Let me be the first to admit, I have no idea what society is expecting of me as far as my beauty is concerned. Usually when I hear women complain about the beauty standards that are ridicuously unatainable I think they're speaking of someone like this:
I do not know this woman or how she gets her physique nor do I care to find out, but I do know women who naturally have large perky breasts, I do know women who naturally have the perfect curved and flat tummy, I do know women who have shapely thighs. If this woman is naturally able to obtain her physique, who are we to declare her body is unrealistic? If she was able to look this way through dedicated diet and excercise how on earth is that unreal? If she received surgeries and used corsets for her waistline then sure, but if obtained through excercise her body is certainly a realistic and very achievable goal.
Now to the point of this myTake. I am writing to you to stress the importance of getting over it. I have never been in crippling emotional pain due to some model on a magazine cover. I've never cried myself to sleep at night because Jennifer Lopez was declared the most beautiful woman in the world. To my knowledge none of the women I know have experienced this either, but if you or someone you know has, I insist you read further. I'm going to go over a few points, and hopefully these points will be enough for you to get over it.
Define Society?
I don't know who this 'society' is that keeps on setting trends but they've been a busy bee. The few collected thoughts of others will never represent the whole society. It is impossible to gather the thoughts of every single individual in the country, the state, and not even the city you live in. A generalized idea on what the 'perfect woman' consists of will never be the reality of the situation. There are too many people, too many opinions, too many options for one cookie cutter design to suit everyone's wants and needs.
People have preferences.
People from all walks of life do have their preferences as far as what they consider attractive. Their preference is their preference to have. We do not need to get angry, we do not need to feel ugly, we do not need to get sad. You cannot force a person to find you attractive. Either they do or they don't, and if they don't someone else will.
Guys don't care about trends.
I personally have never met a man who cares about whether or not your eyebrows are on fleek. Most of the guys I've met don't know what a contour is and a lot of men have a genuine dislike of those finger claws you call nails. Too many girls continually ask the question about whether or not guys like makeup and the consistent answer is always no. Most of the men I know prefer a natural beauty but it seems when ever they mention this women will fight them to the death in order to enforce this idea that they like makeup instead. From what I've seen women tell other women they need to wear makeup, women tell other women they must fleek their brows, women tell other women how to dress, how to think, how to act. A man worth his salt does not care about whether or not you've efficiently 'slayed' your liner.
Take responsibility.
The general populous has no control over how you view yourself. Your poor self image is a reflection of your own negative thinking, not society enforcing their ideas on what is or isn't beautiful. We are not your mother, we are not your father, we are people that can make no difference in your life because happiness is a choice that must be made by you. Stop looking at other women that you see are accepted and then decide that the presence of their beauty means the absence of your own. Especially stop looking at someone's false beauty (makeup, fake nails, fleeked brows lol) and declare that is better than natural. Nothing that is artificial will ever be better than the natural.
Distractions, distractions, distractions.
Part of the reason why I'm unaffected by what the media puts out their is because I pay no mind to the media. Most of my entertainment comes from video game gameplay on Youtube, cartoons, and video chatting my boyfriend. I have no interest in 'reality' television, magazines, and twitter beef. I don't care about the latest celeb gossip or keep up with fashion trends. I keep myself entertained by the things I enjoy and in doing so my self esteem remains in tact. If you enjoy the previously mentioned activites then wonderful, but don't let it come to a point where you start to feel bad about yourself. If you start thinking negatively do something else, find something that makes you feel better instead of feeling worse. Choose to be distracted and replace that negativity with something that is confidence boosting.
Choose to be happy.
Like I said, happiness is a choice. Change your negative thinking into postive thinking. Turn your jealousy into gratitude. Show appreciation of someone else's beauty while at the same time being able to acknowledge your own. Society doesn't determine your happiness or confidence levels, you do. Stop walking around like a sad sack and blaming the world for your troubles, woman up and get over it.
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