Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder!
Genderless, Gender fluid, or Gender neutral, what do these words even mean, and why knowing them has become a requisite in the 21st Century?
The most famous and oldest dictionary the Merriam Webster defines genderless as ‘lacking qualities typically associated with either sex’, and I believe it is pretty apt yet mawkish. The idea of using gender-neutral pronouns has been around since 1386. Hard to believe? I KNOW! But these ideas began to draw attention only in late 2017, as usage of non-binary pronouns was done academically.
The revolution around gender-neutral pronouns has sparked successive revolutions in fashion, beauty, toys, and even parenting. These revolutions had one singular motive and that was to blur gender lines and not mold humans into pre-decided social roles and rather let them explore and find their own space of being.
When we talk about parenting in a gender fluid sense, nobody’s doing it better than our most loved and once legendary duo Angelina Joile and Brad Pitt. Their daughter Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, though assigned a girl at birth, wanted to identify herself as a boy and be referred to as John. While this phase only lasted for a few years and she reverted back to her feminine side, her parents did not let the media and the society decide their social roles and way of being for them, instead they fought off each rumor and gossip with integrity.
When we talk about beauty, it has been a victim of various stereotypes and has been a caged concept until a few years ago, where people started making conversations and asking for their rightful space in society. The idea of ‘normalcy’ when it came to beauty was flawless, binary, feminine, unrealistic, and probably denial. These unreal and pre-decided standards of beauty led to self-hatred, inferiority complex, and many unhealthy starvation practices across all genders. As inspiring as it sounds, it took a lot of courage, struggle, and efforts of numerous people for breaking two-gender normative socialization and moving forward towards a gender-neutral/genderless concept of beauty. A positive attitude towards all genders applying make-up or being concerned about how they look is striking among people today because it allows them to express themselves through it and not hide behind the fictitious beauty definitions.
People now rally across the notion of beauty as being YOU, being and expressing what truly makes you who you are. It does not revolve around just outer appearance anymore, it believes in acceptance of self and acknowledging dynamic definitions of beauty.
We at Cossouq believe that raw, pure beauty is honest, unapologetic, flexible, and genderless; an unfettered, boundless expression when done deliberately and subconsciously. When you live your truth, you encourage others to do the same. People we respect and surround ourselves with, are true to themselves, always changing and reinventing the world. That is stunning. Accommodating and loving our "imperfections," taking risks, being vulnerable, being inclusive, intersectional, and holding ourselves responsible are all aspects of beauty.
