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by Norah Baldwin
Beacon High School
the mask in mascara
I created this piece to act as a medium to expose the unfair beauty standards placed on young women and the emotional damage it can cause. Young women have been exposed to an incredible amount of harmful media that attempts to characterize beauty onto a linear line, making them feel like they are not worthy of being admired if they do not lay within it. I have never seen myself in an advertisement where I thought, “she looks like me,” because I lacked golden hair, ocean-blue eyes, and a size 0 body. It has been a long, personal journey of finding peace within the skin I am in, and this photograph was part of that healing process. Today, there is a revolution of bodily acceptance going on for the young people of America. While this journey has a long road ahead, I hope that my photograph fits somewhere within it. To that girl who feels that they need makeup to be seen as beautiful and finds solace in my picture: I want you to know that beauty exists far beyond your long eyelashes, plump lips, and perfect hair that you have been trying for so long to achieve. The greatest beauty comes deep within you, past your skin and into your soul. There is more beauty in your intelligence, character, personality, dreams, achievements, and failures than there is within a tube of mascara.
Norah Baldwin
Norah is a high school student from Boston, MA. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Montana Mouthful, Austin International Poetry Festival, Live Poets Society, and was awarded the Bennington Young Writers Merit Award. She also serves as an editor at an international literary magazine for young writers and artists like herself.