The pressure on women to be beautiful in today’s society has changed. It hasn’t disappeared, in fact, it’s grown larger and more diverse. It’s changed from being voluptuous and curvy to skinny to curvy again. It seems as if one can never look the way society wants them to look. And it’s as if you also have to be a certain kind of curvy, or a certain kind of skinny, to meet the standards set by tabloids, social media, etc. People spend so much of their time pining to look a certain way, spending hours applying makeup, and getting plastic surgery. What are they even trying to look like anyways? A version of themselves that leaves them unrecognizable, but somehow barely scrapes the bottom of the barrel full of unrealistic expectations? And how will that reflect on all those little girls out there who look up to their favorite celebrities, and see how fake, fake, fake, they look. Those poor little girls’ heads will be filled with misconceptions of natural beauty and will think the only way to be beautiful is to get plastic surgery, which is basically having doctors shape your face or body just so other people will like you. Can’t people just appreciate the diversity of different body types? Different face shapes, skin tones, and hair textures? That is what makes you beautiful.

Yes, being insecure causes feelings of self-doubt and unwillingness to go out in public just because you think you’re ugly. It makes you not want to take selfies with your friends. It makes you hide behind a mask of makeup. It makes you feel lowly and undesired by all of society and all you want to do is crawl into a hole and lie there. Yeah, lots of people have felt that way. I have, but guess what? I got over it. You can’t just lie in self-pity and self-doubt your whole life. There are people out there with bigger problems than insecurities about their appearance. If they had these feelings and spent all their time focusing on them, then how would they be able to get over that drug addiction? Or get that job that they really need? Or pay their rent that month? You see, focusing on yourself and how you look isn’t something you should be doing a whole lot of. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” A quote from Dr. Seuss, a very wise man.
Society today defines beauty especially through music. Turn on the radio, hear a song that makes you blush from head to toe. All about girl’s bodies, which is inappropriate for a song. Those songs are meaningless and full of lyrics that make some, maybe not all, women and teens want a body that is just like the one being described. Not everyone would admit it, but deep down, a little piece of everyone’s insecurity cookie is baking, growing larger in the oven that is the standards set by society. That cookie gets larger when songs like that are heard. To get rid of that insecurity cookie, just like any other cookie, you have to eat it. Eat away at all those standards, until they no longer exist. Turn the oven of today’s society off, and eventually the pressures will decrease and you will be happier. Of course, beauty standards will never go away. They will always be there. But it’s your job to slowly kill them off one by one, starting with ones that most affect you and those you care about. Stop caring about them and worshipping them. Go, warriors of social justice, and destroy the standards of beauty set by today’s society.