Power, Privilege,
and the Beauty Myth
Seane Corn
The truth is, growing up I never really had a negative body image issue. Of course, like every other young girl, I looked at all the magazines and compared myself to the models and knew I fell way short of the stunningly beautiful women I’d see. I wished I had their long legs or straight, smooth, blond hair or perfectly symmetrical face completely devoid of ethnicity.
At various times I might have looked at my body and face and said, “I should probably do something about that.” “That” being perceived as a “flaw” or a “problem.” But, more often than not, I couldn’t be bothered, and I didn’t obsess. The media images did not impact my self-esteem the way they seemed to for many of my friends, especially for those of color or who weren’t stick skinny. I was naturally thin and had enough qualities in my face and body to include me in a part of that standard of beauty that allowed me many seen and unseen privileges, and, as a result, supported me to feel fairly self-confident and at ease in my youth.
My friends, on the other hand, had little or no examples of people who looked like them represented in these magazines. I could see it made them feel inadequate and unrecognized, and for a couple of them, even enforced some deeper feelings of worthlessness that I didn’t understand at that time. Many of my friends developed eating disorders, starving themselves to lose weight. Some would straighten their hair, get nose jobs, and even lighten their skin. Pictures of the models they aspired to look like hung on their walls, and they’d spend countless hours trying to change who they were to replicate the images of these women, even though they were often of a different race or impossible body type.
Today, I am well aware of how these conventional beauty standards are specifically designed to objectify, disempower, and purposely make us feel like we need to change into something “better”—meaning different than who we already are. These standards are racist, ageist, fat shaming, and rarely, if ever, acknowledge those with disabilities. They are used to manipulate us in many ways, including separating us from our money—so we can buy the necessary products to “help” us reach our beauty goals—and each other, perpetuating the historical hierarchy of power that has alienated and oppressed so many.
There is a projected ideal of youth and beauty that exists, and we have been seduced and manipulated to believe that if we fit into that ideal we will be happier, healthier, and more adored, desired, and perhaps even loved.
I’m also well aware of how, as a featured yoga model in health and wellness magazines, I’ve participated in this projection and perpetuated the homogenization of the standard of beauty as a result.
Positive Attention?
My yoga career popped on a local level in 1995, and by 1997, I was teaching nationally. The momentum was like a tsunami, and I knew it wasn’t because I was the most brilliant yoga teacher there was. Far from it. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a good teacher yet. In fact, I was young, insecure, and inexperienced. I also began to get a lot of media attention, including being on The Today Show and shooting covers and editorials for yoga magazines within months of completing my first teacher’s training. My fast-tracked success was about timing, luck, and to be very frank, the fact I happened to fit into a certain physical mold, a specific look that people seemed attracted to: I was thin, flexible, strong, pretty, and white. I fit into a mainstream ideal that could be marketed and used to help commercialize yoga.
Although I was excited by the opportunities I was getting and thrilled to see myself in the pages of magazines, I also knew I was perpetuating an unrealistic perception of health and wellness based on my personal genetics. Over the years, I continued to see women of my race and body type represented in print almost exclusively. It saddened me to see the way that the yoga community, including myself, was contributing to the ongoing and disempowering myths of beauty that diminish and dismiss the majority of women and girls who don’t fit that limited and narrow ideal.
As yoga became more popular, and more commercial, I would often ask myself that if an aspect of yoga is about the interdependency, relationship, and unification of all beings, then why wasn’t that diversity represented in the marketing? Where were the examples of people of color? The disabled? The heavyset? The old? If yoga teaches us to let go of the ego and our attachment to outward identification, and to look inward for value, why was an unrealistic physical ideal the face of American yoga? This creates separation and, intentionally or not, reflects an image of yoga that is elitist, exclusionary, skinny, and very, very white.
As the attention on me increased and I became even more visible, I had one of those moments of awareness—ah, so this is how this is going to be for me … I’m going to get opportunities and be awarded privileges that many other teachers, even more talented teachers than myself, won’t receive, and more often than not it’s going to be because of how I look. This awareness was humbling, especially because I knew I had a lot more to offer than my image. I also knew that all the validation and attention I was receiving was a seductive and incredibly attractive trap, and I gave a lot of thought to how I was going to navigate it.
I had a couple choices. I could personalize it and make the attention all about me and endlessly feed my ego with all the supposed love and appreciation I was getting. Or I could truly work hard on developing a strong sense of self and earn the attention I got in a way that was authentic and honoring of all yoga practitioners. This meant that I would have to keep evolving in my own personal process, take responsibility for both my light and my shadow, and work toward becoming an articulate, generous, and well-informed teacher.
In time, I also realized that I could use the way I’ve benefitted from my privileges and utilize my public platform responsibly by redirecting the attention onto things that are way more vital and important, using my influence to inspire personal growth and even perhaps global action. This was the only way I could make sense of what was happening to me. I wasn’t a model, I wasn’t invested in my popularity, and I wasn’t attached to yoga as a career. I was a deeply committed and passionate student and realized that I suddenly had some interesting karma to work through. I wanted to be as conscious in the process as possible. This included looking at my success.
I understood early on that success ebbs and flows, often at the whim of trends and public opinion. I didn’t want my success to define me and live my life attached to maintaining it. In the same way, I didn’t want my beauty or youth to determine my self-worth. I was given a gift and wanted to use the platform and opportunities I was given purposely and well. I wanted to commit to myself in my personal practice and teaching to inspiring empowerment, healing, and—what has become the dedication of my life—being of service.
Focus on the Body
During this early period in my career, what I wasn’t prepared for was the projections and the amount of attention and scrutiny my actual body got and my reaction to it. I became very self-conscious and entirely too aware that parts of me weren’t “perfect.” I would fret the week before a shoot, restricting my food intake and increasing my time on the mat, for no other reason than to help tone my muscles a bit more. I was aware that the opinions about my body would only grow as I continued to be photographed and consumed by the public, and it scared me. I felt the pressure and insecurity that many women feel—that I didn’t stack up, wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t thin enough, wasn’t perfect. I felt inadequate.
So I sat with the feelings that came up. Breathed into them. Investigating my relationship to body image became a part of my yoga and healing at that time, and I did a lot of work on myself to remember what was truly important (most certainly not the size of my ass) and what I was committed to standing for (self-acceptance). I decided that if being publicly visible and a “cover girl” were going to be a part of my journey, then I needed to contribute in a positive way to how women were perceived … starting with myself.
One of the things I request when asked to pose for a magazine is that I cannot be Photoshopped without consent. This was, and remains still, an issue for me, as this is a process that sets up the unrealistic ideals that we as a culture often desire and can never realize because it’s a lie. Photoshopping and good lighting create an image that does not exist in reality. The women you see in the magazines do not look that way in life. Recently I was Photoshopped on the cover of a magazine to the point where I look like a 12-year-old girl. My skin was flawless, my eyes were brightened, and the lines around my mouth were nonexistent.
I can understand getting rid of a zit in the middle of my forehead or smoothing out the wrinkles in the outfit I’m wearing, but I’m not comfortable when I am altered to look other than the way I am. I’ve been Photoshopped in the past where the companies I’ve worked for have given me larger breasts, narrowed my waist, taken down my thighs, flattened my belly, elongated my neck, and/or thinned out my upper arms. Even though I’m drawn to the illusion of flawlessness they give me, I know it’s not the truth of who I am and how I look. They have also tried to fill in the very obvious scar that runs through my right eyebrow—a scar that in my youth was a source of discomfort and that I used to fill in with makeup so that my face would be “normal.” At 18 I decided to reclaim this tiny imperfection as a unique part of who I am and vowed never to cover it again.
I’ve had to call these companies and tell them that I can’t be represented in a way that is not truthful. It’s not what I stand for. First of all, while I may sort of like those breasts, they’re not mine and it’s not an authentic representation of who I am. It is now in my contracts that I have final approval of all photos that get released. In the case of the recent cover photo where I’m practically unrecognizable, I did not approve that photo and it should not have been published as it was. No one was more surprised than me when I saw it on the newsstand, and I felt sad to see my face devoid of experience, character, and age. Photoshopping is an ongoing issue that continues to marginalize women and perpetuate the myths and idealization of standardized beauty. The older I get, the more I know Photoshopping is going to increasingly be an issue and something that I will continue to fight against.
Body Image and Aging
As a 47-year-old woman I am working hard not to allow these standards of beauty interpret how I approach aging and the way I feel about my body or myself. I intend to embrace aging in a way that is celebratory and unapologetic, which are things that I feel strongly compelled to stand for in my life. I do feel the push-back from society that says aging is bad, scary, undesirable, etc., but I don’t want to participate in this level of limited and fear-based thinking and minimize my experience of life as a result.
Many people don’t believe that I’m comfortable in the aging process (including the client who offered me Botox and Restylane as my 40th birthday present), and this is because there’s such an ingrained stigma associated with aging in women that has become the norm. I’m fully aware that at a certain age, women simply disappear—we become invisible. As our body changes, we don’t get the same kind of attention, adoration, reverence, or respect. We become marginalized.
In the almost twenty years that I have been teaching, I have been on twenty-four covers and in countless editorials. I will have two more covers coming out next year. I think it is wonderful that I’m pushing 50 years old and still getting asked to be on the cover of magazines that promote health. I celebrate this. What I don’t want is to be portrayed as a “beautiful” 47-year-old because I’m made to look like I’m in my 20s; this diminishes the authentic image of a healthy 47-year-old that I have an opportunity to be a role mode of.
As a leader within the yoga community and a public figure, I am well aware that there is a certain amount of projection and even expectation to look and be a certain way physically, spiritually, and ethically. Although conscious of it, I choose not to be defined by it or live my life fitting into someone else’s projection of how I should look, behave, or be. I have had experiences where people meet me and tell me that I am shorter than they thought I would be, or I am not as thin as they expected, telling me that I’m “so much juicier” than my pictures. They will say in whispered tones, “I can’t believe you’re almost 50!” as if it’s something I’m keeping a secret. I’ve even been told that I don’t look Jewish (my religious heritage). What does a Jew even look like? Is it good that I don’t? Bad? These comments are not overtly negative, but there are unconscious undercurrents that perpetuate ideals and stereotypes that I often feel the pressure to fit into. An ideal that, ironically, I perpetuated myself!
I never want to apologize for the natural process of aging or shame myself for the inevitable changes in my body that will continue to come. As I age, I see my father in my face in a way I never saw before. I welcome this. I want to own my changes, celebrate them, and honor them. I hope to inspire other women to embrace their unique beauty and allow for their own organic changes to happen gracefully. I also have no interest in trying to re-create the body of my youth as I age publicly. If I did try to fit those conventions, and conform to those ideals, I would miss the incredible experiences that aging brings—including perhaps deep self-acceptance, heart-embracing empathy, and fierce wisdom.
I earned this age. I’m fortunate to still be here in this body, and I hope to have many, many more years upon this earth to grow, expand, and become more self-realized. If this means that my hair may thin, my jowls soften, my breasts sag, and my waist expand, so be it. It is just this cycle of life, birth to death, that yoga teaches us to not become attached to and then ultimately transcend. It is sad that we become marginalized just at the same time we become our most fabulous!
Inside Out
So although I recognize that I am in a culture, and in a business, where there is a lot of body idealism with ongoing pressure to fit into that ideal, I will continue to work diligently not to buy into a collective projection of what beauty is as manufactured by a team of marketers who are invested in keeping us insecure. For me, beauty is a process of being that radiates from the inside out and is in direct relationship with our capacity for love. I’m glad that I am one representation of beauty, but beauty isn’t, nor will it ever be, limited to color, size, gender, age, ability, or culture. Beauty is who we are in relationship to spirit, not our outward appearance as determined by society.
I apologize for the ways I perpetuated the myth that beauty is a certain shape, size, and color, but I’m glad to now be in a position where I can raise awareness about it. I am hopeful that as we in the yoga community (and the world) grow, we can recognize the ways we have been complicit and continue to acknowledge the broad and endless range that beauty truly is, and celebrate its ever-evolving and differentiated face, especially in our magazines and marketing. Yoga brings us into a deeper relationship with Self, but this can never be obtained if we continue to marginalize people based on their appearance. We need to evolve the standards of beauty to be more inclusive and representative of the myriad shapes, size, colors, genders, and ages that exist. We need to model back to the world the ways in which we refuse to contribute to historical oppression within marketing that keeps people repressed, insecure, and separated.
May we recognize the opportunities we have to shift perception as a collective and work diligently to create a global standard of beauty that celebrates all beings as beautiful. May we commit to honoring each precious and unique soul as valued, honored, and loved … for exactly who we are.
Seane Corn is an internationally renowned vinyasa flow yoga teacher and spiritual activist, who focuses her teachings on self-empowerment, self-actualization, purpose, and inspired service. Since 2007, she has been training leaders of activism through her cofounded organization Off the Mat, Into the World. Seane is also cofounder of a groundbreaking fund and awareness effort across the yoga world called the Seva Challenge Humanitarian Tour, which has collectively raised over $3.5 million since 2007 for international communities in need. Her five self-authored DVDs and CD set are available through Gaiam, Yoga Journal, and Sounds True. www.seanecorn.com. >Author photo courtesy of the author.