The feminine beauty ideal is a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives and from a young age to increase their perceived physical attractiveness. It is experienced by many women in the world, though the traits change over time and vary in country and culture.
The prevailing beauty standard for women is heteronormative, but the extent to which it has influenced lesbian and bisexual women is debated. The feminine beauty ideal traits include but are not limited to: female body shape, facial feature, skin tones, clothing style, hairstyle and body weight.
Handling the pressure to conform to particular definition of "beautiful" can have psychological effects on an individual, such as depression, eating disorders, body dysmorphia and low self-esteem that can start from an adolescent age and continue into adulthood.
Cultural ideals Body modification
The idea of what is considered the ideal of beauty for women varies across different cultural ideals and practices. In Myanmar, Kayan Lahwi girls from the age of about five years have metal rings put around their necks. Additional rings are added to the girl's neck every two years. This practice gradually deforms the clavicles and placement of the ribs through the weight of the rings to create the illusion of a longer neck. These women eventually carry up to 24 rings around their necks. The older generation seems comfortable and proud of their beauty by wearing rings as tourism booms in eastern Myanmar, but younger women and parents of young girls face a choice between observing an ancient cultural tradition or being able to fit in better if they pursue education or employment outside of their community.
In China, the practice of foot binding involved a girl's feet being bound at age six to create the "ideal" image of feet. The girl's feet were bound to become 1/3 of the original size, which crippled the woman, but also gave her a very high social status and was much admired. After the revolution of 1911, the practice of foot binding was ended.
Skin and hair color Skin color contrast and cosmetics Skin color contrast has been identified as a feminine beauty standard observed across multiple cultures. Women tend to have darker eyes and lips than men, especially relative to the rest of their facial features, and this attribute has been associated with female attractiveness and femininity, yet it also decreases male attractiveness, according to one study. Women may use cosmetics such as lipstick and eye shadow to increase their facial color contrast or to increase the apparent distance between their eyes and eyebrows. A 2009 study found that East Asian people had more facial skin contrast than white people, owing to their consistently darker eyes.
Hair color
A 2008 study sought to find whether blond hair or dark hair was the feminine beauty ideal in the Western world. The authors found that dark hair, rather than blond hair, was the feminine ideal. Women with dark hair were over-represented in Western fashion and pop-culture media, which may explain the finding that men in England generally rated dark-haired women as more attractive than women with blond hair. A 2018 study conducted in Florida produced similar results.Wortham, J., Miller, A., & Delvescovo, D. (2018). "Male and female hair color preferences: influences of familiarity, geographic region of origin, and environment on mate attraction in University of Tampa students". Florida Scientist, 81, 33–54. In East Asia, women with black hair are presented as the beauty ideal, while blonde women are denied the ideal status. Blonde Swedish women have reported low self-esteem while living in Singapore, as local beauty standards have reduced their sense of femininity. Japanese advertisements have occasionally depicted blonde women as envious of black-haired women.
Skin color standards The practice of skin whitening is common amongst women in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, while sun tanning, indoor tanning and self tanning is common among white women in the Western world. In the 21st century, the popularity of tanning has substantially increased among young women in the United States, Australia and China, despite professional advice to avoid tanning due to the risk of skin cancer and photoaging. In the 2020s, there has been a 175% increase in self-tanning among Gen Z African Americans.
The colonization of non-white countries by European migrants sometimes led to the establishment of inter-racial beauty ideals, such as in Dutch Indonesia, where white Dutch male colonists defined beauty standards that ranked Southeast Asian women as more attractive than white women, based on their darker skin and black hair. Some studies using Caucasian male subjects from Western countries have identified a preference for women with darker skin, which indicates that there is no innate preference for lighter skin within the Western world. "Caucasian males from the University of Vienna rated darker skin as more attractive, demonstrating that a preference for lighter skin is by no means innate." Thus, there is a preference for tan-skinned women that is largely specific to Western culture. "Smith, Cornelissen and Tovee found that, contrary to previous cross-cultural studies on the topic, the observers showed a marked preference for the darker-complexioned, tanned volunteers. Citing other research, the authors propose that a preference for tanning "seems to be largely specific to Caucasians in Western Cultures." Some studies from Western countries have found that, among young women, those with a more tanned skin color have higher self-perceived attractiveness. "A few studies have found that tanned skin is regarded as both more attractive and healthier than pale or very dark skin, and there is a direct correlation between the degree of tanning and perceived attractiveness, especially among young women."
Regional standards Southeast Asian women In the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, the feminine beauty ideal created by white male colonists was for women to have a brown skin color with black hair. In the 1920s, an American consul wrote a letter to the United States Secretary of State in which he observed that white European Dutch men in colonial Indonesia preferred to marry local women of color over white Dutch women, primarily because the brown skin and black hair of Indonesian women was perceived to be more beautiful than the pale and fair-haired complexions of white Dutch women. "Du Bois seemed unaware of the prurience implicit in his report to the State Department in Washington D.C. Women whose complexion possessed a soft sienna incandescence and whose hair was shiny black comprised a particularly handsome "specimen" of womanhood, he insinuated, which male-defined aesthetic norms ranked higher than pallid, anemic "samples" of European femininity." The frequency at which young Dutch men married Indo women was considered an embarrassment for the conservative element of Dutch society. The legacy of this interracial beauty ideal continues to be reflected in local literature, as it was written in a popular novel that "a golden colored skin is the greatest gift Allah can bestow upon a woman".
Swedish women have reported low self-esteem while living in Singapore, as local beauty standards have reduced their sense of femininity.
East Asian women China
In ancient China, pale skin was seen as a prerequisite for beauty for both men and women, and it was also a marker of one's place in the social class system. However, according to recent research, tan-colored skin has emerged as the new feminine beauty ideal, with many Chinese women now viewing their tanned skin as healthier and more attractive. According to Tai Wei Lim, Chinese women in media now sport bronze complexions, and this is viewed as a reclamation of women's autonomy from the declining Chinese patriarchy.
Historically, Tang dynasty women with a plump figure were considered the standardized view of beauty, contrasting with the expectations of the tall, slim figures of today.
Starting from Song elites and eventually popularized and ended in the Qing dynasty, foot binding was seen as an idolized representation of women's petite beauty, and the practice was referred to as , 'three-inch golden lotus'.
In Chinese literature and poetry, Chinese beauties were almost always of noble or middle-class status, and depictions often portrayed them as court ladies or servants of court ladies, wearing immaculate clothing. This implies that beauty in ancient China was not only a matter of physical appearance but also of social status and wealth.
Japan Though sharing some aspects of Confucian culture with China, beauty standards between China and Japan have differed historically. Dating back to the Heian period (794–1185), Japanese court ladies would colour their teeth black (a practice known as ) upon reaching adulthood. This custom was practiced by the nobility; samurai clans could be seen at a large number of temples, but were not generally seen among commoners. The practice of teeth blackening lasted until the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Hairdressing and apparel were of supreme importance in the Heian period; eyebrows were plucked and replaced with darker, wider ones that were painted higher on the forehead, a practice known as . Hair had to be at least long enough to touch the ground when seated. The use of pale makeup known as was common, which emphasized the colour combinations of Heian-period clothing – for women and for men – which were chosen for their seasonality and symbolism.
Japanese scholar and art critic Okakura Kakuzō stated in his compilations of lectures in 1905 that the considerable bases of beauty for modern Japan is:
Research suggests that Japanese beauty ideals may be affected more by individuality than Korean or Chinese culture. "In this study, diverse socio-cultural criteria for the evaluation of women's beauty increased the desire for the individuality HBV because that value encourages individual uniqueness. We infer that Japanese culture, as the pioneer to accept the modernized culture through the Meiji Restoration period, may concentrate more on individual unique beauty and show typical characteristics of post-modern society than the two other Asian cultures ." Japanese people are more likely to incorporate anti-aesthetics, incompleteness, uncertainty, pluralism, and deconstruction of what is considered to be 'beautiful', which is against the normal Japanese beauty standard, which was based on aesthetics. This is allowing Japanese women to embrace their 'flaws' that society used to turn against them and to instead use their features and embrace the uniqueness of one's moles, birthmarks, eye shape, teeth shape and various facial elements. Japanese advertisements have occasionally depicted white women as envious of black-haired women. In the late 20th century, the emergence of the ganguro and gyaru sub-cultures was considered an act of rebellion against the Japanese feminine beauty ideal. These trends were characterized by spray tans, dyed blonde or orange hair color, and brightly colored contact lenses. Women who adopted these fashion trends faced extreme social pressures from family members and punishment from school authorities, leading some to drop out of school and enter the labor force at a young age. "What is key here is that the latter three characteristics could not be removed when morning came and it was time to go to school, a fact that caused many conflicts at home and in school, as well as much media sensation and academic concern..." "Many Ganguro girls dropped out of school and entered the labor market, often as shopgirls.21"
South Korea