How do our surroundings determine our relationship with our body image? Growing up Irish and Nigerian, author and broadcaster Emma Dabiri’s concept of beauty has long been defined by Eurocentric standards and what was deemed most desirable at the time (big boobs and a thigh gap). But on a journey of self-reclamation, she has learnt that beauty isn’t a physical entity, but a way of being.

In her latest book, Disobedient Bodies, the author of Don’t Touch My Hair and What White People Can Do Next unpacks age-old notions of beauty and reveals how the expectations and demands around it are completely contradictory. Disobedient Bodies grapples with the complicated and messy history of beauty, and how our constantly evolving (yet always unattainable) standards are entrenched in oppressive systems that hold us back.

From the Enlightenment period to the witch hunts of early modern Europe, this essay makes historical connections to our contemporary beauty standards that have been frequently overlooked. Taking the reader on a journey that charts her changing view of herself, from getting ready for teenage parties to her connection with Nigerian and Irish culture, Dabiri takes our understanding of beauty beyond the surface.

It’s an essay that calls for a radical reimagination and holistic reclamation of beauty, one that challenges us to reject the views of ‘mind and body’ as distinct entities and cherish the world around us. We spoke to Dabiri ahead of the book’s release.

In the book, you delve into history, from colonialism to the witch hunts of Europe and the Inclosure Acts in the UK. Why are all of these events relevant to our modern concept of beauty today?

Emma Dabiri: I was very interested in the idea in Western philosophy that the mind and the body are separate. That has been developed and entrenched and refined over centuries, and it’s a dominant concept in Western discourse. Within that, men came to be associated with the mind, rationality and intellect, and all these things that were superior to the domain that women were confined in, which was the body, which is ‘irrational’. There’s a hierarchy between the two; it’s really gendered. Why is it that women are judged to such a strong degree on their appearance far more than men are? Because men are historically seen as having other contributions to make, but women became reimagined as decorative objects.

The spaces where women could demonstrate knowledge and power were spaces that were historically attacked, so women’s role in society actually became increasingly circumscribed. Before the transformation to capitalism, women within the family unit had access to land and their work wasn’t seen as subservient to man’s work. I was going into all of that to explore why women had been reduced to the status of objects and as a result of that reduction in status, why their appearance came to be something that was used as a measurement of their value.

“Within this system, it seems that no matter what you look like you are plagued by insecurity” – Emma Dabiri

We can’t talk about body image and beauty without talking about social media. You write that there has been a ‘representational revolution’ online where the bodies we see are more diverse than ever, but despite that, many women feel under even more pressure to look a certain way. Why is that?

Emma Dabiri: Something that I find interesting is the idea that representation or diversity is the panacea to all of this. Say you’re a slim, white woman with straight hair. You see yourself represented all the time. But most slim, white women with straight hair I know don’t feel good about the way they look. They also feel shit about the way they look. Within this system, it seems that no matter what you look like you are plagued by insecurity. If representation was the solution, the people who are represented would be fine, and they’re not fine.

I think that pressure has become really accelerated with social media. Because of what is happening on social media we do live in this world where the types of women that are represented would have been unimaginable to me when I was a teenager, so there’s been progress in that aspect. But the importance that we attach to the way that we look is heightened. We live in this visual economy, so within that landscape the way you look is of omnipotent importance because there’s a currency with images.

We live in a time of huge inequality and precarity, and not a lot of stability or reliability, so the things that our parents’ generation could have expected which kind of gilded the cage of capitalism – like housing and job security – has been removed for a lot of people. Social media is one of the places where there is an accessible way of being successful and of creating a career. When so much of that is determined by the way that you look, there is more pressure to compete in those spaces, because there are real rewards if you look ‘the right way’ in the visual economy.

Another thing you write about is how now we really have romanticised the idea of cosmetic procedures through the lens of bodily autonomy and empowerment. How do you feel about this?

Emma Dabiri: I think there’s a blurring of the lines between female empowerment and autonomy and just reproducing patriarchal norms under the illusion of choice. The choices on offer are not necessarily liberatory if they’re happening within a paradigm that is unhealthy. A concept that can be applied to this is when Fred Moten and Stefano Harney in The Undercommons talk about the politics of refusal: that is, refusing all of the choices on offer and striving for something that exists outside of those choices. Not trying to win the game, but refusing to play the game.

You write about your personal experience with getting glam, enjoying make-up and all things beauty, which is something I can massively relate to. But when beauty has become this polarising force, how can you heal that relationship?

Emma Dabiri: I always thought the side of me that was political was at odds with the part of me that was interested in clothes and make-up. There have been times when I would try to suppress my interest in things that were deemed frivolous; I went through a period of trying to dress in a more serious way to be taken more seriously. Now, rather than seeing the two things as a contradiction, I actually see them as part of a whole.

I also feel that aesthetics should be part of the many things that we can enjoy about having senses. There’s too much emphasis placed on the way things look, but that’s not to say that the way things look is completely immaterial, either. The things that William Morris railed against were the inequalities perpetuated by capitalism, but also what he perceived as the ugliness that was perpetuated by capitalism. He believed that things were beautiful through their design but also their usefulness. This idea of usefulness being beautiful was something that I saw a lot within the Indigenous cultures that I looked at, which was really in contrast to the kind of uselessness that was demanded of women in this culture where women were just seen as these decorative objects or trophy wives.

You write about the growing popularity of spiritual practices and some of the practices that you’ve adopted that make you feel embodied. Do you feel that the popularity of these practices is an attempt for women to tap back into their bodies and feel present?

Emma Dabiri: I think it’s definitely zeitgeisty now, but I think it’s because we have been so disconnected from ourselves and also from practices and from rituals. There’s a recognition that intentional ritual is a really important feature of being able to tap back into yourself and being connected with others. I think our way of life has disconnected us from intentional ritual and there’s very much a strong desire for people to reacquaint themselves with those practices.

What would a reimagining of body image and beauty from an individual experience to a collectivist one look like?

Emma Dabiri: One of the concepts that I found really incredible was something in Yoruba culture, and it was also very similar in Navajo culture. There’s this idea that the goal to aspire to is harmony and balance, rather than perfection, and the notion that beauty is not this visual, physical entity. Beauty is not something that can just be seen as a physical feature, but exists in the relationships between things, rather than in the thing itself.

We live in an economic and social system that incentivises and demands our worst tendencies. But you could live in a different kind of society that tries to mitigate against those things rather than encouraging and incentivising them, like societies that are oriented towards community rather than competition. That’s going to really feed into the way people behave towards one another, how they afford value to themselves and to other people. Our beauty culture is a reflection of our wider political and economic climate.

Disobedient Bodies: Reclaim Your Unruly Beauty by Emma Dabiri is published tomorrow by Profile Books X Wellcome Collection. It accompanies the The Cult of Beauty, a major exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, open from 26 October 2023 – 28 April 2024. Emma will also be in conversation with Pandora Sykes at Brixton House on 18 October; for tickets visit fane.co.uk/emma-dabiri.