Bellists and Bellism

I work for an amazing online magazine at iamthatgirl.com. The majority of the staff is young women, but each and every one of us on the staff would call ourselves bellists. Bellists live out the ideals of bellism, which is a movement dedicated to reconstructing society's definition of beauty. We at IATG do that by promoting other facets of a person; we encourage education, promote positive role models, and do a number of other things to inspire young women to DREAM BIG.

But here's the thing I notice...In a room full of female bellists (remember what that bellists work to redefine beauty), every one of them is beautiful. And I have to wonder why.

Every one of these women is also incredibly smart, probably more than the average girl in the coffee shop, and I wonder if those two characteristics mix well or successfully most of the time. I'd say they don't. Women, if beautiful, are not welcomed into boardrooms. They are either assumed (based on first glance) to lack the proper intelligence or they're considered a distraction for the men in that room. I think that's why many successful business women are plain-looking.

And isn't that exactly the fight of bellists? Not only to eradicate the need for all women to be physically beautiful so that they can walk into the local bar or local church social or whatever feeling confident of catching a man's eye but also to obliterate the construct that women who do happen to be physically appealing have nothing more to offer than their looks.

I've just finished reading a short essay on The Ugly Duckling (see my other blog for its text). The story has been prolonged for over a hundred years, contributing to a society's construction of image, and at a very early age nonetheless. I believe the world is fostering with bellists who are grown, and once we recognize ourselves, and gather together, we need to affect children and youth so that they can grow to be businessmen or businesswomen, a beautiful husband or a beautiful wife, without having to consider a glass ceiling based on their looks.