In 1960s, the feminists of America, paraded against Miss America Pageant. They raised slogans like “cattle parades are demeaning to human beings”, “can make-up hide the wounds of our oppression?”, “all women are beautiful”. The whole idea behind this movement was to stop objectifying women and to stop normalising the socially constructed beauty standards.
Unfortunately, our society has narrowed down the definition of beauty. A concept which is so vast, has been restricted to size zero, fair complexion and being tall. You can be chubby, and yet be beautiful, you may be tan and beautiful, it’s okay if you are not very tall, you are still beautiful. This superficial concept of beauty has shattered the confidence of so many talented women, that they could never make it through the industry, because they thought they were not beautiful enough.
Here is the story of a woman, who became the beauty icon of her time, and still is, but she thought she wasn’t pretty enough, for the role she has been assigned to. Kate Winslet, who appeared as the leading actress, in a super hit film, Titanic, shared her views about how she felt about herself, because of the opinion other people held for her.
She told the media, that she questioned herself as to how she can work with such a beautiful man, after having seen Leonardo DiCaprio in the hotel. She shared how she’d been bullied in school and has been called with names like ‘blubber’, she also told how she’d been teased for wanting to act, and that she was advised to take roles which were meant for some fat girl. She said that she was ashamed of how she looked, yes, she was ashamed of something which was not in her control. And no one should ever be compelled to feel ashamed of how they look, because no matter how they look, one thing is for sure, they do look beautiful, in their own imperfect ways. 
She had this passion for acting, which is why, despite her low self-esteem, she got through it and created one of the biggest characters for one of the biggest movies. She wrote in her diary “I feel ugly, talentless and uncommitted, frightened, lonely, nervous, mad. By the end of this film, if it’s not suicide, it will be an asylum”.
Even after her successful project, she could never let go of the fact that she was bullied, for being fat. She avoided coming on the shows and could not cope up with the pressure society usually creates for people who do not come up to the cosmetic standards of theirs.
After giving birth to a beautiful daughter, she came up with the realisation that true happiness does not reside in the fact that your body looks perfect, or what shape are you, and what colour is your body. She rather takes pride in the body marks and scars, which she got as a result of bringing another life into this world. She says it is more important to be yourself than what society wants you to be.
She conveyed very beautifully, that she is fine with all her imperfections, and that’s how everyone should be, there is nothing to hide or feel ashamed about how you look, women should feel proud of how they look on and off screen, because only then they can be portrayed as real women. She inculcated the self-confidence, that she herself had lacked, in her daughter and believes that no one should be so empowered enough to shake your self-image.
An Oscar winning actress, who at one time was considered to be a beauty standard by millions of her viewers, had this shaky image of herself, because of the society she was a part of. She still is as radiant and beautiful as she was back then and so is every women, every man and every child on earth. Let no one ever tell you otherwise.
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