“You have gorgeous eyes and such a kind heart.”

“I love your hair and just how nice you are.”

“Wow, you are so pretty and so smart!”

“You’re beautiful.”

“You can’t say that!”

“Why not?”

“She’s so much more than just beautiful.”

I know that. All the women in my life are amazingly unique and complex humans. They are problem solvers, leaders, mothers, daughters, students, constantly filled with a thirst to learn and grow and become the best they can be.

But, you know what? They are also beautiful.

I am proud to live in a world that has come so far. The past few generations have made leaps and bounds in regards to things like equality and civil rights. We undoubtedly have so much further to go; but, standing here today, I revel in the progress that has been made.

However, I know our progress hasn’t come without costs. The obvious being the lives of the many people who fought to bring about change. But beyond that, I think we have given up a level of our freedom of speech.

It may be our government and our army which grant us the freedom of speech, but it is our society which controls it. And as we have progressed in our fight for equality, we have twisted freedom of speech into a very complex social equation.

While society has rightfully eradicated the use of many hurtful and degrading terms, it has also begun to demonize certain things like compliments.

The amazing thing about America, and our freedom of speech, is that everyone is allowed to express how they feel about certain sayings, compliments, or terms. However, once society decides that something is no longer okay, they rip away that freedom of speech. I’m not saying that isn’t right in some circumstances, but it seems lately that society has taken that power and begun to abuse it.

No one is trying to insult someone by calling them beautiful.

Just because you call someone beautiful, doesn’t mean that you think that is the only thing that defines them. If a person creates a beautiful painting, I’ll call them artistic. If a person solves a really hard math problem, I’ll call them smart. If a person runs a record time, I’ll call them athletic. And one person can be all those things.

But society has demonized “beautiful” as a compliment because as women have gained rights and equality, being “beautiful” has become a reminder of where our society used to be. At one time, beauty was the defining factor of a woman. That and how much money her family had. As women have fought for equality and the feminist movement has developed and become a force in our society, those old notions of what made a woman “feminine” have become increasingly demonized.

But the notion of being “beautiful” has changed since those patriarchal days. Society must accept that there is no longer a single definition for beautiful; both the world and the word have evolved beyond such archaic values.