The Changing Face Of Beauty: Is It Really Changing Our Self Perception?
Pitch Perfect 2 was the top grossing movie the weekend it premiered in theaters…in spite of the kerfuffle its Skintimate ads caused among fans. For those unfamiliar with the backlash, Skintimate decided to pay homage to the awesomeness that is Pitch Perfect (c’mon, you know you love it too) by creating an ad that encouraged women to shave their legs. The company insists that the message is about body positivity but fans of the movie feel more that Skintimate is trying to insist on rapidly aging beauty standards.
Body hair has become an increasingly divisive topic over the last few years as more women have decided to forego shaving and allow their body hair to grow as freely and as unencumbered as a man’s. While nobody is denying their right to do whatever they want (or, as the case may be, to not do whatever they don’t want) to do with their bodies, it is still true that hairlessness and femininity are still considered by many to be intrinsically linked.
It’s just one of those things about life that is really really unfair.
There are a lot of reasons to forego shaving: it’s time consuming, the supplies get more expensive every day, the risk for injury is omnipresent (I don’t care what you say about their size, those little nicks hurt and bleed like crazy!) and it is never ending. The hair just grows right back!
At the same time, many women love the feeling of smooth underarms and legs just as much as others like looking at them. This is why many women are turning to alternative methods of hair removal to keep their underarms and legs. Laser hair removal, for example, has been touted as a permanent solution for women who want to give up shaving but who don’t want to give up smoothness.
What’s at stake here, of course, isn’t really whether or not women have a choice in their volume of body hair. They’ve always been able to decide that for themselves–though nobody is going to deny the enormous amount of pressure that is put on women by society, the media etc. What is really happening here is that the concept of beauty itself is shifting. Where once, the pressure was to be as close to identical as possible–with very strict standards that must be met, lest some women be deemed ugly or unworthy–now the pressure is to be as much an individual as possible.
In many respects, this is a good thing. Embracing health over beauty is definitely a step in the right direction for women. Fighting back against the idea that a woman who is a size eight is “fat” is in everybody’s best interest. Choosing to embrace one’s natural shape and stature is definitely better that the constant subjection to fad dieting and fashion choices that cause physical problems (high heels are nobody’s idea of a good time). This is why companies like Dove have put so much effort into and might even be going overboard trying to promote the idea of a healthy beauty image…while also conveniently selling a truckload of products.
Weight and “Hairy vs. Smooth” aren’t the only places where beauty standards are being challenged and redefined. Attention is also being paid to emphasizing the importance of diversity in beauty. People of color, long underrepresented in beauty campaign and product development, are starting to be included in more and more beauty and fashion campaigns. Diversity is now something that many cosmetics and fashion companies are working hard to achieve both in their marketing campaigns and in their product development.
Changes are slow, but they are happening. Thankfully, we’ve woken up to the fact that Barbie is no longer the epitome of femininity and beauty. There might still be a long way to go, but we’ve started coming up with solutions and changes to make the face of beauty more inclusive and more accepting of women as they are naturally.
