Eternity of Toxic Beauty Standards
Years ago, I used to catch myself skipping breakfast so I could enjoy my morning flat stomach for a bit longer. On those mornings, I would pass in front of the mirror way more often just to catch a glimpse of my hungry, snatched waist. I would get on the weight scale before I’d even brush my teeth or comb my hair, and I wasn’t sure what those numbers were telling me, but they spoke to me. And somehow we would understand each other. I also wasn’t sure if I liked them. Yet, they did fit into the taught frame in my head that accepted them. I don’t know what made me continue this tradition on most mornings. I was in a perpetual battle with myself whether I cared or not about flat stomachs and small waists. That battle was too long; it changed my habits. I stopped being hungry, and I thought it was the perfect solution.
Ashley Armitage via Unsplash
Mind you, I never had a problem with my weight (grateful for genetics, that’s all). Up to this day, I am not sure what made me obsess over it like that. It sounds convenient to blame it on the models and actresses who did participate in some pretty harmful standards. Yet, they were victims too of something much bigger. Movies, magazines, social media—these are just mediums, the bearers of bad news, yet they did carry the standards and conveniently spread them. Do you want to shoot the messenger, his advocates, or that pressure that makes all of us compliant?
The scary thing about beauty standards today is that they are far from gone; they’re simply undercover. Twenty years ago, you might have admired the lithe shape of Paris Hilton, but who would actually relate to that? Today, our peers participate in maintaining those standards, and we all relate to those in a similar life situation to us, in our community.
A scary moment is when the toxic culture is unintentionally fueled by your family. Many dialogues are currently open online speaking up about the new concepts of Serum Mom (obsessed with beauty standards) and Almond Mom (obsessed with diet culture) and the way these can affect their children’s insecurities and ultimately make them participate in the toxic culture. I guess I have to thank my unfrazzled mom who confidently escaped the toxic standards and even discussed them with me with an openly scathing tone. But she never took my phone away, trusting my perceptions, yet at night I would scroll for hours, and some pictures would nestle in my mind long after I was asleep. These hurdles I would carry around during the days when I was meeting many other women who also seemed to carry them. We were all in this together, but at the same time, we were our biggest enemies.
Something that I can’t help but glance at is how the body template we used to have two decades ago now just switched to a facial template. Did we start accepting all facial characteristics, or did we simply normalize cosmetic surgery? We love to talk about inclusivity, but you should accept the ones who underwent plastic surgery because they felt excluded beforehand. And while, yes, we no longer make feisty mocking comments and we don’t accept such on any form of media (at least not as much as before), there are new things at stake that make you comply with the standards. It is a public secret that you won’t get as many views, likes, attention without the lip liner or specially long lashes. And that’s okay, not everyone wants this. Yet, this is what most people see on the screen and consider as the societal standard.
We are all aware. We play the culprit and the victim at the same time, so which one wins at the end of the day? Traditionally, the main purveyors and trend-setters of toxic standards are celebrities. Just a few months ago, a multi-millionaire who profits from her looks, Kylie Jenner, spoke about being a victim to the beauty standards while for way too long she was one of the main accountable for setting them. While it is hard to relate to those who make a life out of selling you insecurities (because yes, in the absorbing age of media, people are not the only ones responsible for their own insecurities), it is undeniable that she is also a victim of the toxic chain that made her use lip fillers in order to sell herself better in the first place.
When even the most responsible ones are victims in the vicious circle of toxic beauty standards, what can stop them? More aware than ever, more accepting than ever, we would still need a second pair of hands to count all the conventionally pretty features we subconsciously want to achieve.
I stopped using a weight scale, and I eat when I’m hungry. I enjoy good pesto pasta on Saturdays with friends, and my natural hair and I often visit the boulangerie right in front of my place for their strawberry croissants. I usually puff up my lips with air whenever I don’t have lip liner, and if you wake me up at 3 am for a photo, the first thing I will do is pose on the side on which my nose looks smaller and pointier. The scariest thing is that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t do that, was I fifteen or nine? Yet, what I’ll remember is to not be an advocate of something I hate and am genuinely afraid of.
