From the beginning of time, women’s bodies have constantly been the topic of societal chatter. With the “perfect body” changing in the blink of an eye, today’s generation and women everywhere feel constant pressure to conform to society’s beauty standards, and the ever-changing image of “perfection.” However, to put it into perspective women have a new body standard every decade.
We start our journey with the 1910s, with the introduction of the “Gibson Girl.” The Gibson girl, named after Charles Dana Gibson, was a tall, slender woman with a waist the size of a quarter and a large bust with equally wide hips. Along with the figure-eight body, Gibson girls were expected to act with the utmost femininity and charm.
Moseying on over into the 1920s, and completely switching gears, “The Flapper” body type grew in popularity. Flapper women aspired to have rectangular-shaped bodies, and be all-around slim; with a slim figure, slim bust, and slim hips. Flappers, aka Jazz Babies, embodied the party-esque lifestyle of the 1920s. They rebelled against the old age modesty standards women were forced to conform with, wearing strapless dresses and unapologetically participating in party culture.
Beginning in the 1930s, women were forced to conform to yet another unrealistic beauty standard known as the “Soft-Slender” body. These women desired to be long (slender) while also having a defined waist, bust, and hips (curvy). The end of the 1920s party culture with the Great Depression brought back the more traditional standards for women’s beauty. The “Soft-Slender” women began to go back into the boy that the flapper had broken out of, being more concerned with femininity and modesty rather than rebellion against the status quo.
During the World War II era of the 1940s, the ideal woman became known as the “Star-Spangled Girl.” Women were expected to have a square-like silhouette (paralleling the 1920s), legs longer than Everest, and wide-set shoulders comparable to the U.S.A. military uniforms. The keyword of the 1940s was angles, women were expected to be more angular, almost geometric.
As Marilyn Monroe rose in fame, so did her body shape, birthing the 1950s “Hourglass” body. The women of the 1950s were expected to have voluptuous hips and bust while still maintaining a tiny waist. The curvy female body was advertised as a present for the soldiers returning from the era of war in the 1940s. With the change in body type also came a change in beauty, along with the rise of hair rollers and higher consumption of makeup— all for the pleasure of the patriarchy.
On an opposite note, the women of the 1960s were expected to be stick skinny therefore birthing “The Twig” body. Women were expected to be as narrow as possible with delicate doll-like facial features, skinny limbs, and a tiny bust. This tiny body type also gave a rise to diet culture and the introduction of “weight watchers” to “help” women fit into society’s small description of who they should be.
The 1970s gave rise to the “Disco Diva,” also known as a ‘natural’ woman. These women were expected to have small curvature, a flat stomach, slim hips, and small lean legs. And just like the 1960s, diet culture was still on the rise with women encouraged to eat next to nothing and participate in extreme workouts.
The “supermodel” body grew in popularity during the 1980s. A slim, tall, toned, and effortlessly beautiful woman. With this new body shape came a new way for women to achieve it—aerobics, the exercise of the 80s, and diet pills.
In the 1990s, women would go on extreme diets to achieve “The Waif” body. A look popularly sported by Kate Moss, the waif was a woman who was barely there with a thin, boney look. The Waif was also commonly referred to as the “Heroin chic” because of the extremely unrealistically slim type of body these women were expected to have.
Doing a complete 180, the 2000s had women sporting the “Buff Beauty” body. Women still were expected to be skinny, but now they also wanted toned arms, legs, and abs. This furthered diet culture and gave rise to gym culture as women wanted to be rid of pesky fat and full of muscle.
The 2010s brought about the Kim Kardashian body, a big bust and a big but. To fit into societal standards, plastic surgery started to rise.
Women’s bodies should not be “on or off-trend,” but unfortunately the patriarchy has lead us to believe that women are not perfect unless they have the “perfect body” at the time. All bodies are the perfect body and the sooner we realize this the sooner we can end diet culture and the patriarchy.