In the world nowadays, it seems that our society and media has started to branch out for inclusivity in what it shows the audience. It’s about time.
This is especially true for fashion, beauty and advertising companies. Think about the last magazine you saw. Was the woman slim, with big eyes and a small nose, her teeth as white as snow with a flawless body to match?
This, my dear friends, is called the feminine beauty ideals. This phenomenon correlates with the specific set of beauty standards and traits that are thought to increase beauty standards of women. These range from culture to culture— our focus will be the American beauty standards for women.
What might these be? Here’s a short list.
- Ideal female body shape: a woman with natural curves to show off her feminine ‘hour-glass’ physique, with a flat stomach, perky breasts
- Skin tones: the most sought after models in the industry typically come from a white background. According to Zippa, the demographics for a runway model favor white models, 65.4% of the industry, over models who are a POC, the remaining 36.4%.
- Height and weight: According to a recent study, the ideal height and weight of an American woman is 5’5” and weighing around 128 pounds with a 26-inch waist.
What are these “ideals” of women’s beauty doing for us? Not only does the media and the advertisements we consume affect our ideals of beauty, but it causes many negative effects.
Our beauty standards over time have been evolving. While we as a society and many businesses’ focuses are on expanding the inclusivity of beauty, harmful stereotypes and issues still arise.
Ever since I was little, the toys that were advertised to girls included Barbie, with her perfectly styled makeup, hair and accessories. Or makeup vanities, with fake or cheap lipstick, eyeshadow and other beauty products that are advertised for young girls to play “dress up” with. While boys were playing with trucks, cars and action figures, young girls were playing dress up and putting on fashion and makeup shows.
Travel-themed Barbie doll with a blue jean dress and white Vans shoes with colorful pink accessories: luggage, backpack etc. While innocent in the beginning, these issues and beauty ideals can have some lasting effects into young teens and adulthood.
Handling the pressure to conform to a certain “beauty” look may have psychological effects on an individual. This includes depression, body dysmorphia and low self-esteem, eating disorders and many other harmful results.
Social media over the years has only added pressure and anguish for women in America. It seems you can’t scroll through one social media platform without coming across an advertisement of a woman with perfectly done hair, makeup and an outfit that compliments their perfectly toned and curvy body.
While it is true that not everything you see on the internet is real, these constant reminders and ridicules of the ideal beauty standards of women are becoming more harmful than lustful.
While there are many businesses and efforts to expand past the “idealistic standard of beauty” for women, such as Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty company and Fabletics—which both showcase a mixture of different races, sizes and genders of models— our media intake still focuses too much on the feminine beauty ideals.
This issue will not go away anytime soon. What I try to do is look at the model or celebrity or influencer on my social media feeds and really take a look at them. This was most likely an edited picture with filters, effects and a professional team getting these women ready to pose for the camera.
So why should I, an average woman in her early twenties compare myself to other women in the beauty and fashion industry?
As the world continues to show more women of color, sizes and different beauty standards than the “Americanized” beauty for women, I hope that others will realize we are the victims of a selling scheme for these big companies—nothing more than that.
The next time you look in a mirror and you think ‘I’m too fat”, “I’m to skinny”, “my hair is too messy”, “my teeth are too crooked or yellow”, or any other negative statement about your features, remember that your beauty is not a default look, nor should it be.
We are all beautiful, so don’t let a feminine beauty ideal bring you down.
Girl Talk 
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