Has the Beauty Myth Gone to Far?

For hundreds if not thousands of year’s men have been dictating the standards of beauty to women. No matter what time in history beautiful women have been admired, sculpted, painted and sought after. Being beautiful was something that every woman wanted to be for being beautiful gave women power over men. Look at Helen of Troy who started the Trojan War she was considered the most beautiful woman of her time, and her face was said to have launched a thousand ships.

Being beautiful gave a woman an edge in the world of men.

Today, just like sex, beauty has become a commodity. Naomi Wolf in her book The Beauty Myth, shares how women for decades has been sold a bill of goods by the marketing moguls of Madison Ave., and that women have believed them. The standards of beauty continue to be dictated by men for the most part. The fashion industry, Hollywood, MTV, are brainwashing not only women but girls as well and we continue to believe that we are not the right kind of beautiful or not beautiful enough.

In each era, you will find the standards of what defines beauty in a woman changes. In one era, it might be ivory skin, tiny waist, rosy cheeks, and in another being voluptuous and full figured or as in our own day, being blonde, skinny and busty resembling our favorite icon Barbie. I find it interesting that women have had very little say as to what they feel defines being a beautiful woman is and we allow ourselves to be told over and over again how we should look, act, dress, smell and be.

Don’t you think it is the time that we women take our power back from men, women and anyone who has told us what it means to be a beautiful woman? Don’t you think it is time to for women to define what being beautiful means to for ourselves?

Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you must train yourself and your daughter to see beauty in your/herself and to begin to question what the media or the collective consensus is telling you and her.

We have the opportunity to move forward at this time and to change the status quo. For never has there been a more urgent need to do so. It makes me heartsick to see another generation of girls grow up thinking that being beautiful is the only value that they have and that being beautiful has to look a certain way.

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media and dating apps are putting unprecedented pressures on America's teen girls, author Nancy Jo Sales says. Her new book, American Girls, opens with a story about one 13-year-old who received an Instagram request for "noodz" [nude photos] from a boy she did not know very well.

What is the Social Media culture and what does it consist of?

1. Girls are on it 24/7 it is all they want to do.

2. 2015 reported 88% of all American teens were on social media sites ages 13-17.

3. 73% had smart phones and 92% were going on from a mobile device (Pew Research)

4. 24% were online almost constantly.

“More than a million Instagram photos have now been hash tagged #selfie and, according to a recent study, “91 per cent” of teen social media users have posted a photo of themselves online. This obsession with “selfies” does have deeper issues as I mention below, but I believe that our culture’s objectification of girls and women lie at the root of it.” - American Girl, Nancy Sales

I dare you to take the time to discover where you too may have been or still are in some way supporting a system that is detrimental to the health and well being of women and girls everywhere.

I invite you to take the lead in being a woman who dares to define for herself what being a powerful, strong and beautiful woman is. To become a living example for the new generations