Unrealistic Ideas: Women should embrace the things that traditional beauty standards don’t accept and unlearn the insecurities media taught us to have

God, I look so ugly today.

My skin is breaking out so much.

I’m so bloated. I shouldn’t even wear this. 

My friends and I mindlessly throw around these phrases, criticizing our appearance without even realizing. It’s something we barely even notice anymore.

Unfortunately, this behavior is common for women. We tend to nitpick every little detail about our looks, even when there’s no real reason to. Whether it’s something as small as a blemish, a bad hair day or how our clothes fit, we degrade ourselves in a way we never do to others.

We need to break this cylce, but it can feel impossible to stop finding things you dislike about your appearance.

Whether it’s overhearing these comments in class, seeing TikTok comments of girls saying “I wish I looked like this” or even hearing family members complain about how terrible they look, insecurity is all around us. 

When you’re young, you learn from your surroundings. So when we hear our moms and grandmas routinely picking themselves apart, we start to think this is the norm, and follow the pattern ourselves.

Everyone with half a brain deals with insecurity. But from such a young age, society says women’s heads that we need to look a certain way for us to be acceptable to society. Almost every “conventionally attractive” person we see in media has flawless, glass skin, a skinny and toned body, and perfectly styled hair and makeup at all times. 

This certain look on our supposed role models like influencers and celebrities, creates a false illusion of what the word “beautiful” means. 

Growing up with Barbie dolls, we were conditioned to see all women as perfect, skinny, tan, blonde dolls whose outfits and makeup were faultless. Instead, women often feel more like that Barbie at the bottom of the bin covered in Sharpie and sporting an uneven bob.

This way of thinking translates into our teenage years, especially with the rise of the “clean girl aesthetic.” Slicked-back hair, a dewy face of makeup, and a “comfy but elegant” outfit become the new expectation of looking pretty.

In 2024, social media influencers have gotten better at portraying the raw versions of themselves by showing the glamorous parts of their life along with their struggles. But my feed is still flooded with ones that show only the romanticized parts of their life.

Seeing rigorous diets, hourglass figures and overconsumption of overpriced skincare and makeup makes us feel like we need everything these picture-perfect people have. That if we do everything they do and have everything they have, we’ll be as “beautiful” as them.

As much as I love putting on expensive makeup and wearing something other than sweats to school, we shouldn’t need these things to feel beautiful. Not to mention, makeup is supposed to enhance our beauty — not define it. 

Nowadays, being direct copies and having the same features as everyone else has become the beauty standard. Instead of embracing uniqueness and different types of beauty, a lot of us often live with the thought in the back of our heads that we aren’t good enough.

We dwell into these certain insecurities and hyper fixate on how they can look better and fix themselves, when we should all try to practice being nicer to ourselves about the certain imperfections we have.

In reality, the only people who notice our flaws are ourselves, and every time I rant to my friends about how insecure I’m feeling, they always respond with how amazing I look. Women need to unlearn this unhealthy pattern of thinking to finally feel comfortable in their own skin.