How we, females, are portrayed and viewed in society needs to change.
Currently, I am taking an Introduction to Gender Studies in Humanities course at CSUF. My professor, Professor Christian, opened my eyes to a totally different way of viewing society with some of the following issues discussed in class about the female image.
Females are portrayed in media, television, movies, and other mediums to be skinny, tone, slim, and above all, beautiful. But what defines beautiful for a female? In our society, it is to have flawless skin, to have curves, to have very little fat, to have amazing hair/hairstyle. We hold women at such a high standard, to this "ideal female figure." Do most of us females actually look like that in real life? Most of us don't. Then why do we have this as the image as what a female should be and look like? Why are we comparing females to this standard? The problem stems from a deeper and underlying reason: we, females, do this because this is what we think men want.
Females work on their appearances not exactly for themselves. They do it as they see there is this "ideal female figure" they should look like. As a result, females spend tons of money on their appearances. Hairstyles with the full-on transformation may cost a whole lot. This doesn't even include the makeup women spend for their features on their faces and nails. To top it off, most females take a longer time getting ready in the morning as opposed to males.
It surprised me to see this issue happening in front of me when I realized all my life, I knew, yet I never asked why. To hear males talk about how they spend 5 to 15 minutes in the morning was just a funny matter. It's a crazy difference but it never bothered me in the past, until now. We created an image that females are held accountable to at a very high standard, whereas we don't have an image created that males are held accountable to at a similarly high standard. It explains why females take longer in the mornings, spend on makeup, hair stylists, clothes, and nails that do not match the time and money that males take and spend by a long shot.
This image we created is all over the media. What media tells us is what we need to hold ourselves up to. We see Brie Larson, as Captain Marvel, vigorously training for nine months for her role. As a result, women and men see her on the big screens and this is one of the many that females should look like. The truth is the body Larson has developed and created took many months of training and isn't the typical body that most females will and should have. With the training, Larson was also on a Paleo meal diet. This brings me to the question again, why do we allow physical appearance and not the health of a female, to be an example of the "ideal female figure"?
Rather, we should ask an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) what is the "ideal female figure" in regards to height, weight, age, health, among other factors. The "ideal female figure" females should strive for should be healthy. A healthy female figure. A healthy female figure should be what circulates into the media, which makes males realize that should be what they want, that makes females know that this is the image of a female figure they should be comparing themselves to. By doing so, we stop and prevent the vicious cycle of making a fantasy image into realism.
The photo above is a picture of myself. I don't use human images for my posts but for this, I wanted to. As you can see, I have blemishes, I am not perfect. I don't have makeup on, I don't use it. I don't stylize my hair because I don't think it's necessary. Just a typical depiction of how I look on the daily. I want to show that it's okay not to have makeup and do all those things. We can break the cycle and create a new standard for females to follow. Create the real life standard for a female and put it in the media for the world to begin to change. Make healthy the new normal, the new standard. This will allow females to be equal with males slowly and surely. This will change the future generations to come. There will be less bullying. There will be less judgment. There will be more self-acceptance, self-assurance, and confidence.
This change is not going to be easy, as to undo what many females have learned over the years is most likely not going to happen any time soon. What we can do is to try and teach the younger female generations on accepting and creating a healthy female figure that is suited for each one of them alone. This will create a new view of women's image that is needed to reach equality in society between men and women.
