The concept of beauty, both physically and within is relative. Whether or not someone deems something or someone as beautiful or agreeable depends on what they personally find attractive and this is strongly influenced by the standards set in their community. In the past, some countries considered women with longer necks or legs beautiful; others were fixated on how fleshy a woman was-as it was a symbol of good health. Nowsince the world is a global village, I think it’s safe to say that there are now more generalized beauty standards. However, people still have their preferences.
Society silently dictates that lighter women with a thick body structure, flat stomach, slim waist, long, silky light hair are beautiful. Darker, fatter, short haired women however are less preferred and are assumed to be disagreeable. What about being darker and having type 4c curly short hair makes women unattractive and ratchet? I would never know. What I do know is that that ratchet is far from standard. Could it be the Barbie dolls that convince everyone that perfection is mandatory to bring home a Ken? The mindset instilled in a woman that getting a Ken is a preeminent venture? Or that we have convinced ourselves that perfection is a person-Barbie.
Make no mistake, society has a way of putting men in a tight spot too. Even physically. When we tell ourselves that we can’t take a man that doesn’t have a six pack, chiseled jaw line or a certain type of phone, car or credit score what does that make us? As much as there are double standards and that men don’t express their grievances as much as women do, we can’t urge them to acknowledge our insecurities and then turn our backs and invalidate theirs.
Looks aside, there are certain behavioral traits that are preferred on people. A woman that would be classified as ‘wifey’ can’t be promiscuous but at the same time shouldn’t tease and when she blatantly states her point then she is regarded as disagreeable. Men can’t afford to have low income and complacent characters, unless they become a bum.
Honestly, society expects us to be its definition of perfect in all areas and on top of that, we are told to be ourselves and still can’t behave certain ways that could be part of who we are. So which version of ‘ourselves’ should we be?
The trend dictates everything. Lighter skinned girls and darker skinned boys are favored today and tomorrow it’s vice versa. What?!?!? Our global society has become so vain it’s unimaginable. That a set of people derive happiness from having certain features should not be a reason for others to hate theirs if theirs aren’t similar.
So instead of making Barbie a standard-an impossible one at that- let’s try normalizing stretch marks, bowed legs on women, chubby bellies, all heights no matter the gender and all body types. Let’s normalize being assertive or shy and take time to truly assess people before placing a label. The next generations of beautiful people don’t deserve to feel less because they are different, because there is no danger in diversity apart from what we brew up. So let’s switch up the standard.
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