BEAUTY STANDARDS

Do you feel insecure or belittle yourself whenever people like say someone is beautiful? Or someone say
their perfect? And you suddenly look at yourself and reflect what you look like? You feel like everyone
expects you to be pretty and perfect?? Ever feel jealous of pretty, cute, tall women?? And you suddenly
want to be them? Want their looks?

That everyone is called Beauty Standards or Feminine beauty ideals.

Feminine beauty ideals’ the social constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s
most important assets, and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain, it rooted in the
heteronormativity and heavy influence women of all sexual orientations. But there are pressures to
people who want achieves the beauty standard. It can lead to psychological effects such as depression,
eating disorders, and low self-esteem.

As Mass media develops and the way people see feminine beauty ideals changes. Let me example
Marilyn Manroe, who is an icon and a sex symbol back in the 1950s. she is a singer, actress and a model.
Marilyn Manroe has an hourglass body, and her body measurement, 36 on her chest, 24 on her waist
and 34 on her hips, and she weighs 120. Marilyn Manroe’s body isn’t perfect, despite her measurement,
she has a big tummy, even though she died, she left her legacy and as time changes, her reputation
turns into a positive outcome, now, she’s an icon for body positivity for women nationwide.

But in the 21st century, being chubby or fat, petite, not having big boobs, and not being ‘white’ enough is
brutal here in the Philippines.

Here in the Philippines, beauty standards means; being WHITE, if you have Morena skin or brown skin,
better prepare yourself for insulting jokes and names. Filipinos’ mindset is being a native inborn Filipino
is bad thing, unless you have another ethnic or you’re born with white skin. Or just you can’t reach the
Filipino beauty standards.

Having these beauty standards, whitening company, boomed here in Philippines because every Women
want to have a white skin, and these whitening companies encourage people to use it, or advertise it in
the wrong way.

Picture of glutamax

But being Morena doesn’t stop there. Being small isn’t enough, you need to drink a vitamin just to get a
perfect height just to fit in to the group of people. Some people prefer to wear HIGH heels, just so they
can look so tall.

How can we stop this beauty standards that are beyond human expectations?

But there are movements for loving yourself and embracing your body, this is a matter of personal taste,
but I always found that diversity breeds uniqueness and being unique makes you beautiful. If everyone
looks the same, with the same haircut, the same artificially whitened skin, the same nose job, then
there’s nothing special about that ‘look’ anymore and it becomes bland and unappealing