The ugliest woman in the world

I recently came across a pretty unusual story of a woman named Mary Ann Bevan under the Quora question "What is something that needs to be said?" and I was moved by it.

She had won the title of being the 'Ugliest Woman' in the world back in the 1900s.

Mary Ann was a young attractive looking lady who worked as a nurse back in London. She led a pretty ordinary life as a nurse and got married to a guy named Thomas Bevan.

Some years into the marriage her health started deteriorating and later on it was diagnosed that she was suffering from a disease named "Acromegaly" in which the body produces growth hormones in excess.

Aesthetically her body started looking disproportionate, and she suffered numerous side effects like splitting migraines and muscle aches because of her condition. Her physical ailments were not reducing and after 11 years of her marriage, she lost her husband. Thomas was a caring husband and supported her throughout despite her changing appearance. Mary was left with four kids to look after with no real source of income to take care of her family.

She looked for different working opportunities all over but was unable to get a decent job as a result of her changing appearance. She was labeled as a "freak" for her "hideous" features.

Mary had only one goal in her mind, one purpose to earn and look after her family and provide them with at least the basic stuff. Over the course of her lookout for a stable income, she discovered a contest titled "the ugliest woman in the world" and looked at it as an opportunity to gain something out of what the world considered as her "weakness". Mary entered the contest and astonishingly won it. This might be termed as the turning point in her life and winning it changed all the equations in her life. She earned a good deal of prize money out of winning the contest and was able to support her family. It not helped her earn the prize money but gave her another option of profiting out of her "ugliness". She later traveled the world with circus groups and left the world as a wealthy woman at the age of 59.

I was fascinated after reading her story. Mary had won and she had got the money to feed her family, agreed, but at what cost?

Mary was humiliated by the title she had won and day in and day out of her existence she was ridiculed for being what she was cruelly made fun of. Magazines and newspapers took her pictures and wrote nasty stories about her to make news out of it. While working at the shows people laughed and called her out for her looks and her unusualness where she was earning by becoming the butt of all the fun and jokes.

Being a person interested in psychology, I tried placing myself in Mary's shoes. What was she thinking? How she must have felt while raising her kids? How she must have felt losing her beauty day by day till the point she was termed as "ugliest"? What she must have felt all those years while facing continuous bullying and ridicule for the way she looked?

It was not in her control and the disease was pretty rare.

I just felt an unimaginable amount of pain while just imagining the atrocities she might have felt and while imagining I was introduced to this ridiculously strong woman with extraordinary emotional strength and resilience to whatever life threw at her. It was pretty unfair but Mary was a fighter. I was in real awe of this lady. In a world where women are constantly judged by unrealistic beauty standards to this date, she comes across as this amazing superwoman!

Her story puts forward some undeniably caustic questions

Who gives us the right to call someone ugly?

What is beauty, exactly?

Have I ever unknowingly hurt someone by my remarks about their body?

Was I ever as shallow and as insensitive as those people from the 20th century who laughed off her illness and mocked her for disagreeableness?

Fat girl. Thin girl. Tall girl. Short girl. Dark girl. Fair girl. Small boobs. Big boobs. Small ass. Big booty. Is that what it is that defines us, still?

Or at the core, we still have that 20th-century mentality of looking at beauty and ugliness?

I feel ashamed thinking about it now and more than anything it teaches me to be kinder towards myself and all the other people out there. Everyone has their insecurities but if we teach ourselves to deal with them by being more body positive it might help us to boost our self-esteem. I find little girls who are yet to hit the age where they'd be judged for their beauty concerned about their appearance. It's empowering for a girl when she is appreciated for more than just her beauty. I find girls who still identify themselves by the way they look. Fitting conventional standards of beauty is a struggle for young girls these days.

Can we grow up a little bit? Can we look after our bodies not for the reason that the world might consider it 'hot' but as this beautiful natural tool that has helped me experience life and the world over the years so beautifully? Can't we a bit more compassionate towards it by giving it the proper food that it needs and the exercise it needs not because it will help us look good in someone's eyes but it will make up more capable and fitter?

Can't we just take up healthy eating and exercise not because it will "look" good but it will "feel" good?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but a little bit of body positivity and acceptance for persons of all shapes and sizes might go a long way for the coming generations. We just don't want the 21st century to be an ugly replica of the 20th century. Do we?

The story taught me to be more mindful about my words and my reactions in a world which profits out of a celebrities' wardrobe malfunction or before judging a female athlete's dressing sense. I have heard comments from men and women alike dissing a celebrated sports players dressing sense. More than anything I was offended by it. She is an athlete, a sports star not that your opinion is going to matter to her but behind someone's ugliness, fatness, or any other physical condition there might be a story lying of suffering, selflessness, and strength. Who are you to judge? Who are you to question or comment?

My heart goes out to Mary and if it would have been possible I would have just went ahead and hugged her. She is this utter embodiment of toughness and strength and compassion.

I won't remember her as the ugliest woman in the world but the bravest soul that stood up for her family and left the world with perspective, outlook, and smoldering questions. Her life will always be celebrated despite for a fact that she was derided throughout when she was alive.

Mary's story was enlightening. Her selflessness and her resilience will always be remembered. It would be an understatement to call her magnificent and hell of a strong woman.

To one 'Freak' of a woman!!