Beauty standards are everywhere.
Journalist Esther Honig took her unedited image and had it Photoshopped by 22 individuals. Her only request was "make me beautiful".
These 22 individuals came from 22 different countries in the world. While each Photoshop artist edited Honig's face to a certain degree to fulfill their respective country's standard of beauty, such as adding a hijab or earrings, there is an underlying theme regarding how each artist edited the photo. Every edit includes a generous amount of makeup and a change of facial structure. It is a common standard that having skin with imperfections, such as acne or birthmarks, is frowned upon. Therefore, each artist tried to make Honig more beautiful by smoothing her skin and adding makeup, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, and other assorted beauty treatments.
Source: CNN
“[All of the photos] are intriguing and insightful in their own right; each one is a reflection of both the personal and cultural concepts of beauty that pertain to their creator. Photoshop allows us to achieve our unobtainable standards of beauty, but when we compare those standards on a global scale, achieving the ideal remains all the more illusive.”
— Esther Honig
Beauty standards hurt women physically and mentally.
MENTALLY
Constant exposure to media, which according to the American Psychological Association is about six and a half hours a day, causes the idea of these beauty standards to become engrained in the minds of girls and women worldwide. By watching television programs, reading magazines, and surfing the internet, women usually only see photos of other women who are, by society's definitions, beautiful. This usually means that they will have unrealistic body proportions and obscene amounts of makeup applied. In mainstream media, advertisements, and even sports, women are overly-sexualized and treated like objects. The combination of all of this exposure internalizes the idea to women that their most desired trait is sexuality and how their body looks.
This constant perpetuation of beauty standards pushes women to feel dissatisfied with their own bodies, leading to anxiety, shame, and self-disgust. These issues may evolve into mental health issues, such as body dysmorphia. They may also further manifest into physical health issues.
Source: American Psychological Association Report on the Sexualization of Girls
This constant perpetuation of beauty standards pushes women to feel dissatisfied with their own bodies, leading to anxiety, shame, and self-disgust. These issues may evolve into mental health issues, such as body dysmorphia. They may also further manifest into physical health issues.
Source: American Psychological Association Report on the Sexualization of Girls
PHYSICALLY
As women are exposed to the perfect idea of beauty which is, in most cases, nearly unattainable, they are driven to attempt to attain it. A myriad of health problems can arise from this, including eating disorders and self-harm. Eating disorders include anorexia, which arises when someone intentionally eats little food and might induce vomiting to attempt to lose weight. Anorexia causes even more health problems, such as irregular heart-beat which can lead to death. These health issues are extremely serious, and some women are being pushed over the edge into doing things like this because of the constant reinforcement of unattainable beauty.
Source: Everyday Health, Eating Disorders
Source: Everyday Health, Eating Disorders