By Renee O’Connor, Opinion Editor
Growing up, I was always seen as the “fat kid.”
Standing here, in front of you now, I understand that people no longer see me that way. I am the beauty standard.
I am able-bodied, skinny, white, and conventionally attractive. In the first draft of my article, I knew that I was spewing the same body positivity message that I claimed I was tired of hearing.
I took a step back, and looked at other people’s perspectives–people that aren’t the beauty standard.
I am here to relay their message and help you finally see the giant scale in the room.
How every single piece of media, the male gaze, and eurocentrisism has contributed to everyone here feeling insecure with their body and how we can fix it.
I first started thinking about my body when I was around 5 years old, which is an experience I know most women can relate to.
With the constant talk of diet culture in the 2010s and the “thin is in” ideal, it was hard for me to feel good about being overweight.
It started innocently. I started working out in middle school, then I downloaded fitness apps, watched 5-minute-ab routines, and counted calories on my hands.
I didn’t recover from anorexia until my freshman year of college.
With the support of my family, therapists, and medication, I was able to finally eat “normally” again.
However, while I’m no longer having weekly visits to the hospital, those unhealthy thoughts are still in the back of my mind.
A dinner out with friends used to induce an anxiety attack, now I can enjoy the dinner while just quickly glancing at the calories.
As I’ve gotten older, I now know that every single person has a different body type and genetics play a huge factor.
You have little control over what your body looks like.
However, magazines, television shows, movies and advertisements make it seem as though if you buy supplements, take certain medications or even get plastic surgery that will change your biological makeup.
Care Space states they have found that genetics impact the shape of our body and also how we feel about our bodies.
Though genetics play a factor, body image issues are not always predetermined. They can start at any point in life.
Societal expectations, media portrayals of idealized bodies, peer influence and personal experiences all shape how we perceive ourselves.
Social media, in particular, has intensified unrealistic beauty standards, making it easy to fall into comparison traps.
The biggest contributor to this is something called the “male gaze”.
Men, don’t start checking out if you haven’t already–this affects you, too.
When I first learned about the male gaze, I couldn’t stop noticing it. I also couldn’t stop noticing how I was subconsciously contributing to it.
Coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and The Narrative Cinema, the male gaze in media is an illustration of the desires and ideals of men.
Even when women are alone, they still feel the need to perform for men.
I feel as though we can blame this on men being the sole writers and directors of television, since its birth.
Women are written in a very certain way. Oversexualized, given a nude scene when not necessary and always looking dainty and beautiful.
I also had to remember that men were written for television, by men.
According to Number Analytics, the male gaze also has implications for the representation of masculinity.
By portraying men as powerful and dominant, the Male Gaze can create unrealistic expectations around masculinity.
This can lead to toxic masculinity, where men feel pressure to conform to traditional masculine norms, such as aggression and emotional suppression.
It also affects how you view yourself. Men are rarely shown with “normal-looking” bodies.
They are always given rock-hard abs, especially if they are meant to be playing the “hot guy”.
Let’s touch on something nobody wants to talk about: race.
Race and Eurocentric beauty standards play a huge role in our beauty and body image standards here in the United States.
In Khadija Mbowe’s video essay titled ‘Beauty is in The Eye of The…Colonizer?’ she speaks on how the beauty standards in America have affected the Black community.
Similar to the male gaze, people of color have been conditioned to view white people as the beauty standard.
Up to a few years ago, Black women were never featured in large ad campaigns.
And now with the rollback of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, or DEI, we are starting to revert back to seeing primarily white women in advertisements and modeling campaigns.
In Mbowe’s essay, she states that everyone has a sort of “white is right” mentality when it comes to beauty.
Thin noses, straight hair, large eyes and light skin are considered the standard for western beauty. These are features that are typically ascribed to white people.
As someone who is extremely pale, I have first-hand experience of this mentality.
When I was 7 years old, a Vietnamese woman stopped me to tell me how beautiful my skin color is and to never tan it.
I remember asking my mom why she said this to me.
People had always made fun of me for being pale and the standard in America is to be tanned.
This is when I learned that oppressed cultures have been engrained with a “white is right” mantra by white people.
I could talk for hours about how Black people, specifically women, are constantly put dowby American media.
We now know about all of the subconscious ways we contribute to the unrealistic beauty standards we have today. What can we do to fix it?
According to NBC, you have already taken the first step: becoming aware.
To overcome societal conditioning, you need to become aware of it.
The hardest part is changing the way you think about yourself. Once you become aware of the ways that you view yourself has been engrained in you subconsciously, you can break free.
Reaching a place of body neutrality is the one of the hardest things to do.
Realizing that your worth isn’t tethered to the way you look can be so freeing, but it isn’t easy.
I started by choosing to wear clothes that feel good, rather than force myself to wear clothes other people may like.
I find the beauty in little things about myself, and I’m grateful that I get to wake up everyday and experience life.
We are subjected to western beauty standards everyday. Coming to terms with your own internalized standards of beauty, and choosing to overlook them, can widely improve how you feel about yourself.
Accepting and, eventually, learning to love every part of yourself isn’t easy. Especially if you aren’t considered the beauty standard.
Reaching a place of body neutrality is only possible if you look around and see how unrealistic our standards are, and how much they are catered to people outside yourself.
When I first tried to love my body, I thought it would be a speech, a pep talk, a sudden revelation. It wasn’t.
It was a dozen tiny apologies I stopped saying to myself. It was learning to notice function before form.
If I can trade one apology for one honest ‘thank you,’ you can too.