Real Women Have a Place in Spectrum of Beauty

Thanks to “Real Women Take On a Real Image Problem” (July 5) for sending an important message to many men as well: Beauty has no objective, universal definition, and those who think it does not only injure others when voicing biased judgments about the attractiveness of individual women, but shortchange themselves by failing to appreciate the full spectrum of female beauty.

For anyone to arbitrarily describe one woman as “beautiful” and another as “unattractive” (rather than “close to” or “far from” what they, personally, have been programmed by genetics and environment to respond to) is an exercise in egotism and chauvinism that assumes their personal preferences are authoritative.

My proof that we’re not all programmed alike? Many decades of standing in grocery lines and finding the delightful variety of ages, faces and body types of women standing next to the magazine racks visually preferable to the monotonous photos of anorexic 20-year-olds on the magazine covers.

The battle against “looksism”--like any other idiotic but entrenched prejudice--requires committed, inventive and articulate advocates, and it’s encouraging to learn that these “real women” easily qualify.

--DAVID M. DISMORE

Los Angeles