Gen Z, Beauty and The Era of Inadequacy

Exploring the debilitating consequences of a Europatriarchal definition of beauty on an entire generation…

Beauty is an elusive concept. It is one that multi-million dollar conglomerates and social media influencers alike have attempted to define, to very little prevail. Despite this though, entire industries revolve and depend on a certain depiction of beauty. And to a dark-skinned black woman in a hijab, it is a definition that is seared into my mind:  it is one that favors fair skin over melanin, controlled curves and slimness over natural shape, where you are only beautiful if you adhere to the standards set to you in a Europatriarchal world. And though toxic depictions of beauty have existed for more time than is measurable (I refer here to things such as the corsetted women of the 18th century or the feature westernizing procedures forced on Korean women in the 1950s by American military doctors), we live now in a world where these expectations are repeatedly and constantly pushed onto us, inescapable.

If I look back at my own life, I felt the most at odds with my self-esteem and appearance in Year 10, at 14 years old. Though it is normal for self-perception to fluctuate as a teenager, there was a persistent, visceral displeasure with the way I looked that I lived with until I reached college. And it was a debilitating type of displeasure, one that prevented me from speaking my mind and knowing my worth because I had been brainwashed into believing that since I didn’t look like everyone else — and a woman’s worth was all about the way she looked then — that I was of no value to anyone. 

Though I wasn’t formally diagnosed, I know now that I went through a mild depression in those years; once an avid lover of education, I dreaded human interaction and going to school, I avoided the mirror and minimised showering so that I didn’t have to deal with looking at my body or appearance for too long. My fiery personality and extroverted character were replaced with a quiet reservedness that consumed me and I lost the will to push myself and do anything. It was also a depression that stemmed primarily from comparing myself to the altered and airbrushed images that were unavoidable on the social media apps that had at that point entrenched themselves into my life.

“...I do hope to draw attention to the immeasurable damage that repeated messaging can have on a generation told that they will never be enough.”

The debate surrounding the uses and consequences of social media is a well-established one, and I do not aim to discuss its intricacies now. However, I do hope to draw attention to the immeasurable damage that repeated messaging can have on a generation told that they will never be enough. Gen Z is a group bombarded with advertisements for better clothes, different bodies, and prettier features: the people we follow alter and airbrush their photos, presenting them to us as complete truths when in fact they are products of tremendous effort and time. Beauty is a goal that we are told is only out of reach; if only we cut deeper and cover better our true selves, then will you be truly desirable.

When race is explored alongside beauty standards, the messaging we find online is even more distressing. As women of color, though our features and bodies are desirable enough to be exoticized and copied, the expectation is for us to shun the appearance of the women who raised us and strive to the beauty requirements set under colonial thinking. The consequences are blatant: it is estimated that by 2024, the skin-bleaching industry will be worth $31 billion. Millions of women and girls employ drastic measures to assimilate to an ideal so toxic, it can only be reached with the help of industry-grade chemicals. 

When my mother saw her once vivacious daughter withdrawing into herself, she acted: she banned me from using any social media until I could do so within reason, and I was barred from owning my own phone until she was sure that I understood the consequences of the content I was consuming. I was to re-establish a relationship with what beauty meant to me and reconnect with not only myself but also with the people around me. I believed my mother to be remarkably beautiful, but me — the consequence of her stunning genes and nurturing — I treated and spoke to with such little regard. I learned to never speak to myself in a way that I would never speak to the women I loved: to be kinder.  Over time, as I healed, I defined beauty to be all that is awe-inspiring about a person; something that shifts and morphs from one person to another. It is not static, simply white-centered and physical, but rather nuanced and all-consuming. And it is a simple yet profound realization that I could not have made if I had not had space away from social media.

There is something to be said for this new era of inadequacy that we find ourselves in. It propels people into having a warped sense of self, and unlike the billboards and marketing campaigns, on social media, we are the ones who control the narrative. I am not going to ask you to stop editing your pictures or getting lip fillers, but I do implore all of us to be more considerate of what we depict online. It is easy to spend an hour airbrushing a picture and posting it as an honest representation of you, but it becomes an altogether different conversation when your unrealistic image is the thing that pushes that young 14-year-old girl to spiral.

We are a generation that has inadvertently scarred one another with the way that we utilise the internet.

But we may also be each other saviors.

credits

words — ayan artan

design — sade popoola