“Il faut souffrir pour être belle”, a French saying meaning “One must suffer to be beautiful”. A cold reality women have been told for centuries in our quest to be the ideal beautiful girl society has been pressuring women to become. This ever present pressure has led to the creation of strange trends for women in an effort to meet the current beauty standards. I saw a video of a woman trying to attempt an “at home nose job” in order to achieve the perfect button nose. Many people were praising her nose saying she doesn’t need to change, she's already pretty. Others encouraged her, they were distraught that her “nose job” didn’t work. They wanted this creator to get the actual surgery just for her to get a prettier nose. It made me wonder, what is beauty in society’s eyes? If thousands of people were divided on whether this random girl’s facial features are beautiful or not, can anything be beautiful or is it just in the eye of the beholder? I believe there is no true meaning of beauty, it is a mixture of ideas, looks, and personal opinions that form the idea of beauty. Then, on a random day, we all decide that these beauty standards are no longer the pleasing thing we once saw, but now ugly and outdated. Just like the fleeting beauty of women.
Every year and every month has a new definition of beauty. A new trend that takes center stage only for it to be quickly replaced by something new, something different no one has seen before, except we have. Every trend we have seen isn’t anything new. It is just a recycle of older trends that has been renamed to something new. An old standard women have been told is unattractive and outdated is now the new shiny toy everyone is obsessed with. This constant repackaging of aesthetics has left women chasing an unattainable goal of beauty. Once women have reached perfection, they are the embodiment of beauty, but for how long? The instant they are beautiful their looks are stripped away from them. The hard work they put into changing themselves was for nothing, they have been replaced by a more beautiful girl. A “new” trend, aesthetic, style, and body is better than the one they have. They aren’t pretty anymore, they are outdated, similar to the trend they made themself become. Leaving women to repeat the same cycle all over again because their appearance is just a product to be consumed, judged, and thrown away. Forever leaving them unsatisfied with their own looks causing them to chase a goal they can never obtain. Always looking ugly to society’s eyes.
The continuous change of trends and beauty standards has left a skewed definition of beauty. Since society has come together and as a whole to decide what is ugly and what is not based on popularity. People cannot come up with their own meaning of beauty, especially when their perception is different from others. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but we are stuck arguing with each other, unable to decide whether a cartilage bump is unattractive while they ignore the harm beauty standards have left on our world.
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