Cameron Russell: Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model. Cameron Russell wants to have a discussion about the way that we, as a society, perceive beauty. Media representations of women, she says, are replete with racist and sexist representations, encouraging women to live up to a standard that is both oppressive and unattainable. Russell’s profession offers an insider’s perspective on the topic – after all, she has been modeling for over a decade.

Her candid talk from TEDxMidAtlantic led to this edition of TED Weekends on the Huffington Post. Below, find essays to start the discussion on our perceptions of beauty.

Cameron Russell: Beauty Is in the Lies of the Beholder

Women are not crazy for wanting to have a discussion about body image. And the conversation isn’t as superficial as the one Dove keeps encouraging us to have. It is a conversation about sexism and racism. It is a conversation about the real reason we try to shrink our waists and whiten our teeth (and sometimes even our skin). Most of the time we don’t do those things to make ourselves happy, we do them for someone else. I think we should start talking about that.

The easiest place to see discrimination is our incomes. Modeling is one of the few professions where women actually out-earn men. And across all jobs, studies have found that more attractive women earn more. A woman’s value is too often skin-deep. In 2004 a study found that resumes with very African-American-sounding names were 50 percent less likely to get called for an initial interview. And racial bias in salaries is overwhelming. While white women make an average of 78 cents for every man’s dollar, for African-American women that number drops to 62 cents, and for Hispanic women to 54 cents. Read the full essay

Donna Highfill: Beauty and Biblical Plagues

There is nothing like a biblical plague landing on your face to make you question the importance of physical appearance. I was 24 years old when I noticed a massive knot on my face that caused my left eye to close slightly. I was sure that something horrible had bitten me and was equally sure that some topical cream and an antibiotic would cure it. But when my normally personality-less dermatologist sat down beside me, put his hand on my arm and said, “You are so young and pretty. I am so sorry,” I knew I was wrong on both counts.

At the time the plague descended, I was a trainer for a mid-sized bank, which called for me to present in front of people on a regular basis. I was also getting married soon… that special time in a girl’s life when you prepare for that walk down the runway that church folks call an aisle.

Sparing the more vivid details of cystic acne, I will tell you that it is a cruel skin disease that can ravage the skin with huge, painful cysts. See? Biblical plague stuff. Fortunately, mine hit only one place on my body. Unfortunately, that place was my face. Read the full essay

Today’s TED Radio Hour asks this deceptively simple question. It begins with violinst Robert Gupta, reflecting on the instinct musicians have to know when something is simply lovely. Next, we hear from Denis Dutton, who looks at the universality of beauty as a gift from our ancient ancestors and the emotions they attached to the things that helped them survive. After, psychologist Nancy Etcoff explains why those we love are so beautiful to us.

In the second half of the show, model Cameron Russell talks about the decisions she made in her talk which went viral earlier this year, all about why she’s a model. Her explanation: “Because I won a genetic lottery.” Civic leader Bill Strickland describes how the magic of the potters’ wheel changed his life, and how he seeks to do the same for the youth of Pittsburgh through his arts education center. And designer Richard Seymour shares why beauty is not so much a thing in and of itself, but a feeling.

It’s an inspiring hour of great moments from TED Talks, embedded in a soundscape of music and fresh interviews. As Strickland says in the show, “When I think of beauty, I think of life and hope and all of its enormous possibilities. “

Check out your local NPR schedule to find out when the show airs today, or listen to it via NPR’s website »

Or head to iTunes, where the podcast is available now »

“I’ve gotten these free things because of how I look, not who I am,” says Russell. “And there are people paying a cost for how they look, not who they are.”

As Russell explains, physical beauty — or at least the brand of it that we see in fashion magazines — is very carefully constructed. To hear about how Photoshopping is just the beginning of how models are built into the images we see, watch her talk. And below, check out five more talks about physical beauty.

Rick Guidotti: From stigma to supermodel
Fashion photographer Rick Guidotti was used to shooting models. However, he was also sick of being told who counts as beautiful. In this talk from TEDxPhoenix, Guidotti reveals how he broke out — by recognizing the incredible beauty of teens with albinism and creating a stunning series of images of them.

In today’s TED Talk, filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic, model Cameron Russell paints a very different picture.

Russell strolls onstage in a short, form-fitting black dress looking every bit the professional model who has represented brands like Victoria’s Secret, Ralph Lauren and Chanel and appeared in many an international edition of Vogue. But then she does something radical. She puts on an outfit far closer to what she would normally wear — a wrap skirt and flats. Her point: “I was able to transform what you think of me in 6 seconds,” she says. “How we look — though it is superficial and immutable — has a huge impact on our lives.”

Russell acknowledges that she is, by chance, a “pretty white woman.” So how did she become a model?

“I always just say I was scouted, but that means nothing,” Russell says in her talk. “The real way I became a model is that I won a genetic lottery, and I am a recipient of a legacy. For the past few centuries, we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we’re biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures with femininity and white skin. This is a legacy that was built for me, and that I’ve been cashing in on.”

In this talk, Russell delivers two powerful messages: First, that young girls who dream of being a model should think of it like they would winning Powerball—something to shoot for, but “not a career path.” Second, Russell takes on the tendency to think that life would be better and easier if we were more beautiful. Russell’s response: “If you ever think, ‘If I had thinner thighs and shinier hair, wouldn’t I be happier,” you just need to meet a group of models. They have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes and they are the most physically insecure women, probably, on the planet.”

But Russell has another point she wants to convey too. While many bemoan the use of Photoshop for making models look thinner and imperfection-free, Russell says that this is just the tip of the iceberg. To hear more about how the image of sex appeal is carefully constructed from the ground up, watch her bold talk. And after the jump, pay attention as Russell shares the reality behind some of her sexy images.

This is the very first photo that Cameron Russell ever took as a model, shot for the magazine Allure in 2003, when she had just turned 16. Yes, she may look like the beacon of femininity. But she hadn’t so much as gotten her period yet. To hammer the point home of just how young she was at the time, she’s contrasted the image with a bathing-suit shot of her with her grandma, taken just a months before.

Russell looks like a siren in this red bikini. Despite looking well into her 20s in the image, she was just a teenager when the photo was taken. For argument’s sake, here’s a photo of her on the beach with a friend taken the same day. Her look: polka-dotted innocence.

Another illustration of how young Russell was as she embarked on her early modeling career—in this shot, she looks beautifully brooding in a shot for French Vogue. However, she was giggly at a slumber party just days before.

While she wore an ultrashort red dress in V Magazine, posing to make the most of her curves, away from the camera her real concern was getting to soccer practice on time.

Even today, Russell says that the images we see of her do not reflect reality, but are careful constructions built by stylists, makeup artists and photographers.

She tells the TED Blog, “I’m a dork! My favorite outfit is baggy black corduroy pants and a baggy T-shirt. In December I was shooting in the Bahamas, and on the way back I was in a boat with other people staying on the same island. One woman was going on and on about the model she’d seen on the beach who was ‘so gorgeous.’ Of course, that model had been me in hair, makeup and a neon bikini. The whole 30-minute boat ride she didn’t recognize me. I was sitting directly across from her wearing sweatpants, a windbreaker, no makeup and hair up in a bun.”

This is Russell in the latest issue of Vogue Australia, compared to how she looked on the TEDxMidAtlantic stage in November. As she writes on the magazine’s website, “When I gave a talk at TEDx, I thought that if I did a good job, the video might go viral. But … it has 140,000 views while Colin Powell’s (who spoke at the same event) has only 2,700. He is an incredibly experienced and intelligent man. And yet our society’s obsession with celebrity and models means more people were interested in listening to my talk … Over the past 10 years, I’ve come to see modelling not as an endpoint, but as a starting point. Not as a pinnacle, or ideal, but as a seed for conversation. Modelling is no better or worse than many other professions, but it is more obvious, more accessible … I hope that in the coming months and years I can figure out how to use my lottery ticket to make mass media that is more informed, more participatory and more responsible.”