For the longest time women’s bodies have always had a standard or trend behind it. The standards constantly change, yet the power behind them does not. When it comes to overall beauty standards, women are always expected to have a classy yet bold look but you can never be too provocative or else your comments will be filled with obscenities.
Men comment things like, “dressing like this but not wanting to be sexualized is crazy,” or there are comments that point out the imperfections of your outfits, body and hair. Because of this there are trends that women often feel pressured to participate in. Trends like being hairless, being thin and still having voluptuous curves, looking youthful at all times without any surgeries or botox and more. The constant contradictions place women in impossible positions.
The line of what is acceptable is always moving and women are expected to keep up with it and balance perfectly on it without having any complaints. Many of these standards are rooted in patriarchal societies where men held power both socially and in the home. Since many are used to men controlling the environment, what they consider to be “ideal” in women is what society finds acceptable.
Over time these ideas have reached social media and have led to pressure being applied onto women at all times. The fundamental issue here is that standards that are shaped largely by men are being imposed onto bodies and experiences that they do not share.
In the Teen Vogue article, “How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Standards,” author Jessica Defino details how women are influenced by media exposure.
“These qualifications are clearly and constantly communicated to us through film, television, literature, magazines, the school system, the medical system, politics, personal relationships, social media, the law, and advertising. Psychologists have argued that it may be all but impossible to separate what we inherently and individually find beautiful from what society tells us is beautiful,” said Defino.
Defino’s point suggests that our ideal sense of beauty is not our own but years of conditioning into being “perfect”. In order to move beyond this as women and a society we need to learn to let go and appreciate yourself no matter how others may feel about you.
At the end of the day the person that should matter the most to you is you, not what old men in a comment section think about you. Beauty standards have been deeply rooted in the patriarchy as a way to control, limit and objectify women, but as time continues women are finding ways to move past this and redefine what women can and should be.
