Is real beauty in the eye of the beholder?
Many years ago, a friend of mine had “sports anorexia”.
Anything she ate would be sweated off, as she put on her leotard and went to the gym every lunch hour.
She didn’t see her own cadaverous cheeks or hollowed-out eye sockets.
In the mirror, she looked fit, healthy and thrillingly slim.
Then, one day, while exercising off the apple she’d eaten earlier – she knew the calorie count of everything – she spotted another woman working out in one of the many mirrors.
What do you see?
The poor creature was clearly anorexic, skin stretched hideously over bone, thighs like twigs… and then she realised the woman wore her leotard, her hairstyle.
The woman was herself. Her mind twisted the reflection into her preferred reality, but what she saw could not be unseen.
She got help the next day.
The world is a mirror.
We cannot look at it without seeing ourselves.
Inappropriate behaviour
I thought of that mirror last week as, in the UK, protesters continued to furiously wave their patriotic flags outside premises housing refugees, purportedly protecting women and children from those inside.
Meanwhile, in court, the man who sparked the flames of these latest anti-immigration protests – an asylum seeker from Ethiopia called Hadush Gerbersla Sie Kebatu – was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault, one against a 14-year-old girl and one of attempted sexual assault.
He had tried to kiss two teenagers after they offered him pizza, saying they should come to his hotel to “make babies”.
The next day, he put his hand on the leg of a woman helping him with his CV, clearly a man who thinks any female being pleasant fancies him.
It’s a familiar reflection. However, having only recently arrived on a “small boat”, he became a lightning rod for anti-immigrant protests.
Similarly, last year, riots broke out in England after three children were stabbed to death by a black teenager.
Vigilante violence spread, although the attacker was British-born and bred.
During the riots, 899 of these righteous defenders of women and children were arrested – and yet 41% of those arrested had previously been reported to the police themselves for domestic abuse, with offences including grievous bodily harm, sexual assault, stalking and breach of restraining order.
The world is a mirror. Wherever we look, there we are.
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