This article is from our first magazine about Ana, a 14 year old Indian-American intersectional feminist. To read the magazine this article comes from, click here.
When you turn your phone on and start scrolling through different social media apps and sites, a very regular pattern that comes up is pictures and videos of women filling what society has told us are beauty standards. “People don’t naturally fit these fake standers” says 13 year old Ana “nobody has a fifteen inch waist and a thirty inch hip”. . A big problem with this is that younger and younger girls are going on social media and seeing this. A study shows that there are 23.5 million kids under the age of 12 on snapchat, 14.5 million kids under the age of 12 on instagram, and 3.1 million kids under the age of 12 on facebook. By looking at these beauty standards on you social media, it could make you feel like you are too ugly, you aren’t cute enough or you need to get plastic surgery
“I’m not against plastic surgery, my problem is that it makes you (stereotypically) attractive and boys start to think ‘we are only attracted to girls with this dimension’, but the dimension is not real, that's plastic.” This standard is always focused to many in this world tend to feel depressed and/or insecure because they think that they are too fat, their body parts are too small, too pointy or too big or they have too much acne. Not only do women have to look perfect, but don’t even get me started on clothing, a woman has can’t wear a skirt or dress that’s to short without people saying she’s “a whore”, “a tease”, “a slut” or “asking for it” (referring to rape.) Women can’t wear skirts that are too long though because that makes them “old fashioned” or a “prude.” Women also have to be sexy so that people will “even care” but not too sexy because that means that they are “asking for it. All that guys have to do is smile in a camera but women have to be so ‘perfect.’ It's scary for me because you are putting these unrealistic standards of a perfect hourglass figure, and it’s completely unrealistic," says Ana. You have to look perfect and be perfect so that men like you. “In order to get a man you need to know how to look. In order to keep a man, you need to know how to cook.” is a very popular saying that harms people's self love and self confidence. All of these standards make you really insecure about yourself. When society puts these standards into your head you think, I have to be a certain way, I have to wear a short skirt but not too short, I have to look like this, act like this and be like this, but not too over the top. I have to wear makeup because otherwise I’m ugly, but if I wear too much makeup I just look “fake.” "I personally believe no one is naturally insecure, when I was a baby I thought I was cute, but now I look in the mirror and I don't know if I can think she is cute anymore,” says Ana. “If you had asked me to say one thin I like about my body and my face, I would struggle, and I hate that,” Ana added. Society has put such unrealistic standards on women, their bodies, clothes, actions, etc. that women (especially young women) struggle to love who they are and what they look like, and that’s really terrible.
*Article edited for website
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