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To be beautiful or not to be at all… Under the pressure of generally accepted stereotypes, it is easy to stop noticing one’s own attractiveness – far from the standards, but unique. There are many paths leading to acceptance of one’s appearance. We invite you to explore some of them.
The word “Beauty” – with a capital letter and in the singular – is found in the headlines of women’s magazines, on street billboards and signs of beauty salons. Just looking “good” today is not enough: every person has to conform to some abstract ideal, or at least persistently strive for it. But in order to even remotely resemble Cindy Crawford or Angelina Jolie, whose appearance is extolled by the media as a standard of perfection, you definitely need to lose 5-10 kilograms and grow 15-20 centimeters. The dictates of beauty do not spare men either: in recent years they are also ordered to resemble demigods. As a result of constant pressure, we feel like participants in a global crusade against ourselves – we have to fight with countless virtues that we desire and cannot possess: large breasts and firm muscles, long legs and toned abs, smooth skin and thick hair.
Refusal to unify
“Unconsciously defending themselves from such influences, many fall into the other extreme – they try to convince themselves that appearance is not so important,” says the psychotherapist. Marina Khazanova. – And they are wrong: in fact, appearance matters. There are many studies in psychology that confirm this fact. Whether we like it or not, a woman’s physical attractiveness largely determines her success with men. The same applies to beautiful men: women like them much more than ugly ones *. Beauty is a pleasure for everyone: more attractive people get more prestigious jobs and earn more**. Adults show a similar bias when judging children. American psychologist Karen Dion proved that children who are considered insufficiently attractive by adults, study worse than their “beautiful” peers, and master social skills worse ***.
Perspectives change with age
Until about 8-10 years old, most girls and boys are good at their appearance. Their self-esteem remains high if their parents love them and treat them with understanding. The situation changes during adolescence: on average, 23% of girls and 7% of boys follow a strict diet and make other efforts to change their appearance and lose weight*. 70% of women and 30% of men consider themselves too fat**. 14% of visitors to our website www.psychologies.ru say that appearance is the main criterion by which others evaluate them.
* The survey was conducted in 2004 by the World Health Organization in 35 countries in Europe and North America; 162 teenagers aged 000, 11 and 13 took part in it. **Psychologies Magazine, June 15.
However, such an unequivocal dominance of rigid and stereotypical ideas about beauty turned out to be unprofitable … for manufacturers of consumer goods: people who do not meet generally accepted standards feel disadvantaged, it is more difficult for them to choose clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and their purchasing potential is not realized. The way out was found by the American cosmetic brand Dove. On March 8, 2004, his unprecedented advertising campaign was launched: the products were advertised by five “ordinary” women with many “flaws” in appearance: a red-haired freckled girl; wrinkled old lady; charming fat woman in a tight dress; a thin forty-year-old woman and a woman with gray hair … However, each of them literally beamed with charm, energy and confidence in her own attractiveness. Looking at them, so happy and so non-standard, one involuntarily thinks: should beauty necessarily fit in size S? Maybe a noble gray hair is not a reason for shame, but a matter of pride? And do we really stop being beautiful after 60?
At the same time, an international survey was conducted on the site www.campaignforrealbeauty.com, which showed that only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful. With this information, Dove announced the launch of the True Beauty Campaign, which aims to start a worldwide discussion about the nature of beauty. The campaign came to Russia on May 15 this year. “Insisting that true beauty does not have a single, once and for all established form, size and age, we in a sense overturn the prevailing prejudices,” says Stephane Ely, strategic development consultant for the company. – This new trend in marketing shows that society has begun the process of abandoning the dictates of impeccable appearance and eternal youth. We are moving from a single standard to diversity.”
Read more:
- “A single point of view creates stereotypes”
“I was taught to be beautiful”
Elena Kamyshnikova became a member of the Take It Off Immediately* program two months ago. This is a TV show in which the heroine, chosen from thousands of applicants, makes an attempt to radically change her style, and the hosts Sasha Vertinskaya and Tasha Strict create a new image for her and help her part with her favorite, but inappropriate things. Caring about appearance never seemed to Elena a worthy thing; she paid full attention to work and achieved a lot: at the age of 24, she holds a senior position in a large company. Elena has a beautiful figure, a sweet face, but relatives said: “She does not know how to be beautiful.” The change struck her: “I can’t see well without glasses, and therefore, when, after all the metamorphoses, I finally saw myself in the mirror, I experienced a real shock. It wasn’t me, but someone I didn’t know. At first, I didn’t even understand if it was good or bad. But when I put on my glasses and took a closer look, I really liked myself! It always seemed to me that my shoulders and hips were too wide, but here I didn’t even pay attention to it. I just looked good, and for this it was not necessary to remake the figure to make it perfect. Of course, now I don’t do such styling and professional makeup every day, but I won’t leave the style I found.”
*Channel STS, Sunday, 14.00.
It’s really me!
Just as the rainbow contains many colors, the palette of attraction includes many types. This circumstance allows each of us to take a fresh look at our strengths and weaknesses and evaluate ourselves in a new way. Formal compliance with physical standards is weakly related to a person’s sense of self and his spiritual comfort.
We are not accustomed to perceive appearance as part of ourselves, as a gift – fate, parents, God: the temptation is too great, hastily correcting the least successful, in our opinion, features, to use our appearance as a tool in the struggle for success, attention, love … But this gift can be accepted and filled with new meaning. “Today I have such a fresh complexion, this suit suits me so well, I feel so light and free … But something doesn’t please me with the color of my hair” … Agree, this sounds much better than: “To look thinner, I should always draw in the stomach. To look younger, you have to buy a short skirt.” “Accept yourself instead of fighting; to reveal our merits, instead of trying to get lost in the background – as a result of such an attitude towards ourselves, we will be able to discern our own uniqueness and finally believe in it, – says psychotherapist Marina Khazanova. “Accepting your appearance and discovering your own beauty is a long process, and it has nothing to do with the rapid transformation of Cinderella into a princess, which is so spectacular in the movies.”
Various types of psychotherapy help us to understand how we see ourselves. How and why have we developed this idea of ourselves? With whom do we compare and identify ourselves? “In the process of working with an adult, we decipher the impressions of his childhood that influenced the formation of his personality,” explains the psychoanalyst. Andrey Rossokhin. – Which of us has not noted that his mouth is exactly like his father’s, and his mother’s legs? Who did not remember the sacramental parental phrases: “You look vulgar in red” or “You need to wear a beard with your chin”? Who did not try to find confirmation of the family legend in themselves, once again hearing from relatives: “No one in our family shone with beauty”? We explore similar phenomena that once influenced our perception of our own appearance and continue to shape our lives. Having done this deep work, we come to an amazing discovery: to be beautiful is to live in harmony with our values, our history and life goals.
The charm of fame
Today, small, thin and big-headed Sarah Jessica Parker, who became famous for her role as journalist Carrie in the TV series Sex and the City, is considered one of the most attractive women in New York. Beauty depends not only on taste, charm or symmetry in the face, but also on the degree of fame. The “promoted effect” has a decisive influence on the perception of a person as handsome or beautiful. “The more often we see a face, the more beautiful we consider it,” explains social psychologist Margarita Zhamkochyan. “Moreover, even ourselves like us more the way we are used to seeing ourselves.” This psychological feature of perception is called “the effect of a simple hit in the field of view.”
Catch the harmony
“Sometimes you have to catch yourself on a strange feeling when meeting a stranger,” says psychoanalyst Tatyana Alavidze, “it seems to be handsome in all respects, but for some reason it does not arouse either interest or sympathy. Why? The answer is simple: there is no life in him – his eyes are extinct, he is all tense, pinched. With all his appearance, he seems to say: “I know that you will refuse me, that you don’t wait for me, don’t want, don’t love me …” And this acts like hypnosis: they really refuse him, turn away, look past. But a simple volitional effort is not enough to accept the appearance given by nature. It takes time to go through several stages: refusal to acknowledge the problem, rejection of reality, discussion of the situation, and only after that – acceptance of oneself. The women featured in the Dove commercials testify to this: they have taken the big step of loving their uniqueness and thereby releasing their unique beauty. “We often notice this amazing inner light and calmness in other people,” continues Marina Khazanova. – Believe me, they, in turn, see us as such, which means that we ourselves, if we wish, can, looking at ourselves in the mirror or in the eyes of a loved one, see ourselves differently – more beautiful, interesting, significant. Human beauty is a harmonious combination of movement, personality, voice and a thousand other subtle features. The look, facial expression, posture and even the manner of speaking affect our impression of others. Such beauty does not suppress anyone and does not impose anything, it is not subject to stereotypes, and diversity is its integral and most important feature.
* David Myers “Social Psychology”. Peter, 2004. ** Patricia Roszell, David Kennedy, Edward Grabb. Journal of Psychology, 1989, Vol. 123. *** Karen Dion, Ellen Berscheid, Elaine Walster. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, Vol. 24.4.
About it
- “Beauty and the Brain”. Edited by Ingo Renchler et al., World, 1995.
- Richard Gerrig, Philip Zimbardo. “Psychology and Life”, Peter, 2004.