"Beauty and Identity" with Katelyn Beaty
“Beauty and Identity” with Katelyn Beaty
Katelyn Beaty is an advocate for women, helping them take hold of their true identity. She is the author of A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World, was Christianity Today’s youngest and first female managing editor, and Katelyn launched a website for the magazine called Her.meneutics, created for female writers.
Katelyn’s voice is articulate and powerful, speaking to the intersection of faith and culture in publications such as The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Her insights on beauty are so inspiring and I know you’ll feel the same way.
The Interview
Audio engineering by McGinty Media
Interview Transcript
Melissa: Thanks again so much for doing this, Katelyn. I really appreciate it.
Katelyn: Sure, yeah, no problem.
Melissa: Would you mind… maybe just giving a little intro about who you are, the work that you've done or the work you're doing? Then, I love your book and I think that it actually really lends itself to this idea of women striving for their true identity and their true calling versus cultural voices. [If you could] give a little background about yourself, that would be amazing.
Katelyn: I'm Katelyn Beaty. I come to this conversation as a white American woman, a Christian, and someone who really cares about women flourishing in the church in the 21st century.
I was an editor at Christianity Today magazine based in the Chicago suburbs for about 10 years. When I was there, I helped to start a website for women writers called Her.meneutics. That was really exciting to highlight Christian women's voices for the edification of the church.
While I was there, I also managed to write a book called, A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World. I wanted to provide fellow women with a positive theology of work.
At that time I had spent my whole adult life really devoted to my work as an editor and, yet, I found that work and the workplace weren't regular topics of conversation in the local church. So, I wanted to provide some practical theology around work, really rooting the goodness of work and the vision that we see in Genesis, in the first pages of Scripture.
Since the book came out in 2016 I was a freelance writer for a while. I've gotten to write for some mainstream publications about faith and culture. Then more recently I started as an acquisitions editor for Brazos Press, which is a division of Baker Books. They're based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I am based in New York City, so I work remotely for them. I'm in the process of acquiring new authors and new projects.
I'm grateful for you, Melissa, for wanting to have this conversation. I think it's something that, I don't know a Christian woman who doesn't think about beauty, both external beauty and internal beauty and yet I think it's not a conversation we're having enough in church community. So, I'm glad that you're starting the conversation and giving fellow women a way to navigate these dynamics for themselves and…more broadly.
Melissa: Thank you so much and thank you for giving a bit of your background. It's just super helpful I think to know a bit more about who you are and your context that you're coming from. Thanks for the work you do as well. Just in terms of affirming women's calling and the fact that we do have, there's such value when we live into the image that God's created us, the fullness of that, including the work that we do. I think that's so helpful and so, so important.
Katelyn: Yeah, that's great to hear.
Melissa: Well if you don't mind, I can just go ahead and transition us to just a set of questions that I like to ask the women that I'm interviewing.
The first one is actually pretty broad. How do you define beauty?
Katelyn: That's a really complex and big question. I think of beauty as a quality that draws us closer.
I realize that's extremely vague and can look like a lot of different things. I think that we find and the Christian tradition tells us that God is beautiful, that the character and person of God in the Trinity is so compelling that we're drawn closer. I think there's an attractional aspect to beauty.
I think that beauty, from a classical perspective has been related to truth and goodness, and so beauty has both a truthful quality and also a moral quality. I think when we see somebody perform an act of service, something self-sacrificial, we might say that's a beautiful thing to do for somebody. When we hear somebody articulate the truth in a clear and compelling way, we might say that was a beautiful speech.
Clearly in these terms, beauty is so much richer and so much more internal, having to do with virtue and character than we typically think of it in 21st century America.
I know all of that and yet as a Christian woman in the United States, in a capitalistic society, and a very image-driven society, it can be really hard to remember those truths about beauty.
I think there's a way to say as well that physical beauty in and of itself is not meaningless. It's not necessarily shallow. I'm not one to say if you wear makeup, you're pursuing the wrong kind of beauty. I think there may be something about women in particular where I don't know any woman who doesn't want to appear beautiful, but I think that can easily become a trap and something that, a pursuit, that does not lead to our flourishing if we over fixate on it or if it's actually unhealthy for us from a physical perspective.
Melissa: You already alluded to the second part of that question, but I don't know if there's more that you have to say there. The question is, where do you see beauty in the world then?
Katelyn: I mean the first thought that comes to mind is that God's beauty is most clearly manifested in creation. Creation being both the natural world. The most beautiful places I have been to in my life been in the natural world, in the mountains in Peru or the beautiful clear water off the coast of Hawaii. Things like that. I think most of us, that's where our first thought goes to.
I also see beauty most clearly manifested in people. I think that there is something inherently beautiful about the form of the human person.
I don't know who said this originally, but I think it's true that the most beautiful thing we'll ever see is the face of a person. When I say that, I don't mean just like a supermodel at all. I mean, people who don't fit cultural notions of what we think of as beautiful but I think the form of the human person is so naturally beautiful and reflects the beauty of God and the goodness of God in creating us with physical form and bodies.
Melissa: Wow. Thank you for that. The next question is about brokenness. I think oftentimes that one of the challenges to seeing beauty in the world is the fact that there is brokenness in our midst. Tell us about the brokenness you're experiencing in life or that you have experienced. Then in the midst of that brokenness, did you see beauty breaking in in some way?
Katelyn Wow, that's a big one.
Melissa: I mean, they're all kind of, right?
Katelyn: Yeah, I'm trying to think… I mean, one thing that comes to mind, this isn't necessarily a personal story, but I just mentioned the natural world. I think one of the clearest images of brokenness or examples of brokenness that we have today is the degradation of the natural world. That what God gave us to steward and to care for, we have just as humans and in our development of the world we have really ravished creation. That we have destroyed so much of what God intended us to care for and protect.
My parents and I are birdwatchers, so we love going out and going on hikes and looking for bird species, which sounds very boring but we make it fun. I just think that birds are so beautiful and the variety and the calls, I just really enjoy it. But then I hear and read about endangered species, bird species that are so close to extinction to never existing again and there's no way to get that back. Once a species is extinct, they're really gone forever.
Obviously, I see that as a form of brokenness, as humans collectively not caring for a good gift in the way that God intended. Then of course though, we do have lots of efforts right now to protect and conserve creation. I think even as we've developed and we have all these technological advancements, I think there are lots of people who are drawing attention and raising awareness about how to use those tools more responsibly in ways that don't hurt creation. I think in the church there's been a lot more conversation and emphasis on being good stewards of the earth. Even if it's something as simple as recycling or teaching your children about conservation.
I do think that there's a shift and time will tell if we can repair what's been damaged. I do see a lot of our leaders waking up to how we can engage creation more responsibly.
Melissa: Thanks for talking about that, going into depth into that one because I think that that's so important and something I think that we so easily, I'll say I, take for granted, that I do too easily.
Katelyn: Sure, sure. I mean, well, you live in Minneapolis, which is one of the most beautiful cities I've visited. I could see how it would be easy to take for granted.
In a place like New York, I mean, in a lot of ways I love the skyscrapers and all the different people that you'll see on the streets and the diversity, the fact that there are 7 million people here trying to survive. It's a place where I think a lot of people feel deprived of nature because it's so overdeveloped and it's even hard to see the skyline sometimes.
I think in a place like this you realize that humans actually need to be in nature in order to thrive. We need a connection to God's creation, to the natural world, in order to be fully human.
When we talk about conservation and caring for creation, it's not just about loving trees for themselves, but it's also we actually need trees in order to survive, seeing the interconnectedness of everything.
Melissa: Yes. Thank you for that. I don't know if anything else came to mind regarding any other places of brokenness where you've seen beauty coming in.
Katelyn: Yeah, well I'll just say, and this is probably more along the lines of what other guests of yours have talked about. It feels like there is a change in how cultural conversations are being had about beauty.
I think that there's enough momentum to say, you know, models of beauty in advertising or in entertainment or on the fashion runway are not the only forms of beaut, that we need to expand our understanding of beauty. I think that there's a real push right now to have better representation of the shape of women's bodies.
Just recognizing that there's nothing necessarily more beautiful about a size four than a size 14 but we aren't going to start to believe that until we actually see different representations of beauty.
I think that also of course ties into conversations about race and just acknowledging that in the West for too long we have thought of the ideal physical beauty as white. I think as Christians, we have this story that we're living into that says that people from every tribe and tongue and nation will come to worship before the Lord and that people from all manner of skin tone, from all the different varieties of skin tone and hair, and they will all worship before God.
So, what are we doing now to make sure that we are seeing and celebrating the full spectrum of the good diversity that God has woven into creation and correcting ways that we've propped up an overly narrow and kind of Eurocentric understanding of beauty?
Melissa: So, the next question actually kind of weaves, well perhaps might weave right into that then is, what lies about beauty have you experienced?
Katelyn: Obviously, as I just mentioned, lies about beauty being defined by a certain skin color or a certain size.
I think it's the lie that's maybe even more pervasive and more kind of core and more harmful is this belief that I think women in particular are maybe given from a very young age that their worth and their value and their worthiness to be loved is connected to their fitting the standard definition of beauty. It's not just you should look a certain way or weigh a certain amount or have your hair done in a certain way. It's if you don't, you are less worthy, less valuable, you will be less lovable if you don't fit that model or that ideal.
I think that's why when we talk about things like physical beauty and weight loss and all the different pressures that women experience, to dress a certain way, look a certain way, what we're really talking about is women grappling with a sense that they're not worthy, they're less valuable.
They're trying to secure their worth and lovability via a physical, external presentation of the self.
That's where as Christians we have to return to this very bedrock truth that God looks at the heart, that God sees the soul. That's where God meets us.
That's not to say that God also doesn't care about our bodies because he made us embodied souls. He gave us a physical form and he called it good. I don't want to drive home the like inward/outward, split too far because then I think we get into maybe a form of Gnosticism, but I do think especially for women where they're experiencing pressure to only focus on external appearance, that's where we have to bring women back to the primacy of what's inside of the heart, of the soul, of God's knowledge of us in most parts.
That's not something that will change. God's love doesn't change based on what we externally or physically present to Him or to other people. I think it's hard…it can be really hard to let that sink in but I think that's also the truth that sets us free.
Melissa: Thank you. You just got right to the core of I think probably the linchpin of a lot of the advertising and the other lies that we buy into is that worthy place of that being valuable. Thank you. That was wonderful and I appreciate it.
The last, well actually second to last question that I have…I added, yeah, there's another one that I'm interested to ask. Have you had any experiences that have transformed your ideas about beauty?
Katelyn: I live in a very racially homogeneous, or I should say I was brought up in a racially homogeneous culture. [I] grew up in a very homogeneous town. When I lived in the Chicago suburbs and worked at CT [Christianity Today], there were very few people of color who lived there and who I encountered on a regular basis. I think one of the many drawbacks of that is that I was basically primarily only interacting with people who looked like me.
In 2017, I went with a group called Hope International, which is a microfinance organization based in Pennsylvania. I serve on their board and they had a trip to Rwanda. I'm saying this and I'm aware of the ways that, you know, white Christians can also kind of fetishize African Christians, maybe in simplistic ways. I think to see the way that these Rwandan women who we were interacting with like led worship and sang and danced and most of them were wearing these very colorful dresses that they had made, and they were jumping up and down in worship.
In so many ways, they wouldn't fit this Eurocentric understanding of beauty, but I think that was one of the most beautiful displays, that was such a core iconic re-shifting in how I thought about beauty.
It often takes encountering something out of the norm to realize your own internal assumptions and beliefs.
I mean, one way to put that would be like we all carry around these unconscious biases of what we think is beautiful and that's very much shaped by the stories that were told from a very young age and in the relationships that we have and the culture that we grow up in. It often takes getting out of our comfort zone to realize that we have inherited some beliefs that are just not true.
I think any chance that we have to be in cultural environments where we're the minority, or we're not in our comfort zone actually can be such an important opportunity for growth and for an expansion of the way we see the world.
Melissa: That's really cool. I was curious then when you came back home…because I think we can have those aha moments like that…but then have you noticed any differences then? I don't know, when you see different advertisements for more like you said, Eurocentric beauty, do you find you were able to distance yourself from that narrative a bit more? I am curious what that transitioning back into “normal” life is like.
Katelyn: Well, I do tell a lot of people, one of the reasons that I wanted to live in New York City was because of its incredible diversity. When I walk down the street, I am around people who are very different from me and I find that to be really refreshing.
There was something about being in a white Christian suburb of Chicago that I realized this is a bubble, you know? There are great things about it and there are people who live there who I love and who I miss but I don't want to be in a bubble. I want to be in a place where I'm engaging people who aren't like me and who don't look like me and who go move through the world in a different way. I find that energizing. I don't know if that was related to the trip to Rwanda, but certainly being in such a diverse place has reshaped my understanding of who counts as beautiful, you know?
Melissa: Yes. I think that totally relates. The last question that I like to ask is just, if there was one thing that you wish you could tell people about beauty or one thing that you wish people knew about beauty, what might that be?
Katelyn: Well, as I say this, it's something that I have to tell myself as well.
It's certainly not something that I have figured out or conquered but just to remember that you can't buy beauty.
I think probably a lot of the women you have spoken with or who are listening in think about like how much money we spend on beauty products. Certainly, the older I get…so I'll just share that I recently started using an anti-aging serum at night and I'm 34. You might say, “why are you using an anti-aging serum?” I've really gone back and forth about that and I've talked to other women about it. To my knowledge, my mom never used an anti-aging beauty product. I've had to think through like, “why am I doing this? What is the deeper belief that's prompting this purchase? What do I think will happen or not happen if I buy this and if I use this product?”
I think on one level I could say, well, I just want to take care of my skin and I want to look radiant when I'm 65 or something but I also think embedded in it is also probably going back to this connection between beauty and value. “Do I think that I will be more valuable if I'm a 65 year old with no wrinkles?”
I’ve heard women of my mom's generation, women who are probably like 55 to 65 talk about. they actually like their wrinkles. They like that they can see the aging process physically because it reminds them of how much life that they've lived and how much experience they've had and they've gleaned wisdom.
I think I'm just sharing this anecdotally, but I think women who reach a certain age actually find a certain freedom in getting to a place where they don't feel like they have to keep up the beauty game as much. Like they can relax into their bodies and they don't have to color their hair anymore. They can accept the gray. I actually think my mom who, I mean, I think that she's always been beautiful, but as she is graying and you see how it's like, what are these?
Melissa: Crow's feet or something.
Katelyn: Crow’s feet. I actually think it's not that she's less beautiful, it's a different kind of beauty, but I still find her beautiful. It's just that her beauty has transformed, but it certainly hasn't been taken away.
In some ways it might even have over time maybe it's been accentuated, maybe there is something, there's a wisdom or there's an experience that's reflected in her face that wasn't there when she was 25, you know?
I'm curious to hear what your listeners think about anti-aging products and whether I'm like feeding the system, but I wrestled with that.
I think coming back to that sense of beauty being something that you cultivate in connection with virtue and character and the way you treat other people and the way you serve other people, and that beauty is not just something that you put on but it is something that emerges from within over time. That's the kind of beauty I want to be remembered for at the end of my life, not what my face looked like or whether or not I had wrinkles.
Melissa: Wow. You're so articulate and you can cut right to the truth of a matter. That was so concise and so much truth packed into, I don't know how long we've been talking, like 20 some minutes. You have a real gift for that. Thank you for sharing your insights into this topic.
Katelyn: Of course, thanks for having me and I hope it's helpful to your listeners.
Melissa: Yeah, I'm sure it will be. Was there anything else as we're just talking about beauty that came to mind that you would want to mention? I always want to leave a little space for that because I've been definitely directing the conversation with questions. I don't know if anything else came to mind that you wanted to share.
Katelyn: The only other thing that comes to mind is I think Christian women, the conversation around beauty is a little bit different for them than probably from mainstream culture because we also have beliefs and teachings about modesty. I don't know it, it's interesting but I still think that in the Christian space there are unique pressures for women, especially if you have any kind of public facing profile or if you're appearing in front of a group of people or you're speaking at a conference. I think I feel those pressures more acutely the more that I do public speaking or I see myself on a video screen. I think, “I bet men in church are just not…” Like when I go to a conference and I'm speaking before a man or something, I just think, “I bet I spent three times as much time preparing for this as he did physically.”
I not only had to prepare what I was going to say and practice my talk, but I also had to think about my shoes and “are they comfortable?” and my dress, “is it appropriate?” and “does my hair look right?” and “do I have enough makeup on but not too much makeup because that would feel inappropriate?”
I mean there's a lot to navigate. I think if you sat down and spoke with most Christian women who were either speaking at conferences or maybe preaching or whatever, I think they would say that it's something they have to think through a lot and they spend a lot of mental energy on it.
Melissa: Well, that's so interesting because we already have those. I almost feel like it's giving us conflicted messages, “be modest,” but also there's a subtlety of like, but we should be beautiful as women. It seems like there are even more layers in the Christian circles.
Katelyn: Yeah, definitely. We have the messages about beauty and modesty in the church, but then we're also contending with mainstream cultural messages about beauty and it can just be a lot to wade through.
Melissa: Thanks for bringing that to mind; that makes sense. Well, thank you so much, Katelyn. I appreciate it.
Katelyn: Well, thanks again for asking me to participate.
Melissa: I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
To learn more about Katelyn Beaty click here.
Check out Katelyn’s book A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, in the Home, and the World here.
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