Get Inspired, Be Empowered Forums Sexism & Patriarchy Beauty Standards for Women

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20 replies, 20 voices Last updated by Afshan Iqbal 2 years, 1 month ago
  • shilpagladwins
    Participant
    @shilpagladwins
    #30719

    By society’s standards, women are expected to look and act a certain way. Society establishes a set of standards for women, and if they do not meet them, they are pushed further down the social ladder.

    The objectification of women can be said to go hand in hand with society’s beauty standards for women. A woman is expected to be lovely and feminine, with a perfect body that is thin and slender, with a slim waist and curves. Anyone who does not conform to society’s beauty standards is pushed to the bottom of society.

    Women strive to meet society’s unrealistic beauty standards. It is not a stretch to say that women strive for ideal beauty to be validated. When a culture already discriminates against women because of their gender, it is natural for women to try to equalise with men through other means, one of which is to meet the beauty standard.

    The pressure of society’s beauty standards has resulted in the majority of women struggling with body issues. Women are either told they are too big or too thin. When it comes to beauty standards, which are constantly changing, there is no winner. However, women are constantly reminded of the expectations of what they should look like, which can lead to serious health problems later in life. Eating disorders and mental health problems are common when females struggle to keep up with the standard.

    A woman is beautiful when she is self-assured, holds herself with poise, has opinions, and can stand her ground. Beauty cannot be defined by a set of criteria. We frequently forget that beauty comes from within and that if a person is happy with their life and appearance, they are already beautiful.

    aishwaryaaji
    Participant
    @aishwaryaaji
    #30726
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    Unrealistic beauty standards are problematic for many reasons.

    Considering the exceptional increase in the usage of social media among youngsters, it has become the norm to compare oneself to another prettier, slimmer and lighter-skinned influencer. When influencers promote beautification products while using feminism as a tool to do so, it becomes hypocritical. Yet, many naïve teenagers are swayed by such tactics and worry over trivial things.

    When capitalism makes use of the insecurities of others’, huge companies get a lot of profit from selling products that make one person feel inferior to another. This is basically daylight robbery because even if it is a product that does not work well, it sells well because of people’s lack of self-acceptance.

    Another dangerous effect of unrealistic beauty standards is eating disorders. When a person thinner than them, comes up online, they start to question their concept of beauty and beat themselves up to match the person online. This can cause many youngsters to starve themselves or take pills or over-exercise until they tire themselves out. Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder are some examples of eating disorders.

    In South Korea, people have an especially clear image of how a pop star or celebrity should be. They’re not allowed to weigh more than a certain weight and are forced to starve themselves to maintain that weight. If they do not conform to those beauty standards, netizens cyberbully the idol till they make changes or sadly, kill themselves.

    All over the world, there are people who suffer because of beauty standards. Some people are introverts because they do not have confidence in their appearance, they lack self-esteem and give up on many opportunities because they feel that they are not worthy of availing of that opportunity.

    But it is important to know that beauty standards keep changing every day. What was considered ideal back in the 90s is not what is relevant today. So, just learn to love yourself and be confident in yourself and then you won’t try to fit into the standards that society thrusts upon you.

    Gayatri Somvanshi
    Participant
    @gayatri
    #31083
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    ‘Beauty’ – whenever this word comes to my mind unconsciously the first picture comes into my mind is women. Practically speaking women and the term beauty are correlated for me. You can say it’s just like a beautiful woman and a woman is beautiful. But exactly how beautiful a woman should be?
    Slim , delicate ,fair and should have profound features ,delicate jade like hands and long fingers and calm temperament?
    Till this date we are always thought that beautiful women are those who have bodies like a flowing river and fish shaped eyes and fair skin.
    According to society, women’s bodies should be proportionale and should have curves at the right places. They should be neither too thin nor too curvy.
    Bro!! Bro!! Give me a break.
    Can we just stop this bullshit of forcefully squishing women into this illogical mold of so called beauty standards?
    Every woman irrespective of her color, shape and behaviour is perfect.
    Being a woman itself makes her perfect.
    To all my sisters out there…….
    Love yourself the way you are instead of starving yourself just to make your body slim ,to apply haldi just to look fair, trying to be achive inhuman calmness just to fir into this idiotic society standards.
    Love yourself
    Accept yourself just the way you are instead of seeking validation from this society because this hypocritical world will never be satisfied with you no matter how you behave and change.
    If you are thin they will call you malnourished.
    If you are curvy they will call you fat .
    They will blame you for your brown skin.
    They will blame you for your temperament.
    So just enjoy your life.
    Being a woman is itself a beautiful thing.
    We women have always been made to feel that we are weak and need to be dependent on our husbands ,fathers and so on and we don’t realise how much stronger we are and how stronger we can further be.
    If we have the power to create a new living being in us ,if we can bear the pain which is equivalent to fracturing of 20 bones , then who is this world to tell us we are weak .
    We are the strongest and I believe every woman in this world is a fighter.
    So let’s own our body….
    Let’s own our mind….
    Let’s own our life…..
    Let’s fight for our rights……
    I believe every can do this.

    PALAK KASHIV
    Participant
    @palak
    #31101
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    Beauty standards I think there are no such standards for beauty .beauty is not only the physical appearance but also our inner soul, our values, and acceptance .people always believe beautiful people are those who have a slim figure, nice curves, good facial features, and should be fair in color. This is something which is totally wrong mindset. We should love ourselves just the way we are.
    Some Women are often insecure about themselves because of how they look and this makes them feel unconfident. Women should not validate themselves through other people’s opinions. She should appreciate her beauty every day, be grateful. Women are beautiful with scars, acne, stretch it makes them who they are. We have to create our own beauty standards and break the stereotypical standards in society, women do not have to lose weight just because society wants it no. A lot of think people compare themselves with other people this should be stopped. Media also showing wrong things they are only taking girls who are slim in commercials, and in TV. Shows. If all girls were taught how to love each other instead of compete with each other and hate their own body what different world would we live in. We get so worried about being pretty let’s get pretty kind, pretty smart, pretty funny, and pretty strong. Your beauty does not define you but your character will define you. Be natural and rare because this something important in this filtered world. All girls are beautiful and are loved, do not get distracted by other people’s opinions because other people always have said something about you do not be hard on yourself, learn to accept yourselves the way you are, and look at how things change for you.

    DISHA SAPKALE
    Participant
    @42disha
    #31316
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    There is no such beauty standards basically beauty is not only look fair or having perfect features. Beauty is something that should be both inside out. There should be no comparison between skin colour everybody has different skin type that does mean that they are not beautiful beauty is something that should be inside then only it come out with glamorous. That means helping others having good things in mind for everyone. Inner beauty is more important than physical appearance. We all know that commercials always show comparison between fair and black or it could be slim or fat this thinking has to change because of these type of commercials many people gets influenced that they are not beautiful they think in such a way that beauty is something to look fair or slim or having great features. This type of commercials should not get support of audience they should make such commercials that people get motivated and have confidence in themselves. And people should also stop to point out the flaws all the time. Important think is everyone is beautiful in there own way. God has created everyone different. We should accept whatever we have and be confident enough to show your beauty with brain. Anyone can imagine that women you suffered from acid attack how they are strong and confident enough to show they beauty inside out. They are not afraid of bad comments they make themselves strong and take all negative in a positive way. It shows that they has no fear of anybody and it shows that how they love themselves first. If they can show what is beauty standards mean than normal people should be more confident enough to show there inside beautiful soul. The only think is love yourself than everyone will you inner beauty is more important than outer.

    anshika agarwal
    Participant
    @anshika-2
    #31321
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    In society’s eyes beauty means who ha beautiful physique and attractive body. Beauty standards are always made for women. Men don’t need any kind of beauty standards.
    Beauty standards says a girl should be fair in color with a good physique. She shouldn’t wear a spectacles. Why these standards are made only for girls?
    At the time of marriage every boy’s mother wish to have a beautiful girl for their son whether their son looks like dustbin. When a girl is in her teenage she is judged by her parents. If the girl is fatty or dark they want her to give her attention on her body. Because if they don’t have a beautiful body she doesn’t get a good man. She will have problems at the time of marriage. Parents set beauty standards for their daughter.

    A girl’s beauty should be judged by her character and her personality. Parents should stop setting beauty standards for their own daughter.

    VIPASHA .
    Participant
    @vipasha
    #31324
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    I don’t know why but always a woman has to stand in a criteria levels set by society . A society always have certain expectations from a woman. It is like if woman should be beautiful it should be tall slim fit with perfect curves and perfect waist she should have beauty bone .I can’t even imagine that you can set an extender for Look Beauty.
    People say that she should look like it or should walk like this, but they do not know how all these things are affecting others minds. Body shaming is very common in India and hearing these things of people again and again, many people get so much disturbed by it. Due to this, many girls take big steps like dieting, which makes a opposite on their body. Due to dieting, their body does not get the nutritional fair they want and they become weak due to which they do not lose weight but they suffer from dizziness and many diseases.
    But why should we follow the standard set by someone else .If a girl is capable of herself then why do people set the beauty standard for her and why the girl stands on that .Society should not judge a girls according to their beauty standards. This standards should be like , how the girl puts her point in front of the society , by the way she speaks, is she a capable person or not? Is she can stand in front of today’s men dominance, this should be the standard. The society which and there expectation, no one has been able to stand up to her beauty standards till date because their expectations are changing with people, there will no any girl who would have liked everyone. They see some or the other deficiency in them, but we all need to understand this, but people do not understand this and keep harassing themselves to meet these standards . They juggle with themselves and harass their own body for so called satisfaction of people , because of this many girl are victim of many different diseases.
    Every single girl is beautiful, beauty comes from the mind, not from the face, it is clear how clean the human mind is, and the people who set these standards are the only people who look most dirty .A girl does not need a certificate from society for , how beautiful she is.

    Agarwal Me
    Participant
    @agarwal
    #31326
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    Loved your points Anshika. You are doing great my friend. I would love to share my opinion on the same. Beauty standards are setup by the society which every girl has to face. When she crosses that standards she is treated badly. A person with a beautiful mind and beautiful thinking is beautiful.

    Vivek Adatia
    Participant
    @vivek
    #31327
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    ‘Beauty standards’ – the very fact that there arose a need to coin this term, proves that our society is quite far from being an ideal one. When we attach the word ‘standard’ to anything, it means that we intend to make a comparison. So, the coinage of the term ‘beauty standards’ also means that our society intends to compare or rather categorize people according to their physical appearances. What’s even worse is that our society tends to go so far as to ridicule that person who doesn’t meet the expected beauty standards; and women are obviously the more targeted gender of such disposition of the society.
    Most aspects of our physical appearances are purely a privilege. Women or any person for that matter, don’t have much control over how they look. Fair or dark, short or tall, with or without freckles; did any one of us got to choose how we look? Obviously, some of the aspects are in our control, up to some extent atleast, but some either fall short of resources, while others fall short of will. Either way, no one deserves to be ridiculed, humiliated and looked down upon, just because they look different from how society expects them to look.
    Women, who are considered to be the ‘fairer sex’, are evidently treated unfairly. The archaic meaning of the word ‘fair’ was simply ‘beautiful’, irrespective of the woman’s complexion; but as the times changed, the meaning of this word then referred to a woman or a person with a lighter complexion, who is apparently considered to be more attractive, even till date. This proves that the perception and the mentality of the society has only deteriorated with time. The fact that certain professions like acting, air hosting, modeling, etc. prefers women to be slender, tall and of lighter complexion, further shows that how woman are scrutinized on the basis of their looks.
    The existence of beauty standards in our society have also resulted in more frequent instances of objectification of women. Women, like many other “things”, seem to be coming with a shelf life, after which their worth plummets dramatically. Their beauty seem to be the measure of their worth in quite a few instances, rendering their all other more meaningful qualities and virtues worthless. And apparently this is not at all limited to their professional lives, their personal lives seem to be taking even more severe hit. Rejections in marriage, incessant taunting from relatives and neighbours, humiliation by peers, etc. all of such things take a hefty toll on their mental health and self-esteem. Countless women suffer from depression and stress related issues because they don’t look measure up sufficiently to the beauty standards as set by the people around them. It’s hard to imagine the trauma of such women.
    It is said that “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, and if this is true, the vision and perception of our society today is deprived of any beauty whatsoever. There are slim chances of such a society to prosper which cannot identify, appreciate and respect the true worth of its women and continue scale them according to some preconceived notion of being appealing and beautiful externally. Still there seem to be a little ray of hope, as we can see miniature revolutions, where people are willing to look at women with a deeper, more meaningful perception. If such a temperament is encouraged sufficiently, the lives of women in our society might get a little bit easier and that’s a considerable progress in the right direction.

    Manpreet Singh
    Participant
    @manpreet
    #31342
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    The false beauty standards are definitely a toxic thing that has prevailed n our society for a long time. Since the beginning, there is this pressure on the women that either they should be good looking up to a particular standard, must have a fair skin tone, be of good height, etc or they won’t be accepted as a good candidate for marriages and jobs. With the advent f social media, the pressure has surmounted so many times that it has made the lives of many girls unbearable and a mess.
    The problem lies in our thinking and the gender stereotypes which put peer pressure that women should be fair. With multimillion brands like fair and lovely, thriving upon this fear for god know how many decades, what can we expect then? Now the evil of social media has started flaunting these so-called social media influencers who are dictation the lives of many teenage girls by showing them fakeness and how to be a slave of these things. The problem doesn’t end here, the false beauty standard has been a long requirement for a perfect job and marriage opportunity. So many talented girls are left behind just because they could confirm the false beauty standard.
    The side effects of these false beauty standards are rising day by day. It is causing mental health issues, self-esteem issues, driving girls to suicide, and whatnot. With so many problems that this notion has brought to us? Isn’t it the right time to through it out or discard the notion? We have to wake up from slumber and see what the reality is. We have to rise above these beauty standards and accept the real person and see what real talent that person has to offer. This is a one-step towards equality and we must support it.

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