Link to the PPT to Support this speech:
Kicking Society’s Beauty Standards Out the Door
By Sofía López and Carolina León
Category: Psychologists
How many times have you been scrolling through TikTok and a video of a woman with the most perfect body pops up, making you doubt your appearance and like you need to look exactly like them to fit in? Or how many times have you tried these magical workouts on YouTube that promise unattainable results like “lose all of your belly fat in 10 days” and felt like you weren’t good enough when you didn't actually achieve it? You’re not alone in these feelings. Thousands of girls around the world are heavily affected by these irrational beauty standards, including us, and that’s why starting from today we should all be kicking society’s beauty standards out the door.
Good morning, we’re Carolina Leon and Sofia López, and we’re more than happy to introduce ourselves to you. We’re 9th graders at American school, youngsters concerned and aware of the situation on behalf of the effects of beauty standards in young girls.
‘’Beautiful’’, what is it about? It is a word with different meanings, and although everyone knows the term beauty, many people struggle defining it. While it officially stands for a combination of qualities existent in a person or something that pleases the senses of mind aesthetically, it actually is merely subjective. The term is commonly used by many people to describe a person's physical appearance; they often think that beauty comes from magazines, when in reality, true beauty relies on the way one acts and thinks rather than the way one looks. The perception of beauty is relative, mostly depending on one's particular culture. For instance, in China a small frame is beautiful, in India a medium-complexioned woman is beautiful, and in Africa the bigger the woman, the better she is, so there is no real theory for all people to follow, since everyone has either a personal or a culturally related concept regarding beauty.
Nonetheless, hundreds of girls around the world are in constant crave of being perceived as "beautiful", an adjective that has developed throughout the decades, a strong power behind countless of girls' self-esteem, mainly as a result of the kind of media that they are exposed to nowadays, where tons of celebrities, models, and brands promote themselves by creating a fake portrayal of perfection, with flat stomachs and slim waists, telling us we should do it all in the name of self-care, trying to transform the beauty collective imaginarium by fostering a plastic society which offers icons of a cultural identity that is far from being realistic.
A study by the Girl Scouts of America in 2010 revealed that 60% percent of girls compare their bodies to what they see in the magazines, and ever since then, this situation has worsened now that from a young age girls have an easier access to social media like Instagram or Twitter. Media worlds where they are being continually promoting hashtags like “body goals” to serve as an inspiration, from role models to workout routines and diets by the so called “free-surgery” influencers, in order to achieve their fit figures; when in fact, they were obtained mainly by esthetic procedures, sending a deeply damaging message to the girls of today.
On top of that, more than half of the markets with a main female audience, are in fact, controlled by men. From top model agencies like IMG, to the most popular clothing retailers like Victoria's Secret, 76% of men occupy high level management positions in industries aimed for women. Considering that just an average of 24% of women have leadership positions in these industries, it is somehow concerning that most part of what affects women’s lives - from the products they consume, to the stories and messages they’re sold - are decisions taken from a body of people that have no factual concept of what it is like to be a woman.
This guides us to our next point, which is the lately popular term: male gaze. For those that don’t know, the male gaze is defined as “a way of portraying and looking at women that empowers men while sexualizing and diminishing women”. Since the beginning of time, we’ve lived in a “macho” world, where all of our actions develop through a male lense. It is always the male perspective, the one that takes a stand up against any other views. Women are based from males’ mindset, and that’s why regardless of the thousands of movements that have allowed for changes to take place in our society, the media, and everything around us is led by the male perspective.
The latter is so ingrained in our heads, that we feel good when we feel pretty and that even when we’re all by ourselves, knowing that nobody’s eyes could logically be on us at that moment, we feel the urge to look pretty in order to satisfy our crave for plentiness. That right there is the internalized male gaze in ourselves. Even worse, is to dare thinking that women just dress for other women, rather than for men, who actually prefer them to be more revealing instead.
In many ways, this could rob many young girls from their childhood, because the bubble of innocence could be popped extremely early for them. Instead of enjoying a simple ice cream or chocolate from time to time, they would be concerned about the effects of those sugars in their bodies, which is something I’m pretty sure many of us went through when we were younger. Accompanied by the major anxiety about how you would be perceived and the constant guilt over your own child-appropriate impulses.
Every industry now, specifically the fashion industry has set standards, those of “the perfect woman”.The typical, white, tall, skinny and tanned woman who doesn’t indulge in a little McDonald’s once in a while. This image the media has promoted damages not only teenage girls but full grown women‘s mental health.
When you’re trying to buy a pair of jeans, are you the same size in all the shops? Do they fit your body shape right? Even your waist? If your answer was yes to all of these, you are one of the few lucky ones. Sometimes it takes us years to figure out which brand will not let us down. This is because the majority of brands are made for just one body type, maybe two if we’re lucky.
Diversity is essential to making every single woman feel like she’s an integral part of society. It brings women together, taking down the immortal battle of competitiveness, and lets them understand that they are beautiful and powerful the way they are. This is something addressed many times by many people, and the crowd hears but doesn't listen. For example, think about all that you've achieved in a day where you felt empowered. Isn't the goal to feel like that everyday? to give women and teenage girls the opportunity to thrive without shooting them in the head everytime they watch TV or see a magazine that showcases a photoshopped Gigi Hadid? It's time, let's lower beauty standards, let's normalize a little belly fat pouch, we need more diversity.
It has been proven that body shaming is something most women struggle with, because of being ‘’too’’ curvy, skinny, or big; since a young age, little girls look into the mirror wondering if there's something wrong with them and why they dont look like Disney princesses or actresses they watch on TV, events that sooner or later end up triggering body dysmorphia. Today, in our society it's hard to live without comparing yourself to the people around you, leading to more serious issues involving physical and mental health. One of these side effects is developing an eating disorder, fuel low self-steem, self harm, and even suicidal ideas.
Certainly beauty and beauty standards are a form of social control, just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife, the ugliest trick of patriarchy: ‘’we ignore all the other qualities of a woman because we haven’t been taught that for a woman, everything else is secondary in the face of beauty.’’ (Nandhita Hariharan, 2017) . Is this why we, as women, tend to create insecurities about our appearances as we grow up? Is this why men believe that attacking a woman's appearance will push her to the corner? A lot of women have internalized the idea that they need to be beautiful, and that beauty comprises a certain set of rules; for instance, an individual may find herself spending a lot of time on what she's gonna wear or how she looks even when that shouldn't matter. But why has this condition taken roots so deep? It is because beauty, as defined by society, is omnipresent and seems rather unthronable.
There's beauty seen everywhere, beauty that conforms to the strict standards set by society, the reason why girls start to believe that they must either conform to beauty standards or stay ‘’ugly’’. If the community chooses and continues to define beauty the way that standards are set in the society, beauty will be a diminishing asset on which women will spend time, money, and effort giving away a part of financial independence and peace of mind to a sexist society. Perhaps beauty, as mediocrely defined by society, may fade away, though our voices, confidence and spirit to live, will not.
Why do we feel like we need to apologize to the world for our ever changing self? Essentially, the media tells us that in order to be a worthy human being, we need to be a beautiful person in appearance, which is by all means inaccurate. The media, the promoted beauty standards, and fashion industries may not teach kids, teenage girls, women or any other individual to love their bodies, but you can. It is time to take a stand and defy the status quo regarding beauty by dignifying it instead of showcasing it up high, as an ultra glorious goal for everyone to fit.
