When a woman is young, she is gifted with a very high IQ, great sporting ability, a desire for adventure and discovery. But what are the things that people talk about most consistently?
“Wow, you’re so beautiful!”
“I think your hair should be loose sometimes. You will look much prettier!”
“Aren’t you lovely? You have to wear a dress to make you stand out more.”
“You have to put on make up. You will drive all the boys crazy!”
“If you want the job, you dress up nice. They don’t employ ugly girls.”
Even some parents, who want their daughters to be achievers, are guilty of praising looks that may be slightly above average rather than outstanding intelligence. As a result, this girl finds herself fighting these stereotypes on a daily basis. This girl is struggling to forget that she has to spend more time doing her hair and makeup than studying for exams, and this ingrained mindset is costing her grades and opportunities because these “women’s rituals” are what they are. a habit that they took up time without her realizing what was happening.
Girls not only have to fight this mindset to focus on what’s truly important to them, they also have to face the consequences — girls are still judged first on their looks, not their intelligence. They pay the price for what matters to them. It’s no surprise that women have difficulty advancing in many fields and careers; Not only are they taught to engage in meaningless rituals that take up time they could use for other things, but they also have to fight against a culture that looks at their bodies before it listens to what they have to say.
And, as far as evolutionary explanations go, they do a great job of understanding some things about us. However, what we have to take into account is the adaptability that evolution helps us with; this is the reason we survive well in many environments. While evolutionary explanations may explain some of what is going on, they do not explain the particular conception of beauty emphasized by our culture. Why the make-up and the skinny body? Why are larger numbers disliked by some cultures? Why aren’t the muscles visible? Even so, we might still say that the emphasis for women is on “beauty”, whatever its conception. However, without a specific culture to suppress it, what is there to strive for when it comes to “beauty”?
If we think about the things we find attractive or unattractive and compare them to the things that actually indicate genetic health (which evolutionary explanations suggest we should strive for), these things sometimes, but not always, overlap. Is thinness (underweight) a sign of genetic health? Do multiple pimples indicate unhealthy? Do colored eyelids and sparse eyebrows indicate genetic health? If the evolutionary explanation is correct, it seems that our conception of beauty would correspond to genetic indicators of health, but this is not always the case. In fact, in many cases, it indicates neither genetic health nor youth.
What shapes people’s perceptions of beauty? And who sets these standards for women’s beauty? What do men first notice when they look at a woman? Face — bust — hips — legs. Society judges women from top to bottom, unlike men who are judged from bottom to top. But let’s stop talking about the face. Facial features are felt individually. There is no pattern to women’s beauty. Attractive and unattractive depends on each individual’s personal taste in beauty.
