Seeing Women From Space

I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

“Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” William Shatner

Most girls and young women believe the well-circulated myth that with great beauty comes happiness and a heightened quality of life. Magazines and films circulate this even more aggressively than fairy tales circulate dreams of true love’s kiss. When I read the above excerpt from William Shatner’s book Boldly Go, it reminded me of the false promise that being physically gorgeous is the height of what women’s lives have to offer. I often think to myself: if we had a wider perspective, where would we find real beauty in women's lives?

The Insecurity Industry spends billions promoting the lie that physical beauty directly causes happiness. There are countless beautiful women who led unhappy lives. Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe come to mind as lauded beauties who did not have happier marriages for being beautiful. More contemporary examples of women born with the most up-to-date agency and rights, like Jenna Ortega and Billie Eilish, have respectively gone through the pain of deepfake porn and depression, meaning that their beauty (and the attention that came from that beauty) did not make them happier; in fact, it likely contributed to certain hardships they’ve already had at a young age. While beauty can lead to certain forms of “pretty privilege,” our society has become so obsessed with this one part of the female experience that we seem to think everything for a woman hinges on her desirability. Clearly, this hyperfixation is untrue, because beautiful women are not all happy, and happy women are not all beautiful.

If any of us woke up one day, bodies switched with a highly beautiful celebrity, would we actually enjoy their lives? Whenever I have read interviews of “what it took for Ms. X to get ready for this role/fashion show,” I’ve always thought her regimens sounded nightmarish. Constant food restriction and extreme exercise regimens do not sound better to me than just accepting that my body looks average. Paparazzi following me around and selling unflattering photos of me in my daily life because I’m sometimes "extremely" beautiful on a red carpet is a terrible trade-off. No one compares my fit at the grocery store to that at Hollywood events. Unlike many of these celebrities with neurotoxins and fillers injected into their faces, I can still use all my expressions and haven’t lost any muscle functions. Millions of people don’t remember me as a teen star, so my aging doesn’t rattle anyone. Isn’t there a joy in that? I consider my life much happier than anyone who gets hounded by photographers, even if my bank account is more modest and men are not tripping over themselves to be near me.

William Shatner’s reflections echo in me the quiet gratitude I have for the life I lead. If I woke up in the body of a top celebrity, how sad would it be to exist in this person’s body and know that I have rejected my true self, the coalescence of my ancestors in me, and my age, for the viewership of others? For millennia, my forebears would have passed on this or that trait, all for me to refuse them. I will have marooned the generations after me with faces I wouldn't share. Shatner's grief at ancient ecosystems perishing is not unlike the grief I feel for millions of people destroying evidence of their genetic legacy. I can’t claim that’s beauty on any level.

The most beautiful women I know aren’t in Hollywood, they’re at family parties and live on my block. They’re grandmas ensuring everyone has a hot meal and sisters who are honorary aunties to all. The most beautiful women I know are at peace with themselves, and whose greatest treasures are not their faces but their characters. The warmth and gift of womanhood is not found in magazines, but in our lives.

Those who are obsessed with beauty as the totality of how women exist in this world lack perspective. We are not elusive trends and would not be more valuable if we turned 22 and stayed that way. Let us learn a lesson the easy way, and skip the trip to Hollywood or outer space, because “the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us.”