Letter From The Editor

Dear readers,
Here's hoping this one and only edition of BeYouty finds you well. This magazine was created as a response and alternative to the majority of women's lifestyle magazines out there today, which claim to be interested in empowering women all the while contradicting themselves in their pages and contributing to the culture that prescribes the social norms women are expected to abide by. We see this clear enough in the abundance of articles that promise the secrets to "look thinner, younger, richer" through diets, or an exercise routine to rid yourself of that "stubborn belly fat," or a list of "style DOs and DON'Ts," or "the new relationship rules," or "top products for flawless skin." Articles like these imply that there are rules when it comes to our bodies, that there are things we need to be doing, things we need to be avoiding, and products we must be buying if we want to be considered attractive, successful, happy-how exactly is that empowering? Of course, the further implication is that if your body does not conform to these standards, it must be wrong, and it must be fixed, and these articles tell you how.

The problem with these magazines then, is their normative ideas of beauty. There is a standard, a very narrow one that leaves out great swathes of women, and yet this standard is considered the "norm." We all have that deep-seated social need to simply be "normal," or we at least don't want to be considered "abnormal" with all of the negativity the word connotes. But we see how the "normal" in these magazines is a fabricated image that no one can really live up to. "Normal" in the general sense does not exist and cannot be applied universally. The concept only exists within each of us as individuals, and each "normal" is different. Perhaps your "normal" is a body shape excluded from most of these magazines. And a diet and exercise routine that no magazine would ever sponsor. However, it's all you've ever known-it's your body, your normal, and no one has the right to say that you are wrong.

Thus, this magazine is an attempt to celebrate bodies deemed non-normative by society, which are usually excluded from the public arena and from current definitions of beauty. In particular, our main article focuses on the beauty of the disabled body. There is a glaring lack of openly disabled women (or men for that matter) in public, visible positions in today's world. What message does that convey in both an explicit and implicit sense? That disabled women can't, too, be proud of their bodies, that they cannot be considered attractive and confident, and harbor no shame in showing themselves to the world? We need more demonstrations of the fact that yes, of course they can. As a disabled woman myself, I know that if I had grown up with more examples of disabled women in the media, or in esteemed positions, recognized as beautiful not in spite of their different bodies but because of them, I may have spent less time hating my own body.

Of course, many women are considered non-normative nowadays, for a variety of reasons. Take the issue of weight. Terms such as "overweight" and "fat" carry implications that people described as such are deviating from a "norm." These are marked terms, signifying a difference from the expected default. We explore the power of these types of words, and how they may be appropriated and used not through comparison to connote negative ideas, but used in and of themselves in a positive way.

The rest of our content is devoted to similar themes, of self-acceptance, love of our bodies and ourselves, and absolutely no body rules. This magazine pointedly offers no guides to looking a certain way, products to buy, or rules to follow in terms of what you do with your body. We aim not to create more constructing normative definitions of beauty. Ultimately, I think the key to empowering women is showing them that they can do whatever they want, and that they have the final say over their bodies and lives. Such freedom offers so much diverse beauty, an infinite, dizzying amount. That is what I would like to see more of in today's pages.

Sincerely,
Andrea Campos