Plastic and cosmetic surgery have changed the way beauty standards are trending, and social media pushes these standards in our faces daily. Whether it’s their favorite influencer or a well-known celebrity, young girls and women are being shown the same faces and bodies over and over again.
Lip filler, rhinoplasty (nose jobs), botox, liposuction, facelifts, eyelid surgery, breast augmentations, and brow lifts among many more are becoming the standard for what’s considered “beautiful” in our society. This is especially harmful for young girls who are growing up seeing that surgery is necessary to be beautiful and that their beauty is determined on their physical appearance.
Of course, medically necessary procedures are different. For example, a deviated septum can inhibit someone’s breathing, making rhinoplasty a necessary procedure to undergo.
Having a greater sense of autonomy is also important for young girls and women. It is important to continue validating having a choice over your own body. However, it’s crossing a line into toxicity.
When we consider the definition of feminism, “the belief in full social, economic, and political equality of the sexes”, we have to question the ways in which we empower women.
Socially, women are being told that their happiness can be achieved through physical beauty, but only if they look like their favorite celebrity or influencer and appease what men deem as beautiful. Economically, more well-off women are putting their money towards these procedures and creating a divide between those who can and those who cannot afford surgery.
Should we promote surgery to feel beautiful or promote finding and appreciating the beauty in our natural selves? Should we be telling young girls and women that their hard-earned money should go towards altering their physical appearance? Is a copy-and-paste replica of the same body and face worth more than our uniqueness?
Beauty standards also change constantly. Because plastic and cosmetic surgeries are still developing, it’s possible that these procedures can turn out to negatively impact our physical health. It may be one year, two, three, 10, or 50 years from now when we look back and realize the lip filler, nose job, or botox weren’t worth anything except our health and happiness.
You don’t have to change anything to feel beautiful in your own skin. Self-love can be a difficult process for many women, but feeding into these standards only gives them more power. It gives celebrities, influencers, and men more power to determine what makes a woman beautiful. It creates insecurities, especially in young girls, that can easily be avoided if we accepted that every face and every body is beautiful.
Nothing compares to individuality and your beauty is certainly not confined to physical appearance. When we grow old, will we wish we spent more time worrying about our physical appearance? Even without the addition of plastic surgery, often the answer is we’ll wish we spent less.
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