\- Essay -
TURIN — They say that to look beautiful, you have to suffer a little bit. That old adage comes to mind scrolling through the images of the Met Gala, the can't-miss fundraising event organized by Vogue magazine at New York's Metropolitan Museum: between Kim Kardashian squeezed into a bodice that seems to suffocate her and the singer Tyla and her dress made out of sand that was sculpted on her body.
It was an outfit so fragile and unmanageable that she had to be followed the whole time by four assistants carrying her here and there. Beautiful, but immobile.
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To be considered "feminine" we have to be uncomfortable. There are social norms, unwritten rules that prescribe certain behaviors and even a certain aesthetic to women. The requisite markers of stereotypical femininity often have a common denominator: they make women immobile figurines. High heels, tight sheath dresses, deep necklines, long nails. Everything that our society classifies as feminine tends to prevent you from moving normally, and forces you to constantly pay attention to your body.
Tyla/Instagram
Femininity can be a trap
In the book Dalla parte delle bambine (On the Girls' Side), author Elena Gianini Belotti observes how in the 1970s the education of boys and girls was very different. Games for little girls tended to prepare them for domestic life, in the confined space of the home.
Clothes also confirm the trend: boys have very comfortable options, little girls are dressed like little dolls. If you look like a princess, it's harder to move around, but you'll also be better appreciated, showered with compliments.
French iconic feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir understood it well: femininity is a trap, a set of characteristics that society has decided should belong to women, to condition their attitudes, to keep them in their place.
Society has told women that to be feminine means that I must accept everthing, I am patient, I remain quiet and stand still. These are characteristics that presuppose passivity, not action, and make us subordinate. Not subjects, but decorative objects.
Many women reject this view, insist they dress that way because that's how they like to be seen. Yet no social probing is really about one's self, its about how we handle social pressures and the freedom one can have. Or put another way: to be truly free in a society is pure fiction.
No one is immune to society
To believe that one is immune from influences is to have no knowledge of the world.
For example, when I shave I am convinced I do it because I like smooth armpits. And that is true, I do like them. But why? Does it mean that it is my taste, developed independently, or is it because in my life I have only seen smooth armpits and legs and have been educated by this aesthetic?
Only if I had lived in a "half world," half smooth and half not, could I think that mine is an authentic choice.
If I went out with a miniskirt and hairy legs, all eyes would be on me. Someone would comment, maybe I would be teased too. We know very well what rules society imposes on us, what happens if we transgress.
Are we really free then? I don't think so. We are still far from an ideal of female beauty that does not also include suffering.
Setting limits
To this day, it is passivity that makes a woman beautiful and attractive. In the vast majority of 2024 Met Gala pictures, all of which are absolutely stunning I have to admit, there are women who cannot move and men in suits serenely enjoying the evening.
Much has been said about the Sephora Kids, the generation of very young girls with their own skincare. Little girls have always imitated adults, that's completely normal. But the fact that skincare has become a task for little girls should make us reflect on how much time, money and energy we invest in being beautiful.
Limits need to be set, because society demands more and more of us day by day.
We have to stop objectifying other people's bodies. It means not only not commenting on our friend's body, but also on the body of a public person we might not like, or who doesn't think like us: take Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni?
This has to start with us. By stopping considering other women as objects, we take a step closer to doing the same for ourselves.
As told to Nadia Ferrigo*