Women Are Allowed To Be Ugly

Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas on Unsplash

Currently, 50 Cent and TI are engaged in a beef online. In their exchange of words online, 50 cent posted a picture of TI’s wife Tiny that was not flattering. TI and Tiny’s son responded at 50 Cent, mentioning his deceased mother, which truly will never be something to insult someone about. We will all die. To use someone’s deceased relative as an insult is just weird. Through their continued exchanges, which had Beyonce’s mom Tina Knowles posting a picture of Tiny seemingly in support of her, one thing was impressed upon me. Women fighting for their lives to be seen as beautiful quite literally.

Just to double back, though, insulting someone’s appearance is grade school behavior. 50 Cent is wrong for the comments he made. It is not right for men to pick on women’s looks . Especially when let’s just call a spade a spade, your man is not winning Mr. GQ. All of that aside, though, there is something to me about this that reveals the depths of insecurity present from not only Tiny but so many women.It is one of the double-edged swords of womanhood. The importance and elevation of physical beauty over character and confidence built off internal characteristics. Beauty is forced on all women, and whether one participates in beauty politics or not, it is beauty, which is what one will first notice.

The first thing we notice about a woman is how she looks. People will lie and pretend otherwise. But it is just a fact. How she looks. How she looks will inform how she is perceived, how she will be talked to, who will talk to her, and how she will be treated. We will have to add race to this conversation. As a Black woman, the first thing that is assessed is your complexion, your hair, and your body type. Those are the main three that are first seen, assessed, and used as a barometer for how any Black woman will be treated. There are typical rankings of what those characteristics will say about said woman. The viewer or audience will proceed from there. It is actually quite a complex system compounded by our denial that such processing exists.

This is not a we’re all pretty kind of piece. This is not a beauty is in the eye of the beholder kind of piece. In here, Blackthelma is going to keep it real.

Tameka ‘Tiny’ Harris , wife of TI, actually came into the limelight in the 1990s as a member of Atlanta r&b girl group Xscape. Known for hits like Just kickin' it and My Little Secret(a favorite of mine), they had a nice little run during that mid 90’s r&b wave. Biggie Smalls called them “ ugly bitches”. And God Bless the Dead but the man had a face that only a mother and Lil Kim could love. I’m just saying… To that point, men really gotta stop calling people ugly especially if they aren’t much to look at themselves.

If I must say Tiny was cute enough by most standards in the 90’s. Remember that trifecta(hair, complexion, body type). She is a lightskin woman, actually biracial, slim, and those Southern gals stayed with some cute hairstyles. Just off that , a woman like Tiny would be seen as something on the scene . In fact, that was probably what drew her and the handsome TI to be man and wife. But over the years, Tiny started to look different. She was ruthlessly crushed online. People called her Miss Piggy because of her features. And ironically enough, I believe being with a man seen as attractive like TI accelerated the abuse she experienced. Women who are seen as less attractive than their men get a brutal type of treatment and disrespect. It is almost as if such a woman violates the unspoken social arrangement.

At any rate, with their tv shows, TI’s increased wealth and power in the industry, I am sure the pressure was elevated for Tiny. She did what most women of means do. She got into the plastic surgery game. From head to toe, mama cut, diced, added, and did her best to refute that ugly label. A few years ago, she reportedly did an eye color surgery to make her eyes blue. Some say it is just contacts, but there were a few reports saying she did a surgery, which has been deemed quite dangerous. The picture 50 Cent showed amplified possible work she has had done to her backside. And I sigh. I sigh a big deep sigh.

We love to say in America that a woman can do whatever she wants to her body. Her life,her body , her choice. If it makes you unhappy, change it and so many other sayings that encourage the right to cut ad nauseam into our precious bodies and faces. We often deny that it is for the men who have and will continue to cheat on our asses. The men who have never been to a surgeons office, who likely still have boxers with holes in them. The idea that we can out beautify his need to step out, to leave, and so on. It is rubbish. It is absolute rubbish for so many reasons. The physical won’t keep him. If he can’t love you as a person and respect your relationship, let his ass go. But to the former points, plastic surgery is not a permanent solution to what is missing, which is assurance in your right to just exist. Women are not doll babies to be picked , prodded, and probed.

Women make men the bad guys in our stories. And lord knows they’ve earned that title. But we have been bad guys to ourselves. We have been our own villains, our own enemies. Our features, our hair , our bodies tell our stories. As Black women, one of the bravest things we can do is not give a fuck about fitting into the standards of societies meant to beat us down and consume us. There is never any winning in these rigged competitions. That will be the only way true transformation happens collectively for our self esteem. By letting go of all of these standards and metrics of acceptance that seek to have us never being good enough. Didn’t Beyonce get cheated on? Didn’t Halle Berry get dragged through the mud more than a few times? So called top notch beautiful women in any room who still got wounded. Beauty is not protection from pain.

Ain’t you a transwoman though Blackthelma? Don’t you belong to a community infamoous for every type of surgery, embellishment, and physical sorcery known to woman and man? Yup. That is why I know that chasing beauty is not a path to liberation. Chasing beauty is never-ending. Chasing beauty requires the understanding on so many levels that I have accepted that I am not good enough as I am. The hold of the aesthetic traps us in a permanant state of superficiality. I think of Oprah, the most powerful Black woman on the planet. The one thing that made me sad for Oprah on some level as wealthy and fabulous as she is ,is how her weight became an endless conversation piece. It was always about this endorsement, Weightwatchers, the Yo-yo ing , the diets , the constant mention of her weight when she was and is so much more than her body.

We’re free to live our lives as we see fit. We have no choice in the matter. But I believe we have to let go of the standards imposed by others about our physical form. I think of a song lyric Cardi B said recently. She said to some adversary, “ I’d rather die on a table than look like you”. This is coming from a woman who has admitted to having so much work done. This is coming at a time when perhaps hundreds of women are losing their lives each year getting their ass done. Ladies, we gotta do better. Please do better. Let that shit go. Your life is worth more than likes. Just my two cents.

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