Why Beauty Matters by Karen Lee-Thorp

Why Beauty Matters Reviews

• 
  Rebecca Young

  I think this title is a bit misleading...what I think it should say is, "why does beauty matter so much?" or "How should beauty matter to us?" Because it definitely answers both of those questions. At the top of the cover, it says, "in a world mesmerized with superficial beauty, this offers women a better way". I really enjoyed this book. It is an extensive look at beauty--through the bible, through history, through the authors' own experiences. It is not necessarily an easy read. I took about a month to read through it...but I am really glad I did. I think I would recommend it to every woman who is concerned about their appearance, who is concerned about aging, and how they will accept it, who struggles in any way with their self image or with looking in the mirror and feeling good about what they see.
  
  It is written by two Christian women. There is a whole fascinating chapter on The Goddess of Beauty-- how we have idolized beauty and all the things we do in our society to worship it.
  
  I have many quotes to type in here, so hopefully you can get a feel for the writing and decide if it appeals to you.
  
  "If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then a loving beholder somehow has the power to bring out the beauty in the beloved. The loved girl or woman radiates the beauty of security, and so her beautiful face can also be called "the face of love."
  
  "God gives every parent a godlike task: to love a tiny immortal in an intensely physical way, and thereby to make that little one believe in her beauty."
  
  "When beauty is the chief tool in a woman's strategy to earn love, aging is a crisis."
  
  "It's easy for our human need for respect and our tendency to judge by appearance to drive us into a competition for the best hair--or at least a valiant attempt to hold out own. We'd sound vain if we talked about it, so we go right on struggling to keep up, wondering if we're the only one who feels weighed down by relentless, silent expectations. Ultimately, of course, we want to mature to a point where we are secure in God's respect for us. God views each of us as highly valuable creatures. God takes us seriously."
  
  One author is talking about her own experience with anorexia... "the fact that I chose weight out of all the other hundreds of things I could have tried to control has a lot to do with what weight symbolizes in our society. To me, weight (not grades or hours spent in prayer) was the ultimate symbol of a woman in control of her life. Fat was the ultimate symbol of weakness and failure. I did not come up with these ideas on my own; I picked them up from people around me."
  
  "Dieting can reflect a commitment to become perfect through flesh-driven willpower, rather than a commitment to become like Christ through the Holy Spirit."
  
  "A beauty idolator sees love, respect, and wealth as win-lose commodities. She feels her pride threatened when people enjoy another woman's beauty. To her, humility is no option; there is either the pride of the winner or the humiliation of the loser. She also feels her value threatened: the more others enjoy her rival's beauty, the less attention is left for her. Consequently, contentment is no option for her either she either has the power to get what she wants, or she envies those who have it."
  
  This was one of my favorites....
  "Men are wont to frankly stare at a woman when they size her up, but competitive women look sidelong, alert to whether they have won or lost the client contest."
  
  "If over time we allow ourselves to be loved until we can change how we respond when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we will have made a difference for one person. And as we adjust the messages we send our daughters, our friends, our husbands, and other women in church, we will have mounted a serious challenge to the beauty goddess. ***We can begin to change the world just by learning to receive love and pass it on to the next woman.***"
  
  "When we allow ourselves to be loved and invest our energy in loving others, we genuinely grow more beautiful, even as being beautiful becomes less of an obsession. We draw strength from the smiles of loving beholders and begin to smile ourselves...."
  
  In one particularly insightful part, the authors talk about the way we dress for church...
  "While Christians may decry women who dress immodestly in a sexual sense--in tight or low-cut outfits--they often admire women who dress immodestly in the financial sense. ***We are at much less risk of tempting men to lust than we are of tempting other women to envy and shame.
  When we look in the mirror we might be less concerned with asking, "Do I look too sexy?" than with asking "Do I look too proud?".***
  
  "Putting down their own appearances is women's way of deflecting each other's envy and feeling like comrades: misery loves company, and being uglier-than-thou elicits sympathy rather than jealousy. Bad-mouthing their bodies also enables them to avoid talking about feelings that lay closer to the bone, such as anxiety over not measuring up."
• 
  Bre Teschendorf

  This book is really really interesting and eye opening. So far, I'm surprised and a little depressed while reading it... but it is so insightful and HONEST about the importance of beauty, which Christians usually try to deny, that I am devouring it and enjoying it.
• 
  Jennifer

  This goes way beyond the Sunday school sermons on pride/beauty/modesty we grew up hearing. The authors did significant research and even though the stats are dated (this was written in early 90s), they’re still worth looking at. Beauty matters. This book addresses what that means for christians. Highly, highly recommend.