Recently, a friend and I were talking about the future. About how we want to find the perfect man and get married, own a home in the suburbs with plenty of room and an ocean view, raise perfect children, and be the best mothers we could ever be for our children. This talk led to us talking about body image, and the pressures of women.
For centuries, women have been taught to impress men by looking a certain way, acting a certain way. Society puts a lot of pressure onto women to do this, to be that perfect girl for the boy of your dreams who’ll sweep you away and make you happy as can be. The more we spoke about the constant pressures we face today (what with the invention of waist trainers and botox and crash diets), the more we both thought about what would happen to our own children to be raised in this society.
Sure, we have models, fashion icons and celebrities who will talk about their personal feelings of how violating photoshop is because they don’t look at all like they do in real life. We have songs being played on the radio talking about changing the norms of society, being proud of our own bodies, being all about our bodies and not letting anyone else’s opinions about our size bother us.
My friend said something about her not wishing to have a daughter, because she doesn’t want to have a daughter grow up in the cruel world of counting calories and weighing herself every morning. I fully agree, because as women we face a lot of harsh realities and a lot of harsh criticisms. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized boys have to go through the same thing.
Boys don’t have it easier than girls when it comes to the criticism and expectations of society for how they should look, they just don’t publicize it and aren’t targeted as heavily as females are. For males, their magazines target more of their sexual ability and performance tips whereas females are targeted for banishing belly fat and the right style of dress for your body type. There’s still a desired body type for a male, just like there is for a female.
A female is taught to strive for a larger chest, small waist and thin arms, a larger butt and skinny ankles. A male is taught to strive for a six pack, toned shoulders and a toned back. Boys also tend to grow slower than girls do, so in middle school and even high school, boys are still on the shorter and skinnier side than what they’re told they should be. Girls are supposed to be at their peak in high school because middle school was for them to hit puberty and adjust to their new bodies.
There’s so much pressure to how your body should look, whether you’re male or female. Girls tend to be more open about their own insecurities in terms of that, but boys tend to keep it to themselves, which can be worse. Either way, no matter what gender you identify as, there’s so much pressure to be a certain way, it’s exhausting. But, there needs to be a shift in how people think being one gender is easier than being another when it comes to pressures by society.