The 2017 VMA’s expected awards, expected music, and expected celebrities, but what wasn’t expected was a powerful off the cuff speech made by P!NK. Held on August 27th, P!NK won the Video Vanguard award and presented a moving speech about society’s preoccupation with beauty. She went on to narrate a conversation she had with her six-year-old daughter that began with her daughter saying, “Mamma, I’m the ugliest girl I know…I look like a boy with long hair.”

P!nk states that her immediate reaction was, “My brain went to, ‘Oh my god, you’re six. Why? Where is this coming from? Who said this?”

According to a study reported in the New York Times, P!nk’s daughter is not the only little girl struggling with living up to society’s strict standards of beauty. The study reports that “girls emerge from adolescence with a poor self-image, relatively low expectations from life and much less confidence in themselves and their abilities than boys.”  The survey, commissioned by the American Association of University Women statistically found, “elementary school boys were asked how often they felt “happy the way I am,” 67 percent answered “always.” By high school, 46 percent still felt that way. But with girls, the figures dropped from 60 percent to 29 percent.” Dr. Carol Gilligan, a professor of education at Harvard and a pioneer in studying the development of girls, said the survey’s findings would force a series of more complex questions about what happens to girls’ self-esteem during adolescence.

Dr. Carol Gilligan, a professor of education at Harvard and a pioneer in studying the development of girls, said the survey’s findings would force a series of more complex questions about what happens to girls’ self-esteem during adolescence, and more importantly, what is it about our “cultural contributions” that cause girls as young as six to place all of their self-worth on their outside appearance?

It seems that P!nk has picked up on another nuance in what defines beauty as she spoke to her daughter about all the amazing contributions that have been made to society by people who embrace an androgynous look. Androgyny in young girls has only been accepted as a tomboy aesthetic with minimal masculinity. Being a “tomboy” is only considered “cute” for a short while.  It’s a double standard, and for P!NK’s daughter being made fun of for possessing masculine features, it is the exact example of damaging beauty standards that pervade western cultures.

P!NK ends her VMA speech narrating the powerful words that she had for her daughter, “…’Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world?’

‘No, mama.’

‘Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘OK! So, baby girl. We don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty.”

P!nk’s acceptance speech directly challenges society’s tendency to undervalue people who do not conform. Her message certainly highlights that people who are different can still be successful and even celebrated for their androgynist features.

the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable, typically to be admitted into a group.