Are Catholic women required to be beautiful?

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I was wanting to remove the link as I think it’s already served the purpose to start the discussion but unfortunately there isn’t an option to remove it.

Perhaps the discussion can be talked about in generalities so that the focus is not on her specifically.

Do you think femininity itself changes,or just societal beauty ideals?
 
Both? Depends on how you define femininity. I personally struggle with defining it because it seems like any definition will exclude a good chunk of women and include a good chunk of men as well, and hence it will be a poor and inaccurate one.

I think some societal ideals will change, like the ideal skin tone, hair and all of that. But there is still some objective standard of beauty people are too afraid to admit. For example, a birth defect will never be the ideal. Someone with severe acne will never be envied for her condition. Someone whose face is very dysymmetrical, if that’s a word. You get the picture.
Melodeonist said:
I say all women are beautiful.
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People keep saying that but the truth is that we tend to prefer certain features over another and it evokes different feeling which we can’t control. If we’re talking about beauty rather than inner beauty, obviously. (even then there are evil women out there lol)
 
I’m halfway through watching this video.

She mentions that she believes that vulnerability is feminine and a strength -is that right?

I always associated vulnerability as a negative-eg:when people show “weakness” in society they are then disadvantaged.

As an example, I read a news story the other day about a nurse who had worked somewhere approximately 30 years and then she got diagnosed with a mental illness (either Schizophrenia or Bipolar I forget which one).
She disclosed this to her employer,probably expecting support (?), but they instead demoted her without good cause.
 
There absolutely is a concept of beauty. That’s precisely what elites are trying to tear down.

Now compare this to how the Church emphasized beauty in many ways. Going to Mass involved all the five senses: the visual (stain glass windows), the aural (Palestrina), the sense of touch (the Eucharist on your tongue), smell (incense), and taste (the wine). The priest wore beautiful vestments.

Absolutely, women and men vary in how beautiful they appear. If looks didn’t matter, who would ever get dressed up for a job interview?

If we want people to see the beauty of God, the beauty of the Catholic Church, the beauty of Mary, it helps to value beauty in the first place.
 
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I don’t care about culturally dependent standards of femininity. I’m not going to put huge disks in my ears like some African women do to stretch out their ears. What matters is where I am now, and what the standards are now. I also don’t care what women did in the court of Louis XIV. Why bring that all up? Just because trends change doesn’t negate the need to honour our feminine traits.
 
I’m not clear what you mean. If I’m hiring for a restaurant, I would want people with a certain type of clean look. So a very heavily bearded man like Santa wouldn’t get hired.
 
People don’t have to be conventionally attractive in order to present well and look clean.
 
That’s how I see it too.The original feminism had value but a lot of today’s feminists seem to just want to shut down men or prevent discussions with diverse opinions.
Eg:by using the term “mansplaning” etc…
 
Even “conventionally attractive” is just another way of saying beautiful. There is nothing wrong with being beautiful, and we should strive to be beautiful.
 
Lara said:
Even “conventionally attractive” is just another way of saying beautiful. There is nothing wrong with being beautiful, and we should strive to be beautiful.
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People’s genetics are what they are. That we’re talking about physical attractiveness like it’s a moral necessity is pretty disturbing.
 
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Just try to be as attractive as you can. That’s been my point all along. Some people don’t even try. Wearing ripped jeans is one such example. You pay over $100 for jeans which already are marred. What the jeans say is “I rebel against standards of beauty.” If you don’t agree with this, ask yourself if any woman shopping at Kleinfeld’s would accept a wedding dress with a big tear in it. No, because the standard of beauty suddenly matters there, even if it didn’t when she came to the store in torn jeans.
 
Maybe - just maybe - people like wearing different clothes for different occasions. We’re not morally obligated to look like Fox News hostesses 24/7. Sometimes we just want to be ourselves and wear what we find comfy.

If anything, wouldn’t constantly trying to draw attention to our attractiveness be a sin against modesty?
 
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Strawman argument. I never said we had to look like hostesses. Just try is all. You don’t have to find an extreme. Even when wearing comfortable clothing, we can strive for some standard of beauty.
 
Sarcelle said:
We are being backwards when we let superficial temporal things like clothes, perfume, shoes, etc. define timeless archetypes such as masculinity and femininity. It should be the other way round.
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I’m not totally sure if those things can even truly define femininity.

For example:No offence to him,but Bruce Jenner may now like Perfume and high heels but would most people really decribe him as being feminine?

I think those things can naturally come out as an extension of a “feminine mindset” but by trying to artificially create femininity by intentionally wearing heels etc for some reason doesn’t always fully work (like when transgender people try).

Or is there still something more to femininity even beyond this?
 
Bruised_Reed said:
The marketing etc is fine in itself from a “world” perspective,but I guess the ultimate question for me is is this version of “feminine beauty” a cultural notion,or is it a Catholic based notion/ideal?
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Bruised_Reed said:
At the same time though,I can’t help feeling something a bit tasteful if Catholic/ism goes down this same route too because women already receive enough of these messages in the world.
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Sometimes picture can speak a thousand word.
Iow, Realistically,even in “worldly” things,people rarely outright state that their version of beauty they are pushing is the ideal to be achieved.
It’s more implied and girls/women pick up these messages.
To use an different example,some Instagram girls who are thin & sexy etc have hundreds of thousands of followers.
I doubt that any of those girls outright state “I am the ideal” but just due to human nature,and the expectations placed on females regarding external looks, other females do internalise this and try to emulate them.
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Lea101 said:
Even Ellen Degeneres is feminine despite her attire and attraction to women
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At the risk of being controversial,and I guess what the heart of this thread comes down to,is this really true?

Isn’t it true that some women in society are more feminine than others,even if feminists deny it?

I don’t mean so much Ellen’s clothing etc,but the “overall picture”.

The way i see it there can be 3 versions of how femininity is defined:

1st Version:
that super feminine (externally) is the ideal for women (particularly Christian,Muslim,religious women) and that all women should aspire to this.Necessarily reaching it is another story.

2nd Version:
that femininity (and likewise masculinity) are more of a continuum,like a bell curve,and that most women (except gender neutral ones) lie somewhere on that continuum.

Version 3:
that all women are feminine simply by virtue of being born a woman,including women that are gender neutral,the “strongest” female Afl players or otherwise “butch” women.

Many Feminists would go with Version 3,but in my viewpoint is either Version 1 or 2 are correct.
 
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