"The woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet."
- Mohadesa Najumi
Today's society has come to make girls believe many things: they need someone, things they need to do to be socially acceptable, they are not liked unless they "get a lot of likes," etc... The list could go on and on. While there are some women today who have picked up on some of today's trends and chosen to ignore them, many are letting society define who they are.
When you are in elementary school, junior high, high school, or even college - likes, in today's society define your popularity. I think males and females are both guilty of this assumption. I mean, don't you want to know how so and so got 435 likes on their latest insta post? Or how so and so got retweeted 135 times on Twitter? We practically beg for likes by only posting the "best, cutest and most attractive" pictures on social media. It's how we work but we should not let it define us and how we feel about ourselves.
Society does not define you. It does not tell you who you are, how you could improve yourself, how pretty you are, how "fit" you are, and that you constantly need someone. Society tries to do this and we let it, the majority of the time.
I am bad about this. While I do find myself to be more on the independent side of things - I also lean towards being dependent on someone or something. Today we seek for the latest makeup, hair and fashion trends and hope that maybe someone will take interest in us because we are taught that "girls cannot do things on their own" and that we will never be "perfect" unless we look like society wants us too. Is this really what we want our daughters and even sons to grow up thinking?
I remember when the whole London Gap craze came about. Every time I logged into any form of social media, I expected to see about four videos of girls crying because they tried to get the gap in-between their teeth. Crazy, right? Some of my friends even attempted this. Like, they actually wanted to put something in between their teeth and use something like a hammer to crack them apart...like OUCH?!? This is another example of society trying to show us what beauty truly is. That we, not matter our features, will even be good enough. We are supposed to adapt to whatever is the most trendy.
Society also tells women that their shape and their facial features are all that really matter. Let's face it, in the majority of catalogs you see beautiful women all over the pages: different complexions, skin colors, eye colors, heights, hair color/lengths, and body weights (but most do not exceed the 120 pound limit). Women cannot have stretch marks, body rolls, double chins, etc... because who wants that? They are supposed to stick to working out, manicured fingers, eating "healthy" and seeing who can look the best at social events. Is this all society sees in us anymore? Basically eye candy for everyone to gawk over? Oh wait, you actually HAVE to be attractive before that happens.
Females have changed the world. Eleanor Roosevelt (a campaigner for civil rights), Sojourner Truth (an African-American abolitionist and women's rights campaigner), Florence Nightingale (a British nurse who changed the role and the perception of the nursing profession), Marie Curie (the first women to receive the Noble Prize and the first person to receive the Noble Prize in two different categories - Radioactivity [Physics] and Chemistry) and these are just to name a few. What would the world be like if these four females worried about what society thought of them instead of continuing on with what they were destined to do?
Do females need someone to constantly gawk over them? Do they really have to have THAT certain outfit because some celebrity wore something similar on the Red Carpet? Can a woman not feel comfortable in her own skin anymore?
I am guilty of this. Sometimes I will look in the mirror and go "oh well if you could just loose a little of the weight you have here and maybe a smidge over there, you might actually look good in something." We will never look exactly like someone, no matter the amount of surgeries, workouts, etc...we do - we cannot change that much. Sure, we all have things that we believe that we should change about ourselves but is it our thoughts or is it societies?
So, who controls our minds nowadays? It is a two way street. We can take in and believe what society says or we can let it stay in it's lane and our thoughts, our own wonderful, personal thoughts, can stay in our OWN lane. Imagine there is a concrete barrier up, like on an interstate, it would take a large force to cross lanes and interfere with how we feel about ourselves. Somehow we let society sneak into our every day thoughts, it is like we cannot completely seal it out.
When will we realize that it is not up to society to define us or give us standards to reach?