Selfies, waist traners, teeth whitening, lip injections… those are some of the things that women of today can’t live without. The way we look has become something that we are very obsessed with. If we look at the way women used to look back in the day, we can see it was very different from now. Mo
st of today’s women look far from natural.
If we look at TV adverts we see beautiful, tall and skinny women with amazing hair and make up, if we scroll down through social media, we see girls who look like dolls, with perfectly arched eyebrows, contoured face, pout and the latest fashion. I personally find a huge difference between the men and women I see on the media and the ones I see in my everyday life. I think the media has put a lot of pressure on women as to how they should look and that has affected their self esteem and confidence.
We have come to a point, especially young women where we want to get the most followers and likes on social media, so we take hours to get ready for the perfect selfie, we then take another hour to get the right angle, lighting and even more to edit our pictures with the right filters.
The truth behind it is that media shows us what they are paid to show us. Behind media is multi million pounds beauty industry that wants women to believe that makeup, teeth whitening and and a waist trainer will help them to feel more confident and will magically make them look like their favourite celebrities or like models. The beauty industry wants us to spend money, they don’t care about how the image of “perfection” can make us feel, they take women’s low self esteem as an advantage to make profit. Just because your favourite bloggers says that a product is great, doesn’t mean it really is, or that she has even tried it. It means she was paid to advertise it and she will make more money when you buy it. Because your favourite celebrity has lost 20 kilos in 2 months, is not because of those fabulous drugs on TV that she advertises, is probably because she just had a liposuction done. Some of us don’t realise how we are becoming a victim of the beauty industry and how obsessed we are becoming with our bodies. We need to learn to love ourselves as we are, because if you don’t love yourself, no matter how much make up we wear we will still not be in peace with ourselves. Confidence isn’t about feeling powerful when you walk down the street with the latest fashion, silky hair and a nose job… Confidence is knowing your worth, your personal values and knowing you are amazing even when you don’t wear all that fake stuff…
Network Society and the Media 
For years, we are submerged in “the perfect image” manipulated by the media through movies, magazine cover, TV….with tons of make up and plastic surgery. And beauty brands sell their products based on these stereotypes, like you said. However, I think one brand has done their job brilliantly by building low self-esteem and encourage true beauty. Dove has conducted a Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which is extremely viral and mainly focus. Even though the motive behind the campaign is selling products (obviously), it is no doubt that Dove has boost a new breath of hope and tried their best to spread their message “To create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety.”
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I agree with you about Dove. They have done great job with their campaign encouraging natural beauty. But in my opinion, that is just another PR techniques to build a business that isn’t like the rest. They aren’t a charity, they still want to make money. They don’t cate about your self esteem either. They want to target all those women who are upset with other brands about the beauty standards. Dove just played their cards well and had a great PR strategy to stand out from the rest. I don’t believe it that they truly care.
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I believe that people who think waist trainers really work, even after that the company who made some of them is being sued for promoting itself for something that turned out to be false and misleading, I see this as more of a natural selection that something to blame the media for.
I don’t spend time taking selfies because I don’t feel pressured by the society to do that, it’s a choice that everyone can make. Just like for what it comes to buying a product that a blogger is advertising, it is usually clear when the brand is paying the person, especially when there is the hashtag #AD inside their posts. If someone is sure that they will become as in shape as that famous woman by drinking a certain brand of tea I would let them think that, they are apparently not ready to put much effort into that and that is ok.
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Well maybe you are not a victim of media and you are aware of it, however there are so many people out there that fall for it and that is why these industries are making the money that they are making and are still inventing new products and making more profit.
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I think there is a slight generalisation going on here that all women need to have these certain products which isn’t the case at all for some women, but i can see your point that especially in the western world that a lot of women have tried to form themselves into the “norm” of society. This is also the case in many countries in Africa for example. Women over there feel pressured, most times by their family, to lighten their skin or change the texture of their hair to fit the norm that they have. A lot of people want the vision of beauty which at the moment is European. A lot of the times in India, the darker skinned women are judged for more than the fairer skinned women claiming that if they are dark or dark that no one will want to marry them etc. So i see your point with some women almost being brainwashed by todays media, but i wanted to bring up the point that this happens all the time in non Westernised countries.
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Yeah definitely I agree with you. The standards of beauty are different in each country but those standards put pressure on a lot of women and men. I agree with your example of Indian girls and the need to have fair skin tone, it is only now that the campaign ‘unfair is lovely’ started that women start to realise they shouldn’t be slaves of beauty standards and love themselves for who they are. And again, there are so many examples of bad influence from media unfortunately.
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Sometimes its hard to notice if you are being fooled into buying a product. It’s hard to believe that the person you follow isn’t being genuine because you think they’re sharing such a private part of there life with you they must be telling the truth. For example when Essena O’Neil revealed that she was a fake I was a little taken back because I followed her and she seemed like she cared for her followers well-being. I feel bad for the generation growing up with this type of social media. They’re not going to know that what they’re seeing isn’t real.
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Yeah you are right. It is hard to see what is genuine from what isn’t in the world that we live in. Social media is place where you can find anything and anyone without knowing the truth about them. However, I guess reviews and comments help to see if other people has been having bad experiences and it is always good to check them, but once again none is endured.
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This is a great post, but you missed out the part that men do this too! I think things have slightly been relaxed as oversized or not so “perfect” human beings are being featured on such magazines and shows. But it is definitely the mentality to look good if you are in the limelight, which doe effect what the general public think they should look like.
I guess, as long as you are healthy, and maintain a good diet then you should feel good about what you look like, whatever it may be.
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