flâneur

'Beauty is boring because it’s a tool used to maintain stasis and control'

jessicadefino.substack.com · 4,544 words · saved by 1 readers

In conversation with Candice Wuehle, the author of "Monarch."

I’ve been thinking a lot about agency. Beauty culture loves to tell us — and we love to repeat — that manipulating our physical beings to better conform to beauty standards is an exercise in agency. I do it for me! A woman should be able to do whatever she wants to her own face and body! It’s our choice! Yet when an alternative is presented — for instance, divesting from standardized beauty entirely — the general response is: But physical beauty affects how we’re treated in the world! It’s an act of survival! Some of us don’t have the luxury of opting out! The agency we so desperately cling…

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