Beauty Standards And Stereotypes

Beauty standards and stereotypes

Introduction

It is not a novelty that we are surrounded by standards or beauty stereotypes with the simple fact of watching a magazine or television we will find thousands of models, which were called as the symbol of beauty. Or with the simple fact of seeing social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube (just to mention some) we can meet thousands of people who are beautiful, or "perfect". And we are programmed with such predetermined beauty ideals that make you think that if you comply with certain characteristics no longer fit with beauty. 

Developing

To better understand beauty standards, it is necessary to know what it is to be beautiful or beauty as such, usually when mentioning the term beauty is usually associated with positive characteristics, beautiful features, symmetry, aesthetic, and even many often confuse it With the term perfection. However, do we really know what beauty is? According to the Royal Spanish Academy, beauty is defined as: “Person or thing notable for its beauty."On the other hand, sophists conceive beauty as what produces pleasure through sight and ear. What entails that it depends on how others see you and their approval, to be considered a beautiful person.

That is to say the beginning of the predetermination of beauty, or we call it standard of beauty: but for a greater understanding, what do we mean with a standard? A beauty standard is referred to the conventional image or preconceived idea or a popular concept established by a group of people, so that categorizes an individual or a group of them based on their appearance and their characteristics.

The paragraphs could be shorter. While it is true that beauty is a very open term, and it is not only defined in a way, there are hundreds of definitions and transformations that have led the concept of beauty, depending on the time or the country in which you live. 

However, we have grown with an idea predisposed since we are children, and since childhood they have sold us the prototype of beauty, as someone with beautiful face, body, and personality, and it is sought that beauty is only classified Based on the appearance, as mentioned above, and that all the established requirements are met to be part of what is called beauty. The above, we can exemplify it with the toys that are had since you are small where women are given a “Barbie” doll and can be seen as stereotype someone thin, small waist, long legs, blonde or brown hair In some of the cases.

Clear eyes or green and blue colors, which causes us to compare our appearance with those of Barbie and make us believe that being like her, or resembling it makes us better, more beautiful. So there are cases where people undergo complicated and dangerous plastic surgeries for aesthetics, to look the greatest possible to Barbie. Or on the other hand when you are a man, they are given a doll which is the strongest, with marked muscles, of pronounced jaw, which causes them to be or have a similar body, or have as ideal the fighters who cause them to They are subjected to strong exercise routines, attend the gym and/or consume energy or anabolic drinks, to accelerate processes. 

Having a stereotype is an imposition for the health and psychological well -being of people, since having a predetermined model makes you highlight the things or parts of your body or face that differ from that of your model, which could cause casualty of self – esteem, depression or undergoing lethal operations. Only for the need to fit with the standard that was predisposed and that takes into account the wide variety of people living in the world. The fact is that in many occasions all this occurs more in puberty or adolescence that makes young people even more vulnerable to falling into what society imposes them as beautiful, and eradicating in wanting to be perfect in all aspects. 

However, the need to meet the stereotypes that makes many people, do not feel good about themselves and reach so much to have the ideal body, such as extremist diets, or eating disorders that cause deterioration to deterioration to Health, both physical and mental, and even death, for wanting to fit with what society thinks. And it is that we all seek to be recognized, it is a basic need for humanity to be accepted by others and also want to be the best in the eyes of others to be able to feel good with ourselves, however, we can highlight that many of the times that this implies ceasing to be ourselves. 

Another example is when people include their daughters in Miss Universe contests where girls being so small only see appearances in order to win a contest in it only people look at your appearance. And it is not everything. That is, having a good presentation is good, as long as that is what you want and makes you feel comfortable, but not only the appearance is the matter for a person, but everything that forms the person. I could have sub -theme division. As Aristotle raised, beauty is subjective, that is, it depended on the person and the perception that it had and is able to change over time and is also based on feelings. 

However, beauty standards make us think of how imperfect we are, and we do not take into account how good we possess but only what makes us different from the stereotypes raised. Wanting to continue with stereotypes such as 90-60-90 makes many women become extremists who end marked. At present there are many beauty standards and in Asia that a woman considered beautiful must be of medium or small stature and her skin must be as white as possible. 

Or Africa that a woman with absence of hair is more beautiful. Now they try to make us believe that beauty is equal to happiness, selling us the idea that if you are pretty you already have everything. However, at the same time that you are looking to have beauty based on stereotypes, happiness becomes difficult to achieve, since you have the pressure and concern that, if you have the characteristics, and each time the degree of obsession to fulfill them with elders.  Leading you to anxiety, stress and depression if the objectives are not usually achieved. It should be added that at present beauty is also ceasing to be what we can simply perceive with the sense of sight.

For many times we have such established beauty prototypes (helped by society), that we do not need to see the other to know if it is beautiful or not. To explain the above, it can be exemplified as when someone is known by a network and they begin to describe, sometimes the descriptions are not the real ones, but to impress some characteristics are changed to please others. Also a very marked beauty stereotype is the use of makeup in women, as a requirement for them to look good. We have the idea that we chose that it is beautiful, because we are accustomed to our surroundings to the ads.

And unconsciously we have the marked stereotype that makes people see as it had already been pre -established. Surgery, treatments of thousands of pesos are performed, buying hair tits, to "feel better with themselves" but you really seek to be approved by others; that could end people’s lives or cause deformities health damage; Buy clothes that are fashionable to highlight beauty, just wanting to be “better” and meet the stereotypes. Take thousands of selfies or photographs, retouch or edit them to get the one that makes you see well and attract attention from others and that you see the beauty you have.

Although you really don’t consider yourself that way. You think more about what others will say, instead of accepting as you are and doing it because that’s what you like. Finally we should redefine what we name beauty as something invisible that is not appreciable for sight but by the heart, or plant more than one beauty, not simply physical as they usually believe, but be beautiful for your emotions and feelings, by Your achievements or for your intelligence or values, it is of the utmost importance to love oneself, since we are all beautiful in our way, once he hears the phrase "you are beautiful only that you were born in the wrong time".

conclusion

It really is a way of seeing those that we are all beautiful, not only by the fact of fitting we will be better than others, but that identifying as you are so much with the pros and cons and one thus considering you beautiful is what matters. Because the most important of all is not to be recognized by others but to be recognized by yourself. Loving as you are is the most difficult thing that exists, but the most durable. Love for who you are, you and who will be. Outside beauty is nothing more than the charm of an instant. The appearance of the body is not always the reflection of the soul.