Unseen Beauty

The Complexity Behind Beauty and Body Image in the Visually Impaired and What We
Can Learn from Them

Raelin Kronenberg
Body Politics Research Paper
11/16/17
 Raelin Kronenberg

The human body is immensely complex. Its physicality is profoundly varied, and

its experience highly intimate. Despite this reality, we are led to believe there is one

perfect body. We are encouraged to pursue this ideal physique and to resent any variation

from it. We can see the prevalence of body normalizing through the United States efforts

to decrease the obesity rate of its citizens using the War on Fat campaign. This initiative

employs frightening statistics and powerful images of overweight children and adults to

trigger a fear and guilt response to motivate people to purse the better body ideal. We are

bombarded with advertisements selling us not only an array of consumer products to

make our bodies better, but the image of our body we should see reflected in the mirror.

Companies use bodies to sell. The visual component of the idealized body appears to be a

powerful influence acting as the primary determinant in peoples opinion of their own

being. It seems beauty cannot be separated from a visual experience, yet there is more to

this belief. We can learn a great deal about the experience of beauty from those who must

navigate it differently. People with visual impairments are impacted by societys

standard of beauty and body ideals through a unique intersection of physical,

emotional and audio narratives. Experiencing beauty through the alternative

mechanisms used by many blind people decreases its visual emphasis and generates

a wider definition of what is beautiful.

Blind people experience the same beauty norms as those who are sighted,

although often less intensely. Societys preferred body image can easily be conveyed

through descriptive narratives, meaning the blind are not spared from its influence. Gili

Hammer, while working on her postdoctoral research, describes the role of the femininity

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normalized appearance in her interviews with blind Israeli Women. She articulates a

heightened awareness of normal appearance is common among disabled and blind people

in general, who are bombarded with advice about the need for good grooming, physical

fitness and tasteful attire. Appearance work is highly relevant specifically for blind

women who must negotiate the social expectations of the aesthetic discourse of the

feminine body, as well as that of the visual culture, which is saturated with images of the

feminine body.1 She emphasizes the desire for the unsighted to comply with the

normative narrative mediated by their friends and family. Since the generalized beauty

norm is transferable to blind bodies, they are expected to learn and adhere to them. The

blind are still apart of society and capable of integrating themselves into the general

sighted public sphere. Accepting a space in the greater community subjects them to the

same collective norms as the nondisabled. Hammer shares another of her interviewees

experience of the social conventions and norms of visual aesthetics she consciously

conforms to. Talia told Hammer, I live among sighted people, and I dont want to make

them feel uncomfortable. And it gives me a better feeling when my appearance is

pleasant for a sighted person to look at.2 Another of the women, Ayelet, again declared

the importance of appearance. According to Hammer, Ayelet not only emphasized her

wish to maintain an appearance that will pass as decent but also to deliver a specific

1
Gili Hammer, Blind Womens Appearance Management: Negotiating Normalcy between Discipline and
Pleasure, Gender and Society 26, no. 3 (2012): 416, JSTOR.
2
Gili Hammer, If Theyre Going to Stare, at Least Ill Give Them a Good Reason To: Blind Womens
Visibility, Invisibility, and Encounters with the Gaze, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41,
no. 2 (2016): 419.

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un-damaged feminine look, using practices such as wearing makeup and jewelry and

removing her body hair.3 The need to be presentable is not obscured from lack of visual

representation of what society expects and favors in appearance. Hammer notes the blind

women she spoke with express a unique awareness of visual culture and an ability to

perform, enact, and decipher the visual norms of beauty and femininity.4 They are fully

aware of what society wants to see.

Visual representations provide a stronger reinforcer for beauty and body norms

compared to alternative descriptions experienced by those who are visually impaired. The

power of image lies in its ability to be easily compared at face value. Blind people rely

less on the visual components of their world as they are forced to understand reality in

other ways. Hammer writes how appearance can lose some of its power when it cannot be

seen by sharing another of the responses made by Talia. Talia remarks that even when

surrounded by pressures to follow societys beauty narratives, she feels free from these

norms, because there is no constant visual feedback on a daily basis.5 She told Hammer,

Im quite happy with not having a complex about being slim and shapely, I feel good

about it, she continues, Im happy with not looking for a mirror all the time If I were

a sighted person, I would have to comply with the social norms that women feel

compelled to follow. ... And I wouldnt want to be in that place.6 Being blind does not

3
Hammer, Blind Womens Appearance Management, 13.
4
Ibid., 21
5
Hammer, If Theyre Going to Stare, at Least Ill Give Them a Good Reason To, 419.
6
Ibid., 419.

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exclude someone from feeling normative pressures, but it certainly lessons their

influence.

The role of vision in body image is complex. Dawn Baker, Rebecca Sivyer, and

Tony Towell explain the findings from their research Body Image Dissatisfaction and

Eating Attitudes in Visually Impaired Women how tactile kinesthetic information does

not fully compensate for visual experience in the formation of the representation. The

inability to internalize the same significance of cultural norms regarding appearance,

body image, and the associated value of thinness is predominantly due to visual

disability.7 Being blind reduces the strength of the social beauty norms on influencing

how people view their bodies. Baker, Sivyer, and Towell also discovered the blind had

the lowest levels of body dissatisfaction, while sighted individuals had the highest. They

suggest a disproval of ones body is linked to disordered ideas about eating and food.8

Having the ability to compare body aesthetic is often a subconscious source of suffering

for people and effects how we feel about ourselves. Being removed from the visual

assault of perfect body images allows a more personal relationship with ones own

physicality to take place instead of comparing it to others. A study organized by Jeanne

Walsh Peirce and Jane Wardle from the Institute of Psychiatry found blind children tend

to have a higher self-esteem and positive body image since they lack an intense concern

about bodily appearance found in sighted children.9 Individuals who are congenitally

7
Dawn Baker, Rebecca Sivyer, and Tony Towell, Body Image Dissatisfaction and Eating Attitudes in
Visually Impaired Women, International Journal of Eating Disorders 24, no. 3 (1998): 320. EBSCO.
8
Ibid, 321.
9
Jeanne Walsh Pierce, Jane Wardle, Body Size, Parental Appraisal, and Self-Esteem in Blind Children,
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 37, no. 2 (1996): 211, Pergamon.

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blind are unable to judge their bodies against others. They do not have the experience

of seeing themselves, comparing their appearance with others, and observing the visual

impact that their body may have on others.10 They are able to form a more intimate

relationship with their own physique without a strong bias for what society says it should

look like.

Accepting the body norms of society leads to individual suffering. The

internalization of unrealistic expectations of what a body should look like results in poor

body image and low self-esteem. We have observed how the absence of visual

expectations tends to decrease body dissatisfaction, yet researchers Walsh and Wardle

also found the idealization of a thin body still penetrateds the minds of those unable to

see it. The children were influenced by the positive and negative attitudes of

significant others form whom they often deduce biases and prejudices about the obese.

They express notions that they know fatness is not appreciated and slim is better11

While they understand what society expects, they lack the ability to judge their own

appearance against this norm. In a study done by Martin Pinquart and Jens P. Pfieffer at

Philipps University found German children with visual impairments to be less satisfied

with their body likely due to their association with body image and psychological well-

10
Walsh Pierce and Wardle, Body Size, Parental Appraisal, and Self-Esteem in Blind Children, 205.
11
Ibid., 211.

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being.12 They show how succumbing to the narrative of what a proper physique should

look and feel like results in a dissatisfaction with oneself.

Warped body expectations are what drives poor attitudes towards eating. This can

happen without access to visual representations of a thin body. There is increasing

awareness of the development of Anorexia Nervosa in blind youth. As previously noted,

visually impaired individuals still experience many of the same body narratives as the

sighted community. They have the disadvantage of trying to reconcile these visual norms

into their world built on alternative sensory information. A.C. McFarlane highlights how

congenitally blind children do internalize a representation of the human body but this is

impoverished and systematically distorted.13 This demonstrates that dissatisfaction with

body image is not purely visual but requires a great deal of mental perceptions, even

without adequate context. Taking the distorted idea of what is a normal body leads to an

internal warped sense of self. This factors into the process of embodying a disturbed body

image leading to a poor development of identity common in the formation of Anorexia

Nervosa.14

The power of body image is not a simple social construct or visual influence.

What is beautiful and appealing is a more complex phenomenon than can be dictated by

society. It is not something that can be generalized to all people. When we try to accept

12
Martin Pinquart and Jens P. Pfeiffer, Body image in adolescents with and without visual impairment,
The British Journal of Visual Impairment 30, no. 3 (2012), doi:10.1177/0264619612458098, 128.

13
A.C McFarlane, M.D., Blindness and Anorexia Nervosa, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 34, (1989),
431.
14
Ibid., 431.

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the body norms for ourselves, we are often end up suffering. If we are able to define our

personal beauty, we can overcome some of the power societys perfect body image holds.

Beauty is an intimate and complex property. It is more than just an outer appearance. In a

campaign launched by the Dove beauty products company aimed to expand the definition

of what is beautiful, three blind women describe what beauty means to them. They

separate the idea of beauty as being limited to a body appearance and shift it to sensation.

They emphasize it is doing the right thing at the right time, it is joyous emotion, a state of

being.15 Real beauty is a state of mind and not intrinsically visual. The women Hammer

interviewed shared their need to have pleasant appearances, but also described an

experience much deeper that intimately reflects how they view themselves. The women

emphasized the pleasures received through their heightened awareness of sound, smell,

and touch, recognizing blindness as allowing a deep and authentic connection with the

body, intuition, and femininity.16 To them, beauty was an inherent quality of their own

bodies and not a label created by society.

Another way to look at beauty as experienced by the blind is through its inherent

presence in mannerisms and movement. When the emphasis on appearance is shifted to

allow a diverse understanding of a person, we learn more about them and ourselves. In a

series of interviews completed by Asia Freidman from the University of Delaware, the

way blind people perceive others is explored. While reading the report, a trend emerges

where they define people based more on mannerisms and movement, and little on how

15
Justina Bakutyte, This Company Asked Women Who Are Blind About Beauty. Their Answers Were
Truly Eye-Opening, A Plus, last modified April 27, 2015. http://aplus.com/.
16
Hammer, Blind Womens Appearance Management, 19.

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they think they appear. Freidman notes how many of the individuals interviewed

questioned the method of focusing on appearance used by the those able to see and what

they miss by relaying predominantly on sight. For instance, several respondents

mentioned that the sighted can have a distorted view of people because they are

hindered and consumed with the body and appearances.17 One of the interviewees

highlighted this saying Our culture is very high on looks and appearance and visual

attributes We are missing the wealth of information available to us from our other

senses.18 By focusing on our ability to take in the world using our sight, we limit our

experience and understanding to a very superficial level.

Friedman ends her collection of interviews by saying In highlighting some of the

unique features of blind peoples non-visual modes of perceiving bodies, my larger goal

is to demonstrate what sociologists can learn from taking a multi-sensory approach to

knowledge studying the various perceptual alternatives to taken-for-granted visual

realties.19 We take what we see for granted and too often hold our perceptions as reality.

Hammer summaries her experience with blind women by recognizing blindness as

allowing a deep and authentic connection with the body20 We are able to know

ourselves and others in a more profound way when we do not see, but rather experience.

As one women said, Blindness allows me to feel, its a freedom to sense your body and

17
Asia M. Friedman, Believing Not Seeing: A Blind Phenomenology of Sexed Bodies, Symbolic
Interaction 35, no. 2 (2012): 284-300. doi:10.1002/symb.25, 292.
18
Ibid., 292.
19
Ibid., 296.
20
Hammer, Blind Womens Appearance Management,19.

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to listen to it deeply21 Beauty can then be defined through internal, alternative means.

Using the multi-sensory approach allows us to generate many ways to perceive

something or someone, making us less likely to assume that any one way is the real or

correct way.22 When there is not one correct way, we are not only allowed but

encouraged to expand our definition of beauty. Allowing beauty to be more than an

appearance invites us to understand this complex attribute in a new way. It encourages us

to reject the cultural norm of the perfect, beautiful, body and develop a personal sense of

virtue and attractiveness.

Beauty is not simply in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes it simply lacks an eye

all together. People who have some form of visual impairment have created alternate

methods to understand and define what is beautiful. It is important to note the interviews

and research discussed above is not inclusive of all people who are blind. There are

studies showing some people have lower self-esteem23 and are just as captivated by the

cultural beauty norms as sighted persons. Those who have embraced their necessity to

experience the visual world through alternative narratives and define beauty using their

own terms have experienced a freedom most sighted people never achieve.

While there appears to be evidence for a strong association to body image and

visual idealization, the current research does not allow for a comprehensive conclusion to

be made across different ages, socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, and other personal

21
Ibid., 19.
22
Friedman, Believing Not Seeing, 296.
23
Pinquart and Pfeiffer Body image in adolescents with and without visual impairment.

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factors. From the studies included in this paper, it seems there is a trend for older and

younger generations to be more satisfied with their bodies than adolescents and middle-

aged people. Women also tended to be the focus of current research, and therefore appear

to be more concerned with body image. It will be important to expand on these factors

that no doubt change how one experiences the beauty norms of society by continuing to

explore how appearance attribution influences ones perception of self.

Even without further investigation, it is easy to see the power of evaluating beauty

for ourselves. When we do not let others dictate what we view as beautiful and how we

should experience it, we give ourselves the opportunity to define it personally. Beauty is

not simply a visual quality and it does not mean a thin, perfect body. The dictionary

even defines beauty in a more encompassing way saying it is the quality or aggregate of

qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the

mind or spirit24 Beauty is not a singular experience, but a combination of many

thoughts, experiences, and the mysterious, joyous feeling of pure happiness. These

feelings are internal. They are complex and personal. We cannot possibly make a label of

the ideal, beautiful body that includes everyone. Embrace your alternative beauty

narrative. Be a little blind to the cultural norms. Let yourself become your definition of

beautiful.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary s.v. beauty, accessed November 13, 2017, /https://www.merriam-

24

webster.com/dictionary/beauty.

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Works Cited

Baker, Dawn, Sivyer, Rebecca, and Towell, Tony. Body Image Dissatisfaction and
Eating Attitudes in Visually Impaired Women. International Journal of Eating
Disorders 24, no. 3 (1998): 319-322. EBSCO.
Bakutyte, Justina. This Company Asked Women Who Are Blind About Beauty. Their
Answers Were Truly Eye-Opening. A Plus, last modified April 27, 2015.
http://aplus.com/.
Friedman, Asia M. Believing Not Seeing: A Blind Phenomenology of Sexed Bodies.
Symbolic Interaction 35, no. 2 (2012): 284-300. doi:10.1002/symb.25.
Hammer, Gili. If Theyre Going to Stare, at Least Ill Give Them a Good Reason To:
Blind Womens Visibility, Invisibility, and Encounters with the Gaze, Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41, no. 2 (2016).
. Blind Womens Appearance Management: Negotiating Normalcy between
Discipline and Pleasure. Gender and Society 26, no. 3 (2012): 406-432. JSTOR.
McFarlane, M.D., A.C. Blindness and Anorexia Nervosa. Canadian Journal of
Psychiatry 34, (1989).
**Merriam-Webster Dictionary s.v. beauty, accessed November 13, 2017,
/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beauty.
Pinquart, Martin, and Pfeiffer, Jens P. Body image in adolescents with and without
visual impairment. The British Journal of Visual Impairment 30, no. 3 (2012),
doi:10.1177/0264619612458098.
Walsh Pierce, Jeanne, and Wardle, Jane. Body Size, Parental Appraisal, and Self-
Esteem in Blind Children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 37, no. 2
(1996): 205-212. Pergamon.

**Indicates additional source

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