Excerpt from Looksism: An Experiential Journey Through Oblivion, Denial, Acceptance, and Healing

an upcoming book by Kassandra Genovesi

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Looksism is the judging of people or situations by how they appear. It makes the approval of others the assigned author of our actions. Looksism says that if we have the right look then we will be happy. Looksism promises that if we lose (or gain) the extra weight, buy the killer outfit, go to the hip club, wear the perfect shoes, or have the right skin color then we will be happy. We can relax. We will have made it. Do you ever believe this?

Most, I might even say all, of us have. At one time or another we've acted "the right way" in order to get what we want. Putting on the suit for the job interview, the tux for the wedding, the lingerie for the lover. So what's wrong with that? Nothing. Until we start identifying who we are with how we look. Until we judge our self-worth on whether or not we fit in. Until the approval of others is more important than our own beliefs and integrity.

Looksism promises that the right look will make us happy, safe, loved. There is both lie and irony in this belief. The lie is that it isn't true - it's impossible to ever have enough of the right stuff or the right look to feel good about yourself, at home in the world, and like you fit in. The best you'll get is a temporary stasis - a holding pattern where you momentarily feel like you reached the goal and feel a relief from the striving. But then you notice that someone else has something cooler or better or newer and the cycle starts again. You need to have that thing to be happy. What you have is never enough.

The irony is that even the people who seem to have it all and to fit in with the looksist culture are also damaged by it. Perhaps most damaged by it because they may believe there is nothing else to do, no other way to live. So caught up in feeding the mask they present to the world, they know no other way. They truly believe that getting more of the right stuff, behaving more in the right way, will make them happy. And once they realize that having the right look does not grant happiness, there often still is not a way out. Miss America may know that she is the same person when she's wearing sweats and doesn't put on makeup. She also fears, with good reason, that she will be judged and ridiculed and treated as a different person if she shows up in public looking like this rather than all spiffed up, nipped and tucked. Looksism has a wide and sticky web.

Efforts to improve how we look can be fun. It can be creative, enjoyable, social, artistic. I am not advocating everyone look slovenly all the time or saying that jeans and baseball caps are better than makeup and dresses. I'm saying that looksism deserves to be looked at and named as what it is. It is potentially deadly as I realized when one friend of mine stated that she would rather be an alcoholic than be fat. I've seen the pursuit of the right look run the gambit from riduculous to sad, frenetic to exhausting, depressing to life-threatening. And it's almost always expensive. Expensive to the wallet and terribly expensive in terms of quality of life. I realized just how expensive when one friend of mine stated that she would rather be an alcoholic than be fat. She was about to enter treatment for alcohol addiction and abuse.
Why are we willing to kill ourselves for a look?

Looksism walks hand in hand with the mantra "I'm not enough, something is wrong with me, I can't let them see who I really am. Things should be different." We want to feel like enough. We want to be accepted. We want to live quality lives and know our existence on this planet makes a differenct. We are afraid these things aren't true. And so we look to others for our worth, our validity. We want others to tell us we are good, enough, perfect. We settle for hearing "What a nice car! I wish I had one like it." and "Wow, that dress looks great on you. Did you lose weight?". When we don't hear enough of this to feel good about ourselves, we say "I hate my thighs." and "I'm going on the new low carb diet." And we make ourselves smaller and smaller. Less vivacious. Less daring. Less confident. We shrink whether our bodies are getting bigger or smaller, the essence we share with the world gets smaller and smaller.

Wherever you search through the lens of looksism, you are doomed to suffering and unfulfillment. Whether you think yoga, meditation, and a vegetarian diet will make you happy or if you think that the right car, the right outfit, more money, and the perfect lover will make you happy. It may look different on the surface, but it is the same desperate search. The cycle of desire and acquisition is doomed to disappoint no matter what the object of attainment is. The most holy thing in this world can be debased and the most profane be experienced as a sacrament. Looksism also walks hand in hand with narrow-mindedness and the prejudice that things are inherently good or bad. That thin is inherently better than fat, that blonde is inherently better than dark, that male is inherently better than female. Don't see the connection? Read on.

Looksism feeds acquisitiveness. For this reason, our consumerist culture loves to feed our looksist fears. Teenagers are some of the most susceptible people to this advertising frenzy. The advertising company that can most make you believe you 1) aren't enough as you are and 2) will be sexy, acceptable, popular and happy if you buy their product is the one that wins - you'll buy their product. What if instead of looking outside ourselves to see our value we unwrapped our shells and looked inside? What if you, as you are right now, are a good person. What if you are enough. What if you live in a friendly Universe?

To constantly wonder and worry about how we look is very stressful. It's stressful to hover on the verge of acceptance or rejection based on how someone else responds to us. Acceptance or rejection based on behavior, based on a good haircut, the right outfit, the new car, the right look for these people in this place at this time. And there is no one right look. The same look that works on a beach in Maui looks ridiculous hiking in the Appalachians, would get no respect in a New York City boardroom, and could be life threatening in Alaska. Even in the same geography there is no one right look. A different outfit is appropriate for the corporate 9-5, for the Friday night rave, the Saturday afternoon baby shower, and the Sunday morning yoga class.

It's enough to make one feel crazy. After reading a memoir about a woman with multiple personality disorder, I was struck by an eerie similarity to how I've lived my life. Presenting only the parts of myself that are safe in this environment. Calling up those traits that help me handle the situation and repressing the traits that would be terrified or too emotional or just too risky. I act like one person in one situation and completely different in another. But am I really a different person or just aspects - fragmented aspects - of the same person?

When look becomes more important than essence, a fundamental disconnect has taken place. I would like to see us heal this disconnect. I often speak to people about yoga and transformation. The transformation is the unfolding process to trust one's Self. We practice tools and practices to come into self-trust. Listening to our own inner voices, learning to hear them, trust them, work with what happens when we trust ourselves, developing compassion for others as they react to us differently and try to shut us down, developing compassion for ourselves as we try and succeed, try and fail, practice and love it and stop practicing and judge ourselves and come back to the practice. Self-trust. I am a good person. I AM right now as I am in this moment a good person. Weighing exactly what I weigh now, with this hair cut, these clothes, this attitude. I am a good person and I live in a friendly Universe.

Webpage created on ... July 17, 2004