparent to “everyone else in the room” but lost on them — that they “don’t need makeup to cover up.”

The men who are cooing reassurances to women that they’re beautiful just as they are is the equivalent of a paternalistic pat on the head, and it assumes, requires, and reinforces the idea that those women don’t know this already. So let’s say for the moment that this is true. Probably many women listening to the song don’t believe they are beautiful, and another 10,000 words could be written on the many and varied ways that that’s the fault of our mass media.

*Am I mad at John Legend (and those in his camp) for writing a song attempting to undo the damages of years of his own industry’s sins? No. Of course not. But I’d still rather he didn’t, and here’s why: These songs, which presume to assure women that they are attractive (and, by extension, worthwhile), assume that the singer’s relationship to our bodies overrules our relationship with them. All of our primping — our “fixing makeup, just so” — has a pointed objective, namely to be found attractive by men. And allegedly, what a relief to find out we don’t need to be doing any of it at all!


If a woman doesn’t believe she is beautiful, the solution isn’t a man telling her she’s wrong. If women have been groomed to believe that they need to look a specific way to succeed in the world, you can trust that those beliefs are so internalized and wide-ranging as to require far more than male approval and acceptance to be undone. 
*
*Now let’s assume wearing makeup isn’t about that, at least not entirely. Let’s say that these women DO know they’re beautiful, and, more importantly, that their relationships with their appearance aren’t defined by whether or not they put on makeup. That a woman might wear lipstick or curl her hair because she likes it, that she could find her own empowerment through physical appearance, completely detached from the reaction of men, is an absent concept in these songs. It seems unfathomable that there can be any satisfaction, separated from male approval, that could be gleaned from the dressing of our bodies.
*

And here’s the biggest problem with these musical paeans to insecurity: The women who do enjoy their bodies, who know and celebrate their beauty, don’t get syrupy love songs. Their narrative isn’t compelling. If One Direction has taught us anything, *the unknowing-ness is an essential factor of their beauty. She doesn’t know she’s beautiful, and that’s what makes her beautiful.* (In case you missed it, Stephen Colbert expertly pokes fun at this in his logical dissection.) But the guys from 1D weren’t alone in this. The “best part” of the girl Blake Shelton croons about in “She Doesn’t Know She’s Got It” is, unsurprisingly, that she doesn’t know she’s turning heads. And, again, in Kershaw’s “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful,” the fact that “she’s not that kind [to believe she’s attractive]” is presented, with little subtlety, as among her most attractive qualities.

Why this fascination with the woman who doesn’t know she’s beautiful, the *idealization of low self-esteem**? It orients the singer as a savior — the sensitive soul whom this girl, who has been slaving away day in and day out in front of a mirror that just won’t reveal the beauty she longs to see, desperately requires. These aren’t songs for young men, who, theoretically, could listen and reconsider their standards of female beauty. These are songs for girls who get the message that insecurity has romantic value, if only because it’s the necessary setup to the grand moment in which they find the boys who — god bless them! — finally pull them out of it.*
By all means, write songs about how beautiful women are. Write songs about how beautiful men are too! (Incidentally, if you’re unsure how specifically gendered this trope is: Try to imagine a song in which a female singer says just how much she wants to make a guy “feel beautiful.”) But don’t assume we’re uncomfortable in our skin just because we dress it up when we present it to the world. Don’t tell us we don’t know we’re beautiful, and certainly don’t tell us that our ignorance to this fact is our best quality. We’re good.
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## 1love_emily (Oct 6, 2014)

There is a lot of discussion on this now in a wide variety of circles. This has been going on for so long, a lot of people don't know what to do, think, or how to change it. Even some of the music that has been deemed "positive" is still objectifying and confusing. 

As a future music educator, I'd encourage my students to be active listeners, enjoyers, and consumers of music, but also to be aware of the societal implications some music has. Teaching children to be critical encourages thought and maybe then we can have a way to change the music. 

In the mean time try listening to "Try" by Colbie Calliet


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## loopytheone (Oct 7, 2014)

To be honest, I always took songs like that as valuing humility rather than low self esteem. As in, preferring a realistic, down to earth girl that understands she is not perfect or the most beautiful and can always improve as opposed to an arrogant girl that things she is stunning and god's gift to the world. Perhaps I only think this because I spent a lot of time around arrogant girls growing up and found their vanity deeply irritating. But I can certainly see why people would interpret these kind of songs as glorifying low self esteem.


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## superodalisque (Oct 8, 2014)

but do there have to be such radical extremes for women? do they have to be either convinced they are beautiful or stuck up and mean, which IMO is another symptom of low self esteem. can't we be comfortable and confident in our looks? should a male or a female lover really have to convince a woman that she is attractive. is that really humility or is it bad self image? why is it bad for a woman to know she is attractive? if it is a bad thing why do so many women seek that self knowledge or want to feel that way as a personal goal?

humility is a very interesting word. also who does a woman's humility serve? remember one word closely associated with humility is humiliate: 

humiliate : synonyms:	_embarrass, mortify, humble, shame, put to shame, disgrace,_ chagrin

humility: a modest or _low view of one's own importance_; humbleness. synonyms:	modesty, humbleness, _meekness, diffidence, unassertiveness;_


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## loopytheone (Oct 8, 2014)

superodalisque said:


> but do there have to be such radical extremes for women? do they have to be either convinced they are beautiful or stuck up and mean, which IMO is another symptom of low self esteem. can't we be comfortable and confident in our looks? should a male or a female lover really have to convince a woman that she is attractive. is that really humility or is it bad self image? why is it bad for a woman to know she is attractive? if it is a bad thing why do so many women seek that self knowledge or want to feel that way as a personal goal?
> 
> humility is a very interesting word. also who does a woman's humility serve? remember one word closely associated with humility is humiliate:
> 
> ...



I can definitely understand what you mean and it has really given me quite a lot to think about, hearing your take on this topic so thank you for taking the time to answer.

I don't think there should have to be radical extremes in terms of women's self view and to be honest I don't think there normally is. I think most of us would identify as somewhere in the middle, but a song is aimed to make money and most people can identify with being insecure. I definitely think that we all can and should be comfortable and confident in our looks. But a lot of the girls I grew up around didn't just think they were beautiful (which they were), they thought they were the most beautiful, more beautiful than anybody else and they equated that beauty with worth and value. The fact that beauty is equated with those things is a sad consequence of society but I do think that women and men can be arrogant about their appearance. Perhaps I am reading into what you have said wrong but you seem to be implying that women CAN'T be arrogant about their appearance? There is a huge difference to be between thinking that you are beautiful and attractive and thinking that you are _more beautiful and therefore more worthy than anyone else_. 

I suppose that when it comes to the word humility this is one of those cases where the meaning of the word varies between people. For me humility is a positive trait in that it implies a sense of quiet self confidence. A belief in one's self that is strong and unwavering to the point where you don't need to show off in order to put other people down. A confidence that comes from the inside and isn't dependent on being better than other people. For me, humility is a positive thing for men and for women. 

Also, I am pretty sure from reading your posts that you know enough about language to know that just because two words share a common root it doesn't mean that they mean the same thing. The words 'humid' and 'humour' have a common latin root but that doesn't mean that excess water vapour in the air is amusing.


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## fritzi (Oct 8, 2014)

You - and the author of the article - are doing much too complicated text interpretation here.

Don't see the texts from the woman's perspective and her self-esteem. That's not what they are about.

These songs are written by men and from their perspective.

They're nothing else but modern versions of the age old classic 'hero saves the maiden in distress'.

So it's not about romanticising things - it's the simple basis of what we learn to be romantic love: the woman needs to be saved by the man. What the issue is about is secondary.

Is that anti-feminist? Yes, of course.


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## superodalisque (Oct 9, 2014)

fritzi said:


> You - and the author of the article - are doing much too complicated text interpretation here.
> 
> Don't see the texts from the woman's perspective and her self-esteem. That's not what they are about.
> 
> ...



i don't think it's over reading the text because of the impact the old ideal has on women's brains ad how that perspective can led to a certain comfort with a low view of yourself as a human being. 

is being a victim really romantic? or are men just more comfortable with the idea of a social superiority that allows them alone to establish who is beautiful and why? is being romantic being in distress and having the need to be saved? maybe modern romanticism has a new aim--of love equality and emotional and physical safety.

these songs are being written from a male perspective, but isn't it just possible that the "age old perspectives need to be changed. should women need to be saved by a man or should she be respected and loved by a man. for a lot of women if a man respects her as an equal with a deep understanding love and appreciation of her perspective that is truly heroic in todays world.

real heroism involves breaking out of the old tired and damaging paradigms and not reinforcing them.


The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today. 
&#8213; Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces


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