Society's beauty standards tells us what is considered classical beauty. It also tells us what is acceptable, and if anyone doesn't fall into that prototype of beauty, that are deemed unacceptable. If you don't live up to those standards, don't freak out. Society is so caring they will market hundreds of products everyday to help you fit into their standards!
What is the beauty standard?
It's being white or light skin, having a slim nose, big bright eyes, a tall and slim body and long blonde hair. If you're having trouble imagining what that looks like, turn on your television and look at the character for the female love interest. Nine times out of 10 she is the embodiment of that. At a young age, girls are constantly shown this standard of beauty and after it is embedded into their minds they begin chasing it, trying their hardest to attain it. But what they don't know is that it is never attainable. It is not reality. So as these young girls run in a hamster wheel chasing after this ideal image, their self esteem is destroyed. Young girls are socialized to believe that their self worth is wrapped up in this standard. They are conditioned to believe that if they don't achieve this beauty standard they are worthless and their very being means nothing. They are taught that their achievements outside their beauty means valueless. All they have is their body and that's all they need.
Young girls are taught that this beauty standard is easy on the eyes. They should always being aesthetically pleasing to men. And for the girls who fall short of these standards, it sends them out on a chase for products to destroy their outer beings, and "fix" them to what is deemed appropriate. This is dangerous territory for girls who don't fit the perfect body standard. It pulls them to unhealthy measures of dangerous diet pills and eating disorders. Young girls are taught to tear apart their bodies in order to fix them to the acceptable standards. They are trained to always look pleasing to the male gaze.
For women of color, they are taught to cover up any features that are not western. For Asians, it's adding a double eye lid with tape. For anyone with skin not deemed light, there are marketed skin bleaching products to turn their skin "fair and lovely." Anyone with prominent facial features that doesn't include a slim nose, high cheek bones, and a sharp jawline are taught to reconstruct their faces with makeup or surgery to give them more of a western look. Young girls of color grow up not seeing women who look like them -- championed. Girls with brown eyes never read how beautiful their brown eyes are. The love interest in books and movie is always a girl with "eyes the color of the ocean."
For women of color, their minds are ingrained that who they are and what they naturally look like is not acceptable. This implication sends them on a mission filled with expensive products with empty promises trying to buy their self worth back.
This unattainable dangerous western beauty standard did not come from women. It was men who deemed us what is "classically beautiful." It was men who gave us the paradox of "looking sexy but innocent, modest." These billboards and flawlessly Photoshopped advertisements are ideas of beauty perpetuated by men who make a fortune on broken self esteems and a broken girl's need of validation. There are millions of girls around the world who loathe themselves, who have broken spirits due to this million dollar scheme of attaining beauty. Young girls are taught to conform before they are taught anything else in this world.
