genderandsocialinteraction

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Introduction

Research Question

How has the media portrayed beauty standards throughout the 21st century, and what are the consequences of these portrayals?

Why This Matters

It's no secret that society is hypercritical of women and their appearance. Throughout several modules and concepts in this class we’ve discussed how women are taught to believe that their  value is largely determined by how desirable they are (to men) and socialized to perform beauty. Because of this, physical attractiveness has become a social obligation for women. Media representations, peer influence, and cultural norms all play a role in shaping this dynamic, often pressuring women to constantly monitor and modify their bodies to meet shifting beauty standards. This not only reinforces gender inequality but also contributes to issues related to self-esteem, mental health, and agency.

Personal Connection

Women are the most important people in my life. My mom, my sisters, my best friends, even my extended family is majority women. I’ve seen first hand how unrealistic beauty standards can affect women’s self-esteem and mental health. The catalyst for this project was the conversations I’ve had with my best friend over the course of this semester. As I’ve gained more knowledge about these issues, I’ve shared with her and it’s lead to a lot of candid conversations about her lived experiences.  

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Literature Review

Peer Reviewed Sources

Throughout the 21st century, media has played a huge role in shaping how beauty is understood and internalized, especially among women and young girls. In her article “Digitized Dysmorphia,” Isabelle Coy-Dibley talks about how technology has taken this to a new level. Apps like Perfect365 allow people to alter their images to fit very specific ideas of beauty, usually around Eurocentric beauty standards (white, slim, and able-bodied). She introduces the term “digitized dysmorphia” to describe how people start to view their own bodies as flawed and feel the need to “fix” themselves digitally. While it can feel empowering to control how we present ourselves, Coy-Dibley points out that we’re often just reinforcing the same narrow standards that are already pushed by society. Additionally, this issue doesn’t just impact how people see themselves, it has real, feasible consequences. According to a study by Yetsengaa et al., body dissatisfaction cost the U.S. over $84 billion in 2019 alone, with additional losses of $221 billion in overall well-being. These costs are tied to mental health issues like depression, eating disorders, and anxiety, which are all linked to harmful beauty ideals. Women and people of color are among the most affected groups. The study also shows that weight and skin-shade discrimination cause billions more in lost productivity and healthcare costs, further proving that beauty standards are more than just a personal issue.

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Literature Review

Credible News Sources

News articles show social media has made things even more complicated. For example, the Medical News Today article “What is the connection between beauty standards and mental health?” written by Mandy French and reviewed by Bethany Juby (PsyD), explains that constant exposure to filtered, idealized images online can cause anxiety, depression, and low self-worth. The article mentions the term “Snapchat dysmorphia,” which is when people want to get cosmetic procedures to look like their filtered selfies. This shows how blurry the line between reality and online appearance has become, especially for younger generations growing up in the age of social media.

The BBC article “The complicated truth about social media and body image” by Kelly Oakes, adds that platforms like Instagram and TikTok create a cycle of comparison, where users constantly measure themselves against influencers or edited posts. This can make people feel like their real bodies aren’t good enough. It also points out that the more time people spend online, the more likely they are to internalize these unrealistic beauty standards. The article also brings up that given the new digitalized era that we are living in, we need more studies and research done on the longer term effects of social media on body image. 

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Artifact #1

Magazine Culture

Magazine culture in the early 2000s played a crucial role in shaping narrow beauty ideals that defined femininity and worth. These magazines promoted thinness, whiteness, and being desirable as the ultimate goals for young women, and simultaneously led to the start of the worst era of body shaming and cruelty towards women in the spotlight. These magazines created a double bind, which is defined by our textbook as “ a situation in which cultural expectations are contradictory, making success unattainable” (Wade and Ferree 181). As shown in the article “21 Body-Shaming Magazine Covers That Prove Women Just Can't Win” female celebrities were shamed for not having the perfect body, whether it was because they were “too fat” or “too skinny” (Brown). Being hypercritical of women was not just normalized but turned it into a form of entertainment with catchy and shocking headlines used to sensationalize women who were just trying to go about their everyday lives. Although scrutiny is not something that women are unfamiliar with, these magazines were ruthless and socialized the thousands of women that read them to internalize these attitudes. The front covers of these magazines were horrible and the contents inside weren't much better. They encouraged women to view their bodies as problems to be fixed and profited off the insecurities they created by marketing beauty products and diets as solutions.

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Artifact #2

Tyra Banks and America's Next Top Model

America’s Next Top Model is yet another example of turning the act of criticizing women into entertainment. On the show, women were subjected to extreme makeovers, weight policing, and intense criticism, all designed to shape them into the industry’s ideal model. Ultimately reinforcing the message that beauty comes from discipline, conformity, and constant self-monitoring. The host of the show, Tyra Banks, is a former Victoria Secret model who became infamously known for her cruelty towards contestants. Her attitude modeled that of female rivalry. The article “It’s Time to Break the Cycle of Female Rivalry” defines the term as a woman using “her power to keep another woman down, whether it’s by mistreating her or unfairly competing with her” and it often stems from internalized sexism and misogyny (Kiner). However, it is important to note that subjecting other women to patriarchal standards did not save Banks from being scrutinized or body shamed and at the end of the day Banks herself was a product of the strict beauty standards society places on women.

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Artifact #3

Victoria's Secret Angels

“For the three weeks before, she works out twice a day. A nutritionist gives her protein shakes, vitamins, and supplements to help her body cope with the workout schedule. She drinks a gallon of water a day. For the final nine days before the show, she consumes only protein shakes. Two days before the show, she begins drinking water at a normal rate; for the final  twelve hours, she drinks no water at all” (Wade and Ferree 19).

From the early to mid 2000s, Victoria’s Secret Angels were the most sensational standard of beauty, amassing millions of viewers every year. The Angels symbolized confidence, sexiness, and effortless flawlessness (emphasis on effortless). Although their physique was not effortlessly attained, the fact that they made it seem attainable put pressure on women all over the world to look that way. The positive attention these models garnered set impossible standards for everyday women and inadvertently sent the message that women should self-objectify. Self-objectification is internalizing the idea that physical attractiveness determines worth (Wade and Ferree 263). This influenced widespread body dissatisfaction and perpetuated a culture where women were valued primarily for their appearance. Victoria’s Secret tried to brand the Angels as an example of female empowerment but what they were really doing was showing women’s bodies as visual currency, designed for the male gaze. Over the years people began to criticize and question them for reinforcing white, Western standards of beauty and sex appeal because they excluded most body types and racial identities.

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Artifact #4

The Kardashian-Jenners

Over the past decade, the Kardashian-Jenners have become one of the most influential forces when it comes to modern beauty standards. Although they first became popular through their reality tv show, their influence now reaches a much wider audience due to their use of social media and establishment of several brands (including clothes, cosmetics, supplements, drinks, etc). They have in part been responsible for the popularization of a very specific beauty standard that portrays the ideal woman as having a slim waist, large hips, and full lips. The article “Not Even the Kardashians Can Keep Up With Their Unrealistic Beauty Standards,” critiques the fact that the sisters suggest “their looks have been achieved through hard work and genetics alone, rather than cosmetic surgery” (Lang) They use their brands to capitalize off their followers by selling the idea that you can achieve their results by using their products. Additionally, Kylie Jenner’s comments about regretting plastic surgery reveal how the pressure to embody perfection can be unsustainable even for the women who create those standards.

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Artifact #5

Pro-ED Spaces on Social Media

Spaces promoting, encouraging, and celebrating eating disorders exist on all major social media platforms. These kinds of spaces first became popular in the 2010s on Tumblr, but have since expanded to other major social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter). Pro-ED spaces create an environment where women validate each other’s harmful behaviors through likes, comments, and shared content, reinforcing narrow beauty ideals and competitive self-objectification. In Module 5 of our class, we learned that one major agent of socialization is peer groups (Sportsman). Meaning that these peer communities have greater potential of influencing and harming women because they thrive off long-standing societal ideals of femininity. They emphasize beauty, discipline, and self-control, which reflects the broader societal messaging that women are more valuable when they are smaller, quieter, and more palatable. As these spaces are primarily occupied by women, they symbolize how women are disproportionately affected by beauty standards that promote body surveillance and the pursuit of perfection.

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Artifact #6

Cosmetic Procedures at an Early Age

This post is commenting on the fact that young girls feel pressure to undergo cosmetic procedures at a young age in order to be considered beautiful by society. The normalization of teenagers and young adults undergoing plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures shows how deeply beauty ideals have become internalized in modern society and how capitalism targets vulnerable populations, in this case young women, in order to profit off their insecurities. There is currently a push to frame these procedures as empowering or acts of self love, but it is important to acknowledge that they reflect a deeper gendered pressure to perform beauty. This trend is especially intensified by social media, where filters and photo editing tools create unrealistic beauty standards that are presented as natural or easily attainable. Constant exposure to idealized images encourages young girls to view cosmetic procedures as necessary rather than optional. Additionally, influencers and celebrities who openly discuss or promote their own enhancements contribute to this normalization, making it seem routine or even expected. The more we normalize plastic surgery, the blurrier the line between choice and coercion becomes.

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Artifact #7

Anonymous Interview

Q: Can you give a quick background about yourself and the questions you'll be answering today?

A: My name is ***and I'm 23 years old. I first developed an eating disorder when I was 13 and I've been in recovery for about a year and a half. I had my first cosmetic surgery done when I was 18 and at the peak of my struggle with bulimia.

Q: What role do you think beauty standards have played in your experiences?

A: Growing up, everyone in my house was obsessed with the way they looked. My mom dyed her hair every 8 weeks on the dot and never even walked around our house without make up. My sisters regularly commented on their own appearance and my appearance. We were always really concerned about how we were perceived by others, we wanted to be seen as beautiful. Because this was so normal in our house, there was no one to call me out or help me when I started taking it to far. I was struggling but all anybody saw was that I was skinner and prettier. My obsession with my appearance only got worse when I started comparing myself to girls online. These instagram models had the perfect bodies, toned arms, legs, and stomachs, the smallest waistlines, and the perfect boobs and butts. I idealized them. Every time I looked in the mirror all I saw was that my arms were too chubby and my stomach wasn't flat enough, I hated myself for it.

Q: Which cosmetic procedure have you undergone and how do you feel about them?

A: My first surgery at 18 was a BBL. I had been saving up for it since I was 16 and got the procedure done less than a month after turning 18. Shortly after I went back and got liposuction on my arms and back. I've also had my lips done twice, I got 0.5 mL of filler each time. After my surgeries I was really happy with my results. For the first couple of months I was more confident and didn't worry about my appearance as much. Everything was fine until I slowly started becoming critical of myself again and one day it was like something just broke, I still wasn't perfect. Once the thought entered my mind there was no getting rid of it. My body didn't look as good as when I had first gotten it done, I no longer resembled those girls in the pictures, and I was just as unhappy as I was before surgery. Now that I'm a bit older I regret getting anything done, because it really didn't fix my insecurities. I look at pictures of myself before and I wish that I had loved even just a little bit. Then maybe I wouldn't have put myself through so much.

Q: Do you have any advice for girls or women who may be going through something similar?

A: Delete the apps. All of them. Even though I've been in recovery for a while now, I still don't really trust myself to be on social media. There's too many rabbit holes to fall into, and it really can be easy to fall back into old habits. I think if I were still on Instagram or Twitter a lot of the progress I've made wouldn't have happened. I would also say to surround yourself with good people. People that you can trust want the best for you and are just generally positive. Now that I'm away from it, I can see that my family played a big part in my eating disorder and my decision de get work done.

When I told *** about this project, she offered to share some of her experience with the topic. Her interview is an example of how gendered social interaction can play a central role in shaping young women’s body image and decisions to undergo cosmetic procedures. She was socialized from a young age to prioritize beauty and how others perceived her. Later when she gained access to social media, she was further socialized to believe in an idealized and exaggerated version of beauty. Her concept of self could be described using the term looking-glass self. This term describes the act of individuals basing “their sense of self on how they believe others view them” and “using the judgments they receive from others to measure their own worth, values, and behavior” (Lesley University). When societal beauty standards reach women before they can develop a strong sense of self, either through socialization with family or other social factors, it can be detrimental to their self-esteem. Unattainable beauty becomes the only system of value that they know and that is difficult to unlearn.

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Conclusion

Final Thoughts

I chose to focus on 21st century beauty standards because these are the standards that are currently shaping the world women live in. Women and girls are taught from a young age that their value lies in being desirable, and even though these standards are most heavily placed on women, they are perpetuated by people of all genders. Understanding how these standards are socially constructed, and who benefits from them, will allow us to challenge the ways in which beauty is used to control and define women. Moving forward, it is important to promote more inclusive, diverse, and realistic representations of beauty, but also to decentralize beauty. Women are more than their bodies and appearance.

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References

Brown, Jane Hollier. “21 Body-Shaming Magazine Covers That Prove Women Just Can’t Win.” BuzzFeed Community, BuzzFeed, 27 Mar. 2015, www.buzzfeed.com/whatjanedid/21-of-the-most-offensive-gossip-magazine-covers-15zo9?epik=dj0yJnU9bmNGUk9XM193Nmc5cWo5TG9aM3Jlc01NWTM2b0xxa2kmcD0wJm49Sk83QzhOMHBqUk5JandPVno3TlBIZyZ0PUFBQUFBR2d0Ung0. 

Coy-Dibley, Isabelle. "‘Digitised Dysmorphia’ of the Female Body: The Re/Disfigurement of the Image." Palgrave Communications, vol. 2, 2016, doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.40.

French, Mandy. “Beauty Standards and Mental Health: The Connection and More.” Edited by Bethany Juby, Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 1 May 2024, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/beauty-standards-and-mental-health. 

Kiner, Mikaela. “It’s Time to Break the Cycle of Female Rivalry.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review, 14 Apr. 2020, hbr.org/2020/04/its-time-to-break-the-cycle-of-female-rivalry. 

Lang, Cady. “Not Even the Kardashians Can Keep Up With Their Unrealistic Beauty Standards.” Time, Time, 28 July 2023, time.com/6298911/kardashians-kylie-jenner-boob-job-beauty-standards/. 

Oakes, Kelly. “The Complicated Truth about Social Media and Body Image.” BBC News, BBC, 24 Feb. 2022, www.bbc.com/future/article/20190311-how-social-media-affects-body-image. 

“Perception Is Reality: The Looking-Glass Self.” Perception Is Reality: The Looking-Glass Self | Lesley University, lesley.edu/article/perception-is-reality-the-looking-glass-self. Accessed 21 May 2025. 

Sportsman, Kelsey. SOCI 112: Week 5: Agents and Variations in Gender Rules, uploaded by Sportsman 10 Feb. 2025, https://msjc.instructure.com/courses/44067/pages/agents-and-variations-in-gender-rules?module_item_id=4257000

Wade, Lisa, and Myra Marx Ferree. Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Yetsenga, Rhiannon, et al. “The Economic and Social Costs of Body Dissatisfaction and Appearance-Based Discrimination in the United States.” Eating Disorders, vol. 32, no. 6, Nov. 2024, pp. 572–602. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.msjc.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/10640266.2024.2328461.