Extending boundaries of beauty standards.

Its Christmas shopping time and flipping through the garments in the store overwhelms me with an intense feeling of self loathing as if I was on a roller coaster heading to a dead end. This is mostly since the amount of expectations placed on a woman to look beautiful is massive and I am not even close to being lean. I literally want to kick the door open of the boundaries the society created and make a significant change by extending the possibilities of beauty standards. People are fickle minded, perhaps, this could be made possible, like shooting fish in a barrel. I suppose.

We aspire to look good and sometimes a dash of makeup work wonders to pop up our confidence. However, why the double standards? Men have equal rights as women to use beauty enhancing products. For decades actors of both genders use make up on camera to look good on screen. The fact that a man’s sexuality is questioned because he does a little grooming though, is ridiculous and it’s feeding the ideation of homophobes that we would not want our younger generation to imbibe. Being at the peak of civilization, the society should not over analyze petty issues and tackle bigger matters such as boycotting animal tested make up kits.

Metaphorically, I wish to toss a coin at a pyramid shaped lego arrangement which symbolizes the black and white thinking of the society and perhaps recreate a new perspective to beauty standards as in this case body image. Instead of promoting underweight models like those in runways and sexualizing obesity with plus size models, it would be remarkable if models were recruited based on BMI because being healthy is basically synchronized to being beautiful. Marilyn Monroe is the ultimate example of beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Plus, drastic weight issues can cause multiple health problems so hitting the gym and popping in some nutrition can never go wrong. Did you know that you can’t ideally be a certain size because your dress size is different for different brands? Personally in this superficial world, I’m a strong believer that beauty comes from within so let’s stop the discriminating and love regardless of physical appearances.

Now, I solemnly admit, millennia’s push limits until they reach the edge. The pressure to look attractive is tremendous that they may have reached the extent of overdoing things but you know what they say, money can buy you anything. Most celebrities specifically resort to plastic surgeons to enhance their body parts even if it’s in the minor scale such as liposuction, lip plumping or a nose job. This the total contrasts to the notion of cherishing natural beauty and it’s becoming a stereotype. Another present obsession is amongst Asians to have lighter skin that they go for laser treatments or use bleach. The irony though, Westerners on the other hand fancy looking tan. I presume the grass is always greener on the other side. To top it all, the most hazardous way people use to look better is by taking diet supplements because it messes your biological system and can be fatal. Why can’t we just embrace the glory of natural beauty and be at ease in our own skin?

Lastly, individuality is another form of exquisite beauty. The agony of watching kids being refrained of their creativity by making them wear school uniforms is completely absurd. Children should have the liberty to express themselves; you know, have weird pink hair, chunky sneakers with lights and wheels on it or follow silly trends. Even adults as the matter of fact, on job interviews, employers encourage them to look a certain way without body modifications such as tattoos and piercings but on their quest to look for a plain jane, they might have missed out on people with actual capabilities. Let’s teach the younger generation that it’s not a shame to be different! We can reach milestones if we stop caging our society with multiple limitations. The first step would be to expand horizons when it comes to beauty standards and that’s the change I would like to make. For now, I shall rest my case!