An open letter to every woman in the world:

This is Truth 101. See that fancy college numbering? OH YEAH THIS SHIT IS ON. [/vulgarity]

Now to be serious.

Admittedly, there are a lot of things in this world that piss me off. There are things that make my passion boil and that make me unable to be silent and make words flow out of me with astonishing ease. There are things that make me cry at night because the world is so damn unfair.

One of those things -- actually, chief among them -- is "beauty."

I am not unaware of the fact that the beauty standards of our society also affect men and that they do so with devastating effects. I know this. But right now, women and how our standards of beauty affect them is on my mind. I will leave men for, perhaps, another day. There are others who could speak on the topic with more authority than I.

But I can claim some expertise on this matter, as I am a woman and a feminist who studies this topic to some degree.

My name is Christina Marie Finley. I am eighteen years old and of Filipino descent. I am a size sixteen. I weighed 190 pounds at my last weigh-in at my doctor's. I am five foot, three inches. I have curly, frizzy brown hair and green eyes. I wear a 42D bra.

If you're reading this, your numbers may be different. Some of them may be similar or the same. You may be small in comparison to me, or you may be larger.

But numbers do not decide what is beautiful.

(Oh, and before you completely write me off, this isn't some inspirational note. This is reality.)

We are not the mere sum of our parts. We are not merely arms and legs and stomachs and livers and intestines and lungs, and to name something Beautiful for it being a lovely collection of parts is almost a shame of true beauty. There's nothing wrong with seeing someone you find attractive and thinking them attractive. That's natural. That's good. Hell, that's just good fun.

We are not the mere sum of our parts.

I'm not so naive as to think that one's physical form has no part in beauty. But it's not everything. And I've come to discover something, you know, over the last couple years of hating my body and hating myself and trying to change my body.

What I've discovered is that I would rather be me any day of the week than some airheaded little bint who barely knows how to even read (but doesn't know how to read... while having a great body that everyone wants to do).

That's a powerful statement, and it's a true one. As much as I wish I could change my body and am in the process of becoming healthier to do so, as my current weight puts me in danger of health problems, I would not change if that meant giving up who I am. Now, my body is part of who I am. It can be a sign of how much I care about myself, as if one loves oneself, one will care for oneself. It can be a sign of my passions -- if I am into sports, I will be muscular and slim. It is a wonderous machine with infinite capabilities.

But it would be nothing, merely an empty husk, without me.

Physical beauty has a part in beauty, but it's not everything. Not even close. I'd wager it's about 10% of the whole thing. A lousy ten percent.

But it seems like everything! Believe me, I know. That's what you're supposed to think. You're supposed to be duped into believing that the way you look is everything, that it doesn't really matter if you're a stupid, passionless little thing as long as you're hot. All of your sexuality and your beauty... it's all for the reaction from others. The reaction from men, if you're straight. But assuming your beauty and your sexuality is all for men, all for someone else's apprecation rather than your own pleasure, is doing yourself a disservice. You deserve better than being for someone else's entertainment.

Physical beauty isn't everything. It's only a small part.

Have you ever noticed how attractive people can become beyond ugly and unappealing once they open their mouths and you realize that they're as stupid as a cow? It's jarring, and you feel a bit sick for ever finding that person attractive.

That's evidence of how beauty is much more than what is on the outside. How we perceive the outside is often heavily influenced by the inside. That's evidence about how outer beauty isn't everything. If it can be morphed due to what is inside, I believe the case is made that what is on the inside matters more.

A trite statement, that. “What's on the inside matters.”

What truly matters, in life, in love, in friendships, is that which transcends the slow degeneration of time. What has infinite value and worth is that which has the power to affect, to change. The greatest minds, those who have ruled the world, either literally or metaphorically, those who have the power to etch out a new road for history – they did and will not become so by paltry good looks. It would be an asset, no doubt, but there are greater things in the world than that which incites lust.

Intelligence. Grace. Charm. Kindness. Respect. Empathy. Compassion. Altruism.

That is what matters. Those qualities, properly harnessed, could heal the world. Those qualities could bring about the healing of the poorest amongst us and those that suffer the greatest. Those qualities can and have and will change the world.

The women that were tortured in jail cells in the early twentieth-century may not have been “beautiful” then and may not be “beautiful” now, but they're the reason I can vote and own property in my name. They're the reason I have my own bank account and why I kept all of the money I earned. Had they been beautiful, their story would have still been the same because looks really had nothing to do with it. It was their insistence on the rightness of their cause, their passion, and their drive – those things won women the vote.

It wasn't beauty that made Elizabeth I of England one of the greatest monarchs of European history. It wasn't beauty that made Catherine the Great one of the greatest enlightened despots. It wasn't beauty that made Catherine de Medici the most powerful woman in France in the sixteenth-century. It was intelligence, love for their people, political guile, and the sheer force of will to dominate that made them so.

Physical beauty isn't the key. It isn't even a consideration when it comes to holding and wielding great power.

But what about everyday life? What about when it comes to love and relationships?

The only answer I have – indeed, the only one that rings true and holds no false emotion and no false comfort – is that you are beautiful.

You don't have to torture yourself to change. You don't have to fight against your base desires to eat and nourish your body. You don't have to want to die. You don't have to spend thousands of useless dollars on plastic surgery. You don't have to feed the beast of commercialism by buying diet programs and diet pills, the latter of which can be dangerous. You don't have to think you're less than someone else just because you see beauty in them easier than you see it in yourself. You don't have to think you're out of someone's league because you gauge your beauty as less than theirs. You don't have to agonize in front of the mirror for hours because, no matter from what angle you look, that “problem” area just won't seem smaller. You don't have to wish that your waist was smaller. You don't have to wish that your breasts were bigger. You don't have to wish that your butt was smaller or bigger or shapelier. You don't have to wish your hair was curlier or straighter. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on make-up to cake over what you deem is unsightly skin. You don't have to wear shorter skirts or buy taller heels because your legs will never look good or your butt will never look smaller. You don't have to wish your genetics were different so you'd have smaller feet or cuter feet. You don't have to buy into the lie that, somehow, your legs are ugly with hair, even though it's just as natural as the hair on your head. You don't have to bleach or wax or shave because somehow, what is natural is not right. You don't have to wish you were made of plastic. You don't have to wish you were somehow different.

There's nothing wrong with you.

Anything or anyone who tells you that there is, is a fucking liar. Don't for one minute believe that shit.

And don't let that little voice, that incarnation of societal expectations, taunt you and tell you all of those lies either. It may take time, but it's possible to come to a place where you don't attach all of your worth and value to what you -think- you should be or look like and judge yourself accordingly to how you fit that expectation.

Because there's nothing wrong with you.

You're beautiful. You're it. You've made it, and you didn't even have to do anything.

And if that's true – which it is, since I'm always right and all – then what of the media? What of the magazines? What of the diet pills and diet programs? What of the make-up industry or the clothing industry? What about the models?

While this was not the original intent, it is, undoubtedly, what it has become: a sticky web that shames women and makes them feel bad and tells them that they're enough so they'll be on a constant chase for that thing that will make them enough. It's all a ploy to make money.

And money has never been motivation enough to tell someone the truth.

They're lies.

So wear make-up if you want. If it's a fun thing to do. Get manicures and pedicures if they're fun. Change your diet and exercise more if you want to be healthy and do right by your body.

But don't do it because you think you need to change. Don't do it to try and become enough.

It's useless in that sense. Because you already are enough. You're more than enough.

You're beautiful.

And that's the truth.

With love, your sister,

Christina Finley