Student Highlight: Ava Priestley
What is beauty? Well for lack of better words, beauty is plastic. Beauty is the lip flip and nose job you see on influencers. Beauty is the rib removal young girls want. As of recently, beauty is entirely determined by social media and the procedures it promotes. Throughout history, women have been under enormous amounts of pressure to get the validation of men through external beauty, but social media has amplified this desire to be a certain type of “pretty” that obligates young women to go under the knife to achieve it.
Being a woman has always been associated with external beauty; the objectification of women has been an ongoing issue for ages. However, a complicated part of this issue is the constant shift in beauty standards. A recent article written by Vanessa van Edwards breaks down the beauty standards for women over time. In the 1400s-1700s, a round apple body type, full hips, and fair skin were desirable for women and showed status. But in 1920, a flat chest, boyish figure, and square body type were what women wanted. And in the 2000s being tall, extremely thin, with translucent skin and an androgynous, adolescent physique was seen as most attractive. This vicissitude is such an issue because these beauty standards aren't always naturally achievable. And when these standards are constantly shared on social media, it influences young girls to resort to plastic surgery or extreme dieting to get the look of the day.
One example of influence in beauty standards are women like the Kardashians. Influencers like this promote an impossible image of the body for teenagers. According to one plastic surgeon who claims the Kardashians have boosted his business, “facial plumping and lip plump surgeries, which brought the Kardashians a different and more feminine look” have become extremely popular in the past 40 years (Flymedi). They have filled their hips with liposculpting, injected their lips with synthetic hyaluronic acid, removed the fat in their stomachs with liposuction and injected it into their butts, not to mention countless breast enhancements, eye lifts, and nose jobs. With the influence they have, this has become the beauty standard for all women, which no human can have naturally, making young girls fantasize about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery when they come of age. In a recent study, Dr. April M. Jones conducted a 21-item questionnaire that contained the following statement: "I would like my body to look like the women who appear in TV shows and movies.” Responses were made according to a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). Over 70% of women completely agreed with this statement. This alone shows the influence the media and pop culture have on young women. Before social media, women didn't have influencers to compare themselves to for hours. This influence goes beyond just being insecure and comparisons, it obligates girls to give up their natural bodies for validation.
Plastic surgery has been performed since 800 B.C. but started as a way of fixing harshly scarred injuries. But in the past years, it has evolved to aesthetics and the only way to achieve beauty in the 2020s. Women are expected to have DD breasts while maintaining a 22-inch waist, be curvy but not fat, have a large butt but keep a thigh gap, with big unnatural lips, big eyes, and tanned skin. That standard in and of itself is an issue, but of equal concern is the age that girls are getting procedures done to fit into that beauty category. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgery, “more than 200,000 people 19 years and younger had either major or minor plastic surgical procedures in 2013 alone” (Gupta). The fact that literal minors are going under invasive surgery just to be “pretty” is beyond heartbreaking. No young girl should ever feel the need to go under the knife to get validation.
Time and time again, women have been expected to look a certain way. Now, in 2023, beauty seems more unachievable than ever. Plastic surgery is the only way to obtain it. If society continues to promote beauty that is made exclusively from plastic, women of all ages will never feel pretty enough, or good enough, without going under the knife. The influence of social media has made this an especially dangerous time for young girls.