In a world with so many different looking faces, body sizes, and skin color, you need to be able to accept yourself the way you are. With women engaging in activities such as skin bleaching and hip widening, and over-make up. Whose idea is being followed in defining beauty?
I may not know a lot of things but I do know that a woman’s look is one of her most prized possessions. Inwardly she is very conscious about how she looks. Pass a negative comment about how a woman looks and the memory will stick with her forever. You would have touched on her self-esteem.
I personally think there’s something wrong when we place all our value upon physical beauty and develop our self-concepts from there. Personally, I have never been one to be too fussy about my facial or body beauty. I have had a cheese cop and short hair for the greatest part of my life. I have always had a positive sense of my body and my looks. Understanding that whereas I can change my clothes and style to change how I look, there is really nothing much that I can do to change my body without causing myself harm. Actually, I have no time to glorify or externalize beauty as a measure of self-worth. I assign value to other facets of myself also: my mind, my imagination, and my ability to be a good friend.
Is there an ideal standard of beauty?
What if there were no beauty standards, would you feel beautiful? What if there were no standard figures or model portraits, would that make you feel beautiful?
Plastic surgery allows people to get closer to an ideal look – but whose ideal? There are no universal metrics of beauty. There are different beauty metrics across cultural settings, and across people. For example, some men prefer blondes while others prefer brunettes. Some women prefer men with dark complexions while others prefer light-skinned men.
The same goes for body shape. In certain cultures, people may prize longer legs in women while preferring less “lanky men”. And although an hourglass figure in women, and men with broad, V-shaped shoulders tapering at the waist, are admired in most places, the ideal extremes depend on society.
With different circumstances, standards of beauty vary. For example, where starvation is a risk, heavier weight is more attractive and where obesity is a risk, lighter bodies are considered more beautiful. Standards of beauty also change over time. The Rococo art that was popular in Europe in the 18th century was rarely symmetrical, and Zen gardens are prized for their lack of symmetry. Instead of changing your unusual looks to suit the fashions of the time, you could instead use your looks to change the fashion. Because the deeper you look, the harder it is to define beauty.
When it comes to judging visual beauty, there are no hard and fast biological rules. In fact, the environment we live in can change the way we see. Your experience of the world changes what you take to be true, and vision is no exception.
We are the products not only of biological evolution but also of cultural evolution. Although the idea of universal beauty is appealing, it doesn’t capture the multiplicity of creation across place and time. Beauty is not genetically preordained.
Where does the pressure come from?
Society prizes beauty so highly that we believe everybody should look a certain way. These days, the ubiquity of beauty is peddled by the cosmetics industry. Women, are asked to “imagine a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety.”
Beauty is something we can’t pin to a point. Everyone is beautiful in their own way that is what I think. Just because someone doesn’t think something is beautiful in one place doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful somewhere else. Beauty does not necessarily external but internal too.
There is no yardstick to measure it. There is no universal beauty, everybody has a different perspective of beauty. People in Mexico like thin waists and big breasts and people in Asia like long necks. Everybody has a different view of beauty, so there is no universal beauty, just be yourself, and be happy with it.
From culture to culture, standards of beauty vary. Such standards have also changed throughout history. The fashion industry and advertising campaigns affect our ideals of beauty. The idea that women must be thin, be free of body hair and sweat, and be perfectly coiffed and made up comes from deodorant companies, razor companies, diet food companies, and hair care companies trying to sell more of their products. Unfortunately, other cultures’ ideals of beauty like western ideals will become more domineering and universal because of the advertising imagery.
No matter how beautiful you think you are, somebody is still gonna find something ugly about you and no matter how ugly you think you are, somebody is still gonna find something beautiful about you. Therefore, embrace your beauty, you are beautiful just the way you are so you better believe it.
I would love to hear your thoughts regarding this matter so please, leave a comment for me below, and if you found this inspiring, may you share it with others.
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