Beauty can be defined as the looks a person has or portrays. Most women start to get ready to go out of the house anywhere from two to three hours before they need to leave. The disciplinary body practices start here. We shower, dry our hair, curl or straighten our hair, put makeup on, pick out a nice attractive outfit, decide on what jewelry and finally pick out the perfect pair of shoes to wear. This hour’s long process is just to show the world that we can put up a front to try and fit in.
To everyone, beauty is classified as a different aspect that is associated with their identity. Whether it is the physical characteristics of a person or maybe their personality and heart, beauty can vary across the world. Globally we can learn the differences in the visions of what beauty really is. Some cultures think that women that bear child are beautiful; some cultures believe that smaller feet are more beautiful, while some cultures believe that a tall underweight woman is beautiful. The oppression women all over the world are experiencing can be pointed at the unreachable picture of one centralized beautiful being. Women strive to uphold their ideas of beauty around the world which can cause much pain and suffering just to obtain a label of being beautiful.
The United States defiantly has a crazed sense of wanting to make everyone seem like they are not good enough. The media displays a somewhat unobtainable model of the perfect human being which makes everyone stop and look in the mirror and say what can I do to look like that. In The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, the author Joni Seager defines this perfect being as the “white, Western standard of beauty” (pg. 52). From the portrayal of this state of beauty the minds of young girls are starting to wonder and question what kind of beauty they have if they do not look like the women on TV. To see the figures associated with young girls and how they want to change their bodies to seem beautiful is really a depressing thought. In statistics from 2002 from the United States, 42% of girls in grades 1-3 wanted to be thinner, 81% of 10-year-old girls were afraid of being fat, and 80% of 13-year-olds attempted to lose weight (Seager pg. 52). To think that young girls already think they are not beautiful and need to change their appearance to be beautiful really upsets me. To know that we support the media and the way they portray beauty for women really should make us think about what we really believe.
Tall, very thin, young, and blemish free women is what appears on all the modern magazines that women of all ages pick up to read. These magazines may have some motivational stories or nice pictures to look at but really it’s a slap in the face to the reader. There is usually some kind of diet thrown in the magazine and maybe some exercises that are there because we all need to lose weight right? And the makeup advertisements show these beautiful women that need the makeup to be beautiful, so we defiantly need it right? Wrong. Beauty is not just skin deep. This may be a cliché but it serves a good purpose. Women have the right to feel beautiful just the way they are, without makeup or dressed nicely. You’re body weight should not matter, nor you’re body shape, nor the color of your skin, nor the way your nose, ears, mouth, or eyes look. To look deep into a woman, much can be learned about her true beauty.
Inside a woman we may see compassion, or sincerity, or love, or openness. A woman’s heart and soul is the ultimate gift that women give to society. But in today’s society that is always overlooked. To see a true woman and her beauty, take time and talk to her. Get to know her and see how much love she has to offer or how understanding she is. If we would stop focusing all of our attention on the looks of women and the cosmetic aspect and understand that real beauty is more than that, we could really see the worth of all women. Some companies are finally starting to use real women as models for their product instead of the typical “perfect” woman. But they still are not quite getting the point. EVERY woman is beautiful no matter the color of her skin, eyes, nail polish, hair, or shoes. Every woman has a story that will bring tears to yours eyes due to the oppression they have experienced for just being another sex besides male. If we could just show that all women are beautiful in their own way the world would be a greater place to live. Next time you talk to woman, whether it be your mom, grandma, teacher, or just a stranger, remind them that they play a role in this society and their beauty shines on in this dark society.