Cover Photo: photo by Alina Miroshnichenko/unsplash
photo by Alina Miroshnichenko/unsplash

The Beauty Myth: What Keeps Us From Seeing Ourselves Clearly?

“What I look like” is not a static picture cut out and placed in different environments, but one that changes again and again.

This is DATA, a monthly column by Angela Chen on numbers, nerdery, and what it means to live an evidence-based life.

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The Evolution of Beauty,

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Angela Chen is a senior editor at Wired Magazine and the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the best books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them. Her reporting and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, Paris Review, Lapham's Quarterly, and more.