Women and the Beauty Standards

Saraswati Joshi

Identity is a must for any individual to survive and to establish oneself in society. When we meet someone new, the first impression is formed from the looks; it is only after sometime that other things such as personality, brain and character start assuming a meaning. We live in a beauty-sick world that teaches women to focus on beauty matters most. But it comes with various sources to connect. And it is different for everyone, based on class, caste and gender. The major drawback can be seen when we observe how it assumes an altogether different dimension with respect to woman and man. It is a biased treatment. For man, etymologically, he is termed as “man, husband”. While on the other hand, “woman” is etymologically connected to “womb”. This is how the society perceives as well as restricts women, i.e. just a womb, just a machine to produce offspring. Paradoxically, one area where woman is prioritized over man is beauty!

Why women have to worry about the way their thighs look, hair, breasts or about the wrinkle around the eyes always? I would like to further explain that beauty is the last belief system that keeps male dominance intact. While women think beauty is all about how skinny, thin, small-nosed, silky hair etc. are! This makes an average woman entirely ugly. We need to explain that it is all about cultural conspiracy and matter of financial condition that matters.

A gender stereotype is a generalized view or preconception about attributes, or characteristics that are or ought to be possessed by women and men or the roles that are or should be performed by men and women. Gender stereotypes can be both positive and negative for example, “women are nurturing” or “women are weak”.

A woman’s anxiety can come from hundreds of sources; beauty advertisements, peer pressure, innate feelings of insecurity, etc. It has been found that overall the beauty industry has a negative effect on a woman’s self-esteem, body image, and perception of beauty. By using upward comparisons, women are constantly comparing themselves to standards of beauty that society shows to them.

What happens when women are given a chance of being free and not caged under so-called protectors? And it is only then when women are termed as ‘sufferers’ and called ‘weaker sex’ as well ‘protected sex’. Due to the chained setup of society “the tug of war that women have to contest between self and what others see them as.” Beauty requires sacrifices and in order to stay beautiful, we readily make these sacrifices. However, as it turns out, many habitual actions and beliefs for sustaining a perfect appearance are actually not that necessary. A primary way in which media distorts reality is in under-representing women. When media portrays women who work outside of the home, their career lives typically, receive little or no attention. Although these characters have titles such as lawyer or doctor, they are shown predominantly in their roles as homemakers, mothers, and wives. We see them involved in caring conversations with family and friends and doing things for others, all of which never seem to conflict with their professional responsibilities. This has the potential to cultivate unrealistic expectations of being “superwoman,” who does it all without her getting a hair out of place or being late to a conference. Representations of relationships between women and men bring out women as subject to men’s sexual desires. Why does this happen is ….

Primarily, objectification theory describes how women and girls are influenced because of expected social and gender roles. Research indicates not all women are influenced equally, due to the anatomical, hormonal, and genetic differences of the female body; however, women’s bodies are often objectified and evaluated more frequently.

Secondly, Self-objectification in girls tends to stem from two main causes: the internalization of traditional beauty standards as translated through media as well as any instances of sexual objectification that they might encounter in their daily lives.

What need to be done to overcome this?

Beauty Myth can be defeated for good only through an electric resurgence of the woman. Women who work in the mainstream media as an important resource can actually work towards breaking this myth by letting the women raise their voice, express frustration at the limitations, surrounding vanguard the treatment of beauty myth issues.

Most important, We may say that by education and by making her professionally competent is what really empowers a woman and, in turn, she will educate the whole society, and hence, the nation and the world as a whole. Because, if we educate a boy, we are educating a single personality, but when we educate a girl, we educate the whole society. So, let her knowledge shine on her face not some cosmetics, and judge her by the wisdom that comes out of her mouth and not just the rosy hues on the lips! Let her be free. Let her enjoy her life to the fullest. Let her be herself!

Saraswathi Joshi works as Assistant Professor of English