Most of what I know about womanhood is rooted in an obsession with perfection. Whether it has been embraced or dismissed, it is such a crucial part of mine and so many other women’s lives. Since the time we formed a conscious, we were made painfully aware of the fact that we are women. Our bodies are commodified and our faces are expected to be reconstructed. We are not allowed to age and if we do, god forbid it shows through our skin. Thousands of dollars are spent every day on skincare products, workout plans, dietitians, and clothes that we definitely do not need. Our world is flooded by women who are impossibly perfect and our standards of beauty do not exist in real life. Despite this, women are constantly pressured to live up to this unrealistic standard of beauty and we have become addicted to it. In fact, we embrace it.
It is clear that our cultural obsession with beauty has created unrealistic expectations for women, but why even if so many women know this, do they still conform? In my opinion, it is about power. As awful as it is, conventionally attractive women are given more opportunities and respected in higher regard than those who are not. Pretty privilege is a real thing, and this may be a sensitive topic for some people, but I think it is vital. Especially when looking at all of the time, energy, and money spent trying to be seen as more beautiful. I do not believe in bashing people for caring about their appearance and how they are perceived, I myself am one of those people. With that said, I am also not saying people always want to be seen as more attractive to others. Nevertheless, I do see a big issue, especially in the age of social media. We now live in a place where we are exposed to hundreds of thousands of people daily. Of these people, there are only a few that become famous and they usually have similar physical features and attributes that help sustain that success. I am not blaming the people who become famous or even the people who wish and try to look like them. However, I believe that social media has led to a detachment from reality. We have much higher standards for pretty. With that, plastic surgery has also become more accessible to everyday people and this is creating an epidemic. Everyone wants to look the same; so many Instagram models, actors, and celebrities have extremely similar faces and as far as I’m concerned, it is ruining what I consider beauty to be. To me, beauty is less about external appearance and instead about a person’s authenticity, the way they treat others, their spirit, and the uniqueness of who they are. Beauty has become hollow and incredibly repetitive.
This is why I believe we as a culture, and especially as women, need to de-center our lives from beauty standards and focus instead on the internal aspects of beauty. Though I do believe we have made progress with becoming more accepting of all different kinds of beauty standards; not just those in the west. I still believe it is very skewed and focuses primarily on the physical attributes of beauty which in my opinion is a very superficial way to see the complexity of what it means to be a beautiful person. The only way to change what we consider beauty to be is by turning our attention away from trying to conform to a Eurocentric, western ideal of what is beautiful and completely detaching from the dream of perfection. Take the focus away from beauty as a whole. A woman’s worth should not be determined by how attractive, fit, or conventional she is. Beauty is about who you are, not what you are.