“I have a dream that my four little children will one day… not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their characters,” Martin Luther King proclaimed. Rich, resonant, righteous words; words you find yourself nodding, yes, yes to.
Agyness Deyn winks up from the cover of i-D, four bold letters blazoned beneath her immaculate cheekbones: ICON. (In smaller letters, to the right “the Agyness Deyn issue”.)
What, I wonder, has Miss Deyn done in her life to commande the appellation “icon”? She hasn’t written a novel, painted a fine picture, startled the world with her pure clear singing voice, she hasn’t starred in a film, undertaken a feat of daring, set a record, she hasn’t even designed any of the clothes she parades in so prettily. So she’s an icon because…? Because… she has gazelle legs, lurid blue eyes and geometrically correct bone structure. Because she was born with a double portion of what early 21st century Western culture reveres as physical beauty.
You’d never see a man who’d done precisely nothing of compelling interest with his life publically labelled icon. Male models – even the most finely chiselled and highly paid – are much less highly paid than women (a fact used, ludicrously, to argue that the real problem these days is reverse sexism. As if we should be striving merely for equality of objectification). And how many can you name? The only one whose name pops into my head is Markus Schenkenberg, who I believe dated Pamela Anderson. So really, I remember him not for his face but for something he did. Action.
That’s what makes men “icons” – activity, achievement, doing something. It may be as insignificant as the ability to do physics-defying feats with a football; or as meaningful as leading a nation out of apartheid, but an iconic man is always a man of action.
Guilefully, men have persuaded women to believe this is to their advantage. Many men would, presented with the Agyness Deyn issue, express how “unfair” it is that she gets to be an icon just by being rather than by doing. Implying injury and the injustice of a world that demands men work.
But remember: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day… not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their characters.” When it’s a case of black and white we understand clearly, instinctively, that to be judged primarily by physical appearance is morally wrong and psychologically stultifying. Yet by some trick of lights we believe that for a woman to be praised principally for her beauty is positive, empowering even.
There is no effective difference. To be categorised on the basis of appearance is to be removed from adult, human discourse; to become nothing more than a graven image. Being heralded an icon for having flawless skin and plump lips is quantitatively different from being treated like a second class citizen for the colour of your skin; but the underlying quality of judgment is indivisible. It still renders you helpless. It makes your value and identity dependent on someone else’s whim.
Plainly, to elevate Agyness’ perfect cheekbones to ICON status is to dismiss the 99.9% of the female population who were born without her exquisite angles. That’s what it takes, it says. Go on, educate yourself, make a great scientific discovery, become CEO of a company, raise happy children, run a country, do something that makes the world a better place… it doesn’t matter. You’ll never be an icon because you were born without the one thing you need to validate your femininity (beauty) or the one thing you need to validate your activity (a penis).
I have a dream. That one day women will refuse to be judged by the shape of their skin and demand respect for the merits of their character.
