Beauty Standards

People, especially women, have been subject to beauty standards for thousands of years. However, having beauty standards in itself is pretty problematic since it is very political: it dictates society that a particular face shape, body structure, hair, or whatever physical feature is “beautiful” and therefore rejects all other types of physical features as “ugly.” Only a few women can fit into a certain beauty standard thanks to their genetic lottery, and the rest consider themselves unattractive. That is not how beauty should work. Beauty should not be a tool to feel superior and make others feel inferior. Beauty should be inclusive, not exclusive. More and more people are waking up to the ridiculousness of having beauty standards as more people with a certain following are speaking up in their social media platforms. It is time that we finally, and genuinely, embrace diversity.

If we stick to beauty standards, we limit our perceptions of beauty and deprive ourselves of the abundance of beauty available to us. And I personally believe that pushing impossible standards in our society especially through advertisements, television, and social media actually has the effect of diminishing our sense beauty instead of expanding it. As a result, people tend to rely on beauty products, chemicals, and plastic surgery in order to be deemed as beautiful. In our very superficial society today, most people tend to judge others based on their looks, even bullying those who don’t fit the attractiveness prototype. Bullying people based on their looks can crush people deep inside, resulting in self-esteem problems, eating disorders, mental illnesses, or even suicide. Therefore, now that people are seeing the bad effects of having impossible beauty standards, I am foreseeing that there will be radical change regarding this – possibly getting rid of having beauty standards altogether.

However, when we scrap beauty standards, what would be left for us to identify whether something is beautiful or not? It is not up to me to decide but I personally think that beauty is a feeling. It is something that is both seen and felt. Beauty as a feeling is something that is obviously attractive: it may be uplifting, joyful, nostalgic, inspiring, calming, or heartwarming. While ugliness, on the other hand, gives us a feeling of repulsion: rottenness, envy, fear, evil, hatred, or anger. Judging beauty on the basis of both sight and feeling can provide us a very wide spectrum of what is considered beautiful, and therefore, more and more people can consider themselves lovely and accept themselves for who they are.

Currently, society as a whole have still not gotten out of the extreme superficiality regarding beauty and the nasty cycle of too much adherence to beauty standards. Therefore, as individuals who care, we can try practicing the acceptance of diversity in beauty. The more people who awaken how to how beautiful they actually are, the less insecurities and discrimination there will be. It is time we stop lurking in the ugly side of beauty. It is time we train our eyes to see that beauty is very diverse – because beauty should be a tool for uplifting and not the other way around.