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They Changed the Standards of Beauty

TheMan — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 01:26:50 +0000

To quote BBC’s Sherlock: “Uh, beauty is a construct based entirely on childhood impressions, influences and role models”. These standards change from generation to generations, but for the past couple of years the media has been pushing the same standard of beauty on everyone – runway models, Victoria’s secret models. Those standards exclude a lot of people, and misrepresent the society. It only hurts the young generation. So lets celebrate all kinds of beauty. Here are some of the heroes who dared to challenge the standards of beauty and prove that everyone is beautiful in their own way.

1. Winnie Harlow (born Chantelle Brown-Young)

Winnie Harlow is a famous Canadian model that has managed to turn her disease into a profitable career that made her world famous. She was diagnosed with vitiligo when she was four and had quite a hard time fitting in at school. Her classmates teased her because of her patchy skin and called her all sorts of horrible names. In the end she decided to drop out of highschool. After that Winnie decided to accept the fact that she looks different and see it as a positive thing. Her fame came to her after she became a contestant at the America’s Next Top Model. She was eliminated quite a few times and ended up not winning the contest but she became very popular with the public and gathered quite a big following. In 2014 she got a job modeling for Desigual, which became a big professional break for her.

2. Andrej Pejic

Andrei Pejic is a famous transgender Australian model whose androgynous looks made it possible to model both as a man and a woman. A lot of magazines labeled Andjei as an androgynous, while she said she lives “in between genders”. Andjei was scouted at the age of 17, while working at McDonalds. Since then Andjei walked both male and female runways for Jean-Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs, Michalsky, modeled bridal dresses for Rosa Clara and many other fashion shows. In 2014 Andjei had a sex reassignment surgery and intends to live her life as a transgender woman. One of her biggest accomplishments is that she’s been the first openly transgender woman to appear in Vogue.

3. Tess Holliday

Tess in an American plus size model. Her career as a model was kickstarted when she created the #effyourbeautystandarts movement on Instagram back in 2013. Since then she has been named one of the top plus-sized models by Vogue Italia, Refinery29 and The Huffington Post. She’s been recently signed by Milk Model Management. That makes her the biggest plus-sized model signed by a mainstream modeling agency. Tess describes herself as a +Size Model, body positive activist and a feminist. Her legacy is to show that everyone is beautiful, not matter the size. This lady is a successful model, makeup artist and blogger. She managed to turn her hobbies into a career and is living the dream!

4. Daphne Selfe

Daphne Selfe is the the oldest model in the world. She’s 83 and still rocking it! She hasn’t had any surgeries or botox done, she doesn’t use expensive cosmetics, she has long grey hair and she looks her age, but she’s still beautiful. Just recently Daphne posed for a charity photoshoot wearing a replica of Madonna’s famous corset and coned bra. Daphne has modeled her whole life and is surprisingly not vain about her looks. She says she’s ok with her body, but her arms have brown spots on them so she prefers long sleeves. It’s incredibly brave of her to still model at 83, and use no photoshop. She’s doing a lot of good and helping to change the image of older women we’re used to, she’s proving that you can still look great and be an active person even if you’re old.

5. Alex Minsky

Alex is a former marine. He never planned to become a model. His story sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie, but it’s actually all true. During his first tour in Afghanistan, back in 2009, his car got blown up on a roadside bomb. His jaw was broken in several places, his arm torn to pieces and his leg completely blow of below the knee. On top of that he also had a brain trauma and spend more than a month in coma. Doctors said he probably wouldn’t survive. But Alex pulled through and after a period of depression decided to get sober and sort out his life. At this point he still didn’t even think of becoming a model. He decided to go to the gym twice a day 6 times a week, just to ingrain some healthy habits and have something to do. During one of his gym workouts he was approached by a photographer who said he’d like Alex to model for him. Alex initially thought it was a joke, but eventually agreed. The rest is history. He’s now a world famous model, challenging the standards of beauty and proving that missing a limb shouldn’t stop you from succeeding in life

6. Moffy

Moffy is a British model. She’s only 19 and she’s already taking the modeling world by storm. Moffy has strabismus, which means she’s a bit cross-eyed. When asked how does she feel about being a model and having strabismus and challenging the notion that all models should look perfect, Moffy says it was never her goal to take a stand or challenge stereotypes. It just kind of happened. But she’s glad that what makes her different is helping other people accept their own flaws and feel better about themselves. Moffy doesn’t see her condition as something that affects her life in any way, she just says she has a funny eye. She says that she thought about having surgery and fixing her eye, but decided against it, because it felt like she wouldn’t be true to herself. Her “flaw” is now what sets her apart and makes her more interesting.

7. Shaun Ross

Shaun Ross is a fashion model. What sets him apart and makes him special is that he’s an albino. He’s actually the first male albino model in the world! Shaun had quite a tough childhood. He was born in Bronx and was often teased and bullied for his looks. He has a background in dancing, he trained at Alvin Ailey for 5 years. Popularity came to Shaun from Youtube and in 2008 he switched from being a Youtuber to being a professional fashion model. Since then he’s been signed by both American and British modeling agencies and has appeared in music videos of famous celebrities. He worked with Katy Perry on her music video “E.T.”, he’s been featured in Lana Del Rey’s short film and he’s been in three different Beyonce music videos. Shaun also appeared on the Tyra Banks show where he talked about how different life has been for him.

8. Aiden Shaw

Aiden has many talents. He’s a musician, an author, an actor and a model and just an all around beautiful and intelligent man. His life took a lot of turns, at some point he starred in 18+ movies, but he managed to get his life together. He has 6 published works and 2 music albums. But he’s mostly known for his modeling. Aiden never set out to be a model, however he always was into arts. His interest in fashion started when he was 14, he found Goth/Punk youth cultures to be fascinating and started dressing accordingly. During his education years he switched a lot of universities. Aiden studied Creative Arts, Expressive Arts, Film, Television, Photography and Video, he even spent 2 years at Manchester Youth Theater. In 2011 he was contacted by GQ and invited for a photoshoot. It’s quite unusual for modeling agencies to sign models in their 40’s but nonetheless Aiden is now represented by four different huge model agencies in Paris, Barcelona and New York. He modeled for such famous magazines as Esquire and GQ style, and many others. He’s another proof that age shouldn’t stop you from achieving great things.

9. Jillian Mercado

Jillian is an american model, and it just so happens that she also suffers from muscular dystrophy. She’s a really brave and beautiful girl. She participated in the “What’s Underneath Project” how did she manage to turn her struggles into her strength Jillian says that one day she just woke up and thought “I’m so over this. I’m not going to sit in the corner my whole life, just crying about something i really can’t change”. She embraced the fact that she’s different and made a decision not to let that stop her. She’s a fashion editor, blogger and a star of Diesel’s “We Are Connected” campaign.

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Beyonce – The Woman Who Changed The Face Of Feminism

TheMan — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 22:53:12 +0000

Feminism used to get a lot of bad rep. People used to associate it with man hating and bra-burning, and hairy armpits. There’s still a lot of people who are confused about what feminism is. The main problem, in my opinion, in that feminism needed a modern day hero, a role-model we could look up to, or relate to. Someone who would be popular and famous, someone people would look up to, who could proudly say they’re a feminist. Finally the time has come and a lot of people like that are emerging. There are writers, actors and celebrities that identify as feminists but it seemed like even though they’re very popular, they still are limited to their following and that’s not enough to get the world out for the whole world to hear.

That’s where Beyonce comes in and saves the day. The brilliant thing about Beyonce is that she’s mega-famous. You would really have to struggle to find a person who hasn’t at least heard of Beyonce. Her music is popular, it’s catchy and it’s there to stay. So she did a brilliant thing and released a self-titled album “Beyonce” that pretty much made her the world renowned feminist icon.

Beyonce always seemed like a bit of a feminist and the views and opinions she expressed sounded like she was all about equality, but the words “feminist” and “feminism” were rarely mentioned. There’s nothing wrong with that, she was just quietly (well, as quietly as you can when you’re mega-famous) doing the right thing. With the release of her latest album she took that extra step and proclaimed to the world that she’s a feminist and it’s a great. She made feminism her main message and all the feminists in the world are very grateful to her for doing that. She now proudly performs on stage in front of a huge sign that says “FEMINIST” and it’s glorious. But it’s not just an empty word. Her songs, pretty much every single song on her self-titled album “Beyonce” has a feminism theme running through it.

All of the songs on the album are brilliant and you should definitely listen to the whole album if you haven’t already (it’s been out for ages, do you live under a rock?).

The song “Flawless” is particularly amazing in that respect. Let’s quote some of it, shall we?
“I know when you were little girls
You dreamt of being in my world
Don’t forget it, don’t forget it
Respect that, bow down bitches (Crown!)
I took some time to live my life
But don’t think I’m just his little wife
Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down bitches”

Not only is this song incredibly catchy, but it also explores the theme of fame and marriage and career. In just a few lines Beyonce managed to express that just because she’s famous, it doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to take some personal time off. And just cause she got married and had a baby doesn’t mean she’s just a wife and mother, she’s still a badass woman who has an incredible career and you should respect that. Hopefully, the fact that she’s married will also make people reconsider their false accusations of feminist hating men. Cause clearly, we don’t. She’s really a wonderful example of how you CAN have it all. You don’t have to choose between having a family or a career, you can do both and more. Beyonce managed to get married, have a baby, get back into amazing shape, write a new album and shoot a video for each song, then release it without any PR and still sell a million copies in a week (all that under the scrutiny of media). So, ladies, we all should take a leaf out of her book and remember that if you really want something, you can do it all, no excuses.

Another wonderful thing Beyonce did in this song is include the extract of a TEDx talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie where she talks about feminism. That was a brilliant idea, because TEDx talks don’t get nearly enough publicity, and including this extract in Beyonce’s song really shared the message with an enormous audience. There is really no way to make the message more clear than that, so let’s just quote it:

“We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller
We say to girls,
“You can have ambition
But not too much
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man.”
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage
And we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to see each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are
Feminist: the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes”