Episode 22: More Than Skin Deep with Grace Gold
What is beauty? And “where” does it happen?
“Science,” or at least researchers involved in it, keep looking for the correlates of the brain associated with the experience of beauty. So far, their efforts have yielded only one clear result: that pinning down the place where “beauty” is experienced in the brain, at least so far, only produces more uncertainty.
Tho that’s “beauty” writ large.
Those who analyze human beauty? Well, they have a different story. In their assessment beauty can be broken down by specific attributes – like these four highlighted by Nafees Alam Ph.D., an expert in “Pop Culture Mental Health” for Psychology Today. Citing “evolution, mathematics, and the Fibonacci sequence” as the formula behind what we experience as beauty, Alam’s reflections continue with “Symmetry and proportion signal health, influencing attraction across cultures.” He asserts that objecrtive beauty is found in these attributes:
“Facial Symmetry: Symmetrical faces are universally more attractive because they indicate genetic robustness and developmental stability.
“Golden Ratio (Phi ≈ 1.618): The proportion of facial features that align with this ratio is often associated with beauty.
“Clear Skin and Youthfulness: Indicators of good health and reproductive potential.
“Bilateral Body Symmetry: A well-proportioned physique suggests optimal genetic development.”
Maybe. Yet digging deeper reveals a challenge to all of that logic-driven objectivity. After all, the first 300,000 years of human history seemed to focus on virtues not confined to mathematical orders or formulas of proportion, at least not as I understand them.
Take a look at the breadth of female beauty across timeless global cultures:
Female beauty took countless forms across human time and culture, surfacing themes of fertility, power, sexuality, and mysticism as well as the more rational “symmetry” and rational measurements extolled today. Maybe we’re trying to fit “beauty” in to the hierarchical and separatist standards that rank so much else in the modern world?
As ways of thinking and valuing the world – new outlooks inherently about separating from nature – emerged (about 4,000 years ago, with the emergence of what we now call Western thought), advances in mathematics drove priorities that were increasingly about measurable, evidence ways of interpreting life.
Since so much of modern life stems from the emergence of Western thought, is it possible that reason-backed interpretations of beauty reflect what our culture has taught us rather than the more essential, ineffable, “energetic” beauty that our guest Grace Gold speaks about?
Watch Grace in action…
More about Grace…
Grace Gold is a big-thinking beauty and wellness journalist with more 20 years of broadcast, print, and digital experience that’s all about helping people look and feel their best. A summa cum laude graduate of New York University’s school of journalism, Grace began her editorial career covering celebrity beauty at People Magazine. She has contributed to TODAY, Good Morning America, and countless ABC, CBS, and NBC stations cross country. She’s also written for magazines including Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, and Redbook as well for digital editions of Vogue, Elle, Allure, Women’s Health and SELF. Her trademark warm, friendly tone makes even complex topics accessible, informing and educating audiences everywhere about beauty news and trends.
Learn more at GraceGold.com, and follow Grace on Instagram at MsGraceGold. You can also peruse her articles for Women’s Health and other publications.
Grace mentions Elizabeth Taylor as an icon of objective beauty, and, yes – her features and grace would be hard for any eyes to find fault with. Double-layered lashes (a condition called distichiasis, the result of a genetic mutation) accented her wide indigo eyes, and her face was indeed a study in symmetry.
Yet a recent biopic exploring her inner life might shift your perspectives to deeper attributes of beauty, and how her photogenic facade pulled attention away from traits that would have added radiance to any being.
Yes, beauty can be objective. Yet it’s not limited to genetic gifts or features that someone else’s formula declares as the standard.
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