We CANNOT say "everyone is beautiful"

Obviously there is a problem with self-image in our culture (particularly for women/girls).  The message is "you're not good enough because you don't look like this."  This is a lie and must be addressed, but I claim that the response "NO!  You ARE beautiful!  Everyone is beautiful!" is not right either.

Some of the particularly bad responses come in the form of images getting shared around Facebook:

Image source.

"When did this ... become hotter than this."

What this image is saying: "You know how everyone thinks super-skinny people are better than more average-sized people who have fat?  Actually, the average-sized people are better!  And by 'better' we mean 'more sexually attractive.'  Yay!"

Image source.

"Proof that you can be adored by thousands of men, even when your thighs touch."

What this image is saying: "Being beautiful is so important because it's all about getting men!  And even if you're not unreasonably skinny you still can!  Yay!"

Even when it's not presented badly like in those images, the message "Hey, all female members of the general public!  You are beautiful!" doesn't make sense.  It counters this line of reasoning:

1. Women only have worth if they're beautiful.
2. "Beautiful" means really skinny, white, etc etc- oh, and it's all about being physically/sexually attractive to men.
3. Therefore you're worthless if you don't look like that.

with this line of reasoning:

1. Women only have worth if they're beautiful.
2. "Beautiful" means... umm...
3. Screw it.  Everyone is beautiful!  Yay!

I hope you caught the obvious problem here.  Point #1 is what should be challenged.  And, on a related note, if you're going to claim that everyone is beautiful, you better be very clear about what your definition of "beautiful" is.

I remember as a teenager, reading a book written to Christian girls about how "the bible says God says you're beautiful" (which seemed to me like it was taking one obscure verse out of context and making a big deal out of it, but whatever) and as it went on and on about how apparently God thinks I'm beautiful, I seriously thought it was saying "you may feel lonely right now, but God says you have been made in such a way that somehow, someday, there will be a guy that's attracted to you."

Because I assumed "beautiful" meant "attractive to a boy."  And I wanted that so much.

The truth is that physical appearance isn't everything- and I wish we would say that instead of "everyone is beautiful."  Everyone looks like whatever they look like, and that's fine.  It doesn't have any bearing on whether your life has meaning and worth.

Instead of "everyone is beautiful," we could say everyone is valuable, or unique, or interesting.  (This works especially well with the Christian side of this issue- instead of saying "God thinks you're beautiful", how about we say "God thinks you're incredibly valuable and interesting and he'd never forget about you", because, you know, that's something THE BIBLE ACTUALLY SAYS.)

If that's what you meant when you claimed that "everyone is beautiful", well, I know your intentions are good but that's just not how language works.  The word "beautiful" is generally all about what something physically looks like.  Sure, there are a few cases where a story is "beautiful" or some really nice thing someone does is "beautiful", but that's not typically how the word "beautiful" is interpreted.

Seriously, if someone were to describe a woman to you and say "she's beautiful", how would you interpret that?  With the "everyone is beautiful" meaning of "beautiful"- which I guess means she's interesting and unique and worth getting to know?  No.  And I challenge you to come up with any other context in which "beautiful" means what it tries to mean in "everyone is beautiful."  Language just doesn't work that way.

Sorry, it's not true that "everyone is beautiful."  But guess what- that's totally fine.  Some people are more nice to look at than others, some people are more sexually attractive than others, etc- but none of that has any relevance to whether or not they have worth as a human being.  Every person in the world has a story, and the vast majority of them have done really interesting things I've never done.  Everyone (nearly everyone? trying to be accurate here) has people they love and goals/dreams that are important to them.

Why does it matter what they look like?

Or rather, why do people feel shame for what they look like?

So I claim that ideally, this is how it should be.  That everyone knows that your value is not at all related to your appearance.  But the connection between self-worth and physical appearance is so strong in this culture- it is completely not okay to say someone is old, or fat, or some other trait opposite to the typical image of what "beautiful" is- a comment like that is taken as a direct insult, as if it's something to be deeply ashamed of.  What do we do in a practical sense, to move people's thinking in the right direction?  I don't have an answer for that yet.

Also, I have not addressed the argument "beauty doesn't just mean abnormally skinny and whatever the stereotypical model looks like"- you see this argument in things like the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.  Yes, it's totally true- a lot of women who do not look like "the stereotypical model" are nice to look at/ attractive to men/ whatever "beautiful" means.  But not everyone is, and as I already said, it doesn't have any relation to your worth as a person.

What do you think?  What did I miss?  This is a very complicated, nuanced issue.  Does our culture's definition of "beautiful" need to change?  Is it possible to separate self-worth from physical appearance?  How do we address this?