Societies View On Girls Perfection

Growing up into a society where you’re not accepted for who you truly are, girls shape and recreated themselves to be “perfectly beautiful.” Ever since we have been children we have always wanted to feel accepted and to have someone look as us and see us as beautiful. With other people creating images of what we should look like versus what we do look like, we force ourselves to create a body that isn’t our own. Girls in our society have a very sexualized idea of what beauty should be. Maybe its television or magazines or social media but teenage girls are told every day of their life that they are not “skinny enough” for the typical standards.They cover themselves with makeup hoping to hide their imperfections. Hearing from their mother that they “will always be beautiful” is never enough because their mothers will never understand. These images present the idea that the media in American culture forces girls to hate their body by creating the idea of perfection.

The idea of ideal beauty is emphasised throughout this society. Girls are taught that being skinny, having perfect skin, perfect smile, perfect eyes and perfect hair make you loved. Without any of that they will never truly be accepted by the people around them. Teenage girls are affected by the way magazines place woman together. They photo shop woman to sell product but half the time people only notice how skinny the model is. How that 000 outfit fits perfectly on her, and how beautiful she looks. Girls compare themselves to the false images. They look at the thigh gap and how their collar bones show. As you can see in this image, this girl is apart of the magazine fraud. She is put together with all the pieces of what a girl should truly look like. The contrast of colour and bone structure within the picture emphasises how unrealistic it is to look completely “perfect.” Society has set such high expectations for girls and it is almost near impossible to reach the standards for how their bodies are supposed to be. But teenagers will go through such desperate measures to have that “photo ready body” like the girls in the magazines. 

Any teenage girl is known to love fashion or style. It is advertised throughout this culture on signs and billboards. Girls favourite brands and models are shown everywhere they walk encouraging them to buy product. The way people sell product is by using skinny, big-breasted models with small sized clothes showing exactly how the product should look. Girls view these images of models and memorise every detail. How tight the dress is at the waist and how short it is supposed to be. Looking at this image, is shows what a girl would really look like if she was exactly what the sketch looked like. Looking exactly how the dress is supposed to be. The body language is the exact same in both images but the body colour is different. The first image she looks healthy and perfectly skinny. The dress is nice and grey and tight making her look sexy. In the second image her body is a grey/green looking, almost very unhealthy.  Her dress is a dark grey but doesn’t look like the sketches. It’s mysterious and looks very dark and deathly. Almost a metaphor for how the dress doesn't look good on a “killer body” if killing yourself is the only way to look good in the dress. This image explains why girls shouldn’t try so hard to look like the girls on billboards or on ads. How a sketch of a drawing is fake, and you don’t look like you were created by pencil. What you think will make you look beautiful is really not as beautiful as it looks.  

 

Society has a cruel way of making teenage girls believe that they are never truly going to be good enough . They look at their bodies in the mirror and remind themselves that how they look will never find them someone that loves them. In this society being loved is all someone could ever want. But how can someone love you if you do not love yourself? How can boys want you if your thighs touch? Or if you can pinch your stomach and grab more than a handful of fat?

In the first image of the single body it shows how every word people say is written on her in permanent marker. How it is not easily erased and how the harsh words and thoughts are now visually shown. A girls body is the highest insecurity and when they feel like they cannot go out in public because they are not what people want to see, and they feel they will not reach people's standards, it makes girls feel weak. Exercise is sometimes never enough to help girls lose the amount of weight they want. And gaining more muscle doesn’t help the numbers on the scale go down, it really makes them go up. So they go to dramatic measures to create

something that they love about themselves. But they get carried away. The harsh words and thoughts hit them harder than ever and the idea of being perfect takes over their minds. As you can see in the second image, this girl is purely skin and bone. This is an effect of anorexia or bulimia. Anorexia is an eating disorder. Girls count calories, servings of food, and numbers on scales hoping to lose weight. Girls will reach points where they don’t eat for hours or days, they just survive on water, believing that they will reach the goal of “beautiful.” Bulimia is where they forcefully gag themselves to get rid of the food within their stomachs. They eat to trick their stomach that they are full and allow the body to break down nutrients but not break down fats and acids. Both of these are mental disorders that take over your life. The constant thought of not being good enough goes within your head and reminds you multiple times a day that you’re still not what they want you to be. As you can see in the image the girl is unhealthy. This is very symbolic because she has no fat on her, she is practically a skeleton. But her mental view of herself is the complete opposite. She sees herself as overweight and imperfect. Her mental views of herself make her feel weak and desperate. Society has made her lose herself and now she is barely anything at all. Not only do magazines and images of other woman encourage girls to physically destroy themselves for “perfection,” but so do harsh words and unsafe thoughts. Girls will go out of their way to be something that people will want to love.

 

 The media changes views on woman. Ever since we were little we have  grown up seeing beautiful women on billboards, television shows, around town. And we compare ourselves. Other people see these billboards too and have a mental idea of that's what they look for in a girl. Over time of starving, or working out and just completely shaping your body image, you are going to wish you had never done anything at all. If you suffered from anorexia and bulimia, there are major health consequences that can occur. Creating an unrealistic body doesn’t come easy and eventually once you grow up and find people you don’t need to impress anymore, you’re going to   wish you never destroyed yourself in the first place. Look at this picture on the right.  

This is The Little Mermaid. The storyline of this movie is how she gave up her life at sea to become a human. She knew no one would love her for being a mermaid, she had to have legs. But as you can see in this image, over time, having legs wasn’t what she wanted anymore. The Little Mermaid is sewing her legs back together just so she can have fins again. You can tell by her facial expression that she is not happy. She feels very weak and disappointed in herself that she let herself make such a stupid decision. That is the same with this society. We change ourselves to be someone that people may fall in love with. We create a new body that is so foreign to us but don’t care at the time because fitting in is all that matters to us. We want to feel accepted. But eventually we feel like The Little Mermaid and we live only in regret.

In the end, society enforces girls to become someone they are not. It encourages them to look down on themselves and to have them feel weak and unaccepted. They cover up their bodies and slowly destroy them to try to be the exact model of “beauty” that is shown throughout the world. These images present the idea that the media in American culture forces girls to hate their body by creating the idea of perfection. This is proven by magazines and media and how a photo shopped female is what girls compare themselves too. These woman aren’t real and they are virtually recreated to sell product, but still set the expectations for the rest of the female population. Also, this is proven through fashion. When a girl sees a model, or a drawing of what the outfit looks like they convince themselves that they need to look exactly how the model/drawing looks in order to be able to wear that outfit. And finally, girls go to drastic measures just to become that “perfect skinny” that the teenage society looks for. Creating the idea of “perfect” leads to thoughts of not good enough and eventually girls can get very sick and develop a mental disorder such as bulimia or anorexia where they starve, causing themselves pain just to get the feeling that someone may love them.

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