Twisted Beauty Essay

Twisted Beauty

if this is beauty, then I never want to be beautiful.

Nicole Vargas

Teenage girls all over the world are allowing beauty standards get the best of them. These standards have been portraying unrealistic images since the seventeenth century, to today’s society. Females have these standards to keep them sexually subjugated to men, and to come as close as they can with what is considered beautiful. Due to this, females feel the need to change their appearance, starting from a young age.

Many people blame the media and influential celebrities for the impact on these beauty standards. When girls are looking up to these influential celebrities, they begin to contemplate whether they should change their image. This can lead up to harming one's physical and mental health to conform with society. When interviewing my peers in school, the majority listed the same typical beauty standards; skinny, big boobs and or butt, blonde hair, long legs and clear skin.  When in reality, the percentage of girls with all of these qualities is very low. Theses standards not only create an unrealistic image for women, but for men as well.

Young girls see these influential people and begin to change their image to mask their own beauty, and mimic another person's beauty. In the informational passage, Beauty At Any Cost, it states, “Women are spending huge amounts of money on cosmetic surgical procedures, and the numbers are increasing. Nearly 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2007.” Women are becoming more self conscious and are spending a great amount of money on themselves to feel accepted within society’s standards. Females from a young age begin to have insecurities that grow stronger overtime, which may lead to them feeling depressed and as if they don’t fit into today’s society. Eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, also begin to affect young women and how they perceive their own looks. 75% of women somewhat have an eating disorder and it personally makes me heartbroken that women feel like they aren't good enough so they begin to damage themselves.

When I asked my fellow peers to list ages that insecurities may start, the range of ages they listed were twelve through adulthood. Although, studies by Common Sense Media show that insecurities begin as young as five years old. No five year old child should have to feel as if their looks are not good enough to fit in with society. I continued to ask students from Paramus High School questions regarding beauty standards. I approached five students and asked them “would you prefer a blonde with a tiny waist, cheekbones, blue eyes, and big boobs or a curvy girl with generic brown hair and eyes and happens to be flat chested”. Three anonymous students preferred the blonde and the other two students, Matt and Jason didn’t care about the girl's appearance but stated that her personality is what is truly matters. Funny how the students who chose the stereotypically pretty girl chose to be anonymous, since we are taught to be be accepting but are far from.  This is a clear representation of today's society that out of five people only two considered the girl's personality over her looks.

At the end of the day, females shouldn’t be put under these beauty standards. People need to start looking at personality instead of basing their judgement on someone based off of their looks. Women need to come together and embrace the flaws that make them unique and beautiful.

Author's Note: I wrote this messy essay for my favorite class, journalism, freshman year. Although I look back and see my writing is not as beautiful as I believed it to be, I chose to keep it original for the sole purpose of seeing my growth. It's not easy walking down the streets or even school hallways as a women to be in today's world, but as girls and educated individuals of all genders we must keep our heads straight to our beliefs, as corny as it sounds. Be different, be bold. 

Thank you to everyone who taught me this, included those who have made it difficult, you only made me and many like me stronger :~)

-Nicole Vargas