Dignity Over Aesthetics: The Inherent Violence of Beauty Standards
I remember scrolling through Instagram one night and stumbling upon a “before and after” post. The “before” picture showed a woman with thick eyebrows and a square jaw. The “after” was her post-surgery look—dainty nose, plump lips, and a doll-like appearance that fit this year’s ideal. The caption celebrated her “glow-up,” but all I could think was how much pain and money were spent to achieve it. This image—and the thousands like it—drives home a painful truth: beauty standards, regardless of their form, are inherently violent. They exclude, harm, and marginalize.
These standards harm in two key ways. First, they disproportionately affect marginalized groups—particularly disabled people—by demanding conformity to a narrow, often impossible ideal. Second, beauty ideals constantly shift, thus trapping everyone in a cycle of unattainability. Together, they ensure that the most vulnerable bear the heaviest burden.
Beauty standards have never been static. They’ve transformed across eras, from the soft curves of the Renaissance to today’s obsession with sculpted cheekbones and impossible proportions. While we’ve moved beyond strictly Eurocentric ideals to embrace fuller lips or darker skin, these shifts often remain exclusionary. Celebrities like Nupita Nyong'o and Anok Yai are praised online for their beauty, but their features are alike in their ‘smaller’ noses and thin frames. This does not necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with those features, but it leaves room to question what kind of darker-skinned individuals are being accepted as beautiful. Even as features like natural hair or wide hips gain traction in mainstream culture, they’re filtered through a lens of commodification that excludes disabled people, nonbinary individuals, and others. Recent body trends reflect this, where it has become popular to be “slim thick” which leads public figures such as Megan Thee Stallion’s body type to be not in one day and idolized the next.
Society deems those who don’t fit within one of the ever-changing beauty standards as not normal. Feminist thinkers like Susan Wendell emphasize that the concept of a “normal” body is a social construct designed to exclude. The issue with us deeming bodies as “normal” or not, even subconsciously, is that there is not a universal normal. Normality can vary depending on geographical location, culture, ability status, and much more. To confine ourselves to these bleak categories forces us to see beauty in a surface-level and non-contextual manner. This exclusion extends to non-Eurocentric beauty trends. Viren Swami’s research further illustrates that global beauty ideals, while seemingly inclusive, still cater to a fantasy of perfection that alienates more than it embraces. Her research highlights that most of our beauty standards are rooted in sexism and misogyny which treat women as objects that must check certain boxes. Even in an era of representation, these ideals create false promises, inviting us to believe inclusion is within reach while keeping it perpetually out of grasp. For more vulnerable groups, beauty standards are especially exclusive and out of reach.
The harmful issue with beauty is that it is an accessibility issue. Disabled people are often the first casualties in the war of beauty because of the pressure to conform to beauty standards that are not in their favor. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Alison Kafer argue that ableism—the societal preference for “able-bodied” traits—intersects deeply with beauty standards. These standards not only reject physical disabilities but also promote a “fit” ideal that many disabled bodies cannot achieve. Social media exacerbates this exclusion showcasing a narrow spectrum of bodies even within body positivity movements.
Furthermore, people of color are unique victims of beauty. Racialized beauty standards, whether Eurocentric or not, are no less harmful. Celebrating features like full lips or wide hips only when they appear on white or lighter-skinned bodies, such as Cardi B or Kim Kardashian, continues the erasure of Black women and other women of color. Meanwhile, the psychological toll these ideals take—self-harm, disordered eating, anxiety—disproportionately impacts marginalized groups. Because Black and Brown people are often considered in an “other” standard of beauty, it makes them more vulnerable to the psychological impacts of beauty ideals. The psychological impacts are marginalizing those who don’t conform and enforcing self-loathing. Wendell’s “The Rejected Body” captures this perfectly: bodies that deviate from the norm are not just ignored; they’re actively devalued. Social media deepens this, presenting heavily edited, commodified versions of beauty that exclude most people, especially disabled individuals and people of color. In fact, 56% of women say they are dissatisfied with their overall appearance. Not only this, but another study found that out of their 175 women participants, 90% of respondents had used a filter or photo-editing tools to change their photos before posting them online. This highlights the issue not of social media but of the underlying issue of the pressure of appearing beautiful.
Beauty standards are not just mentally harmful—they’re deliberately unattainable. In many ways, capitalism thrives on shifting ideals, encouraging us to invest in products, surgeries and procedures to meet ever-changing benchmarks. If society can convince each other that beauty looks one way and it can only be obtained through the purchase of makeup or beauty products, then women’s insecurities can become a selling point and target of exploitation. Cosmetic surgery procedures have seen a steady increase, with a 5% rise in procedures reported by American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS) members in 2023, and a 19% increase since 2019. People have continued to receive cosmetic surgery, such as lip filler, that often results in migrating into other parts of their face, causing greater insecurity. This endless cycle of trying to meet a new standard is failing us all. Yesterday, it was the Brazilian Butt Lift. Today, it’s the thigh gap. Even those who fit one standard can quickly fall out of favor with the next trend. This constant evolution ensures that beauty remains a distant, expensive goal, especially for those whose bodies already fall outside societal norms.
The issue is not health—the issue relies on dignity. Dismantling beauty standards is less about replacement and more about the deconstruction of them completely. Thus, rejecting the concept of a standard altogether. True inclusivity requires us to embrace all bodies—not as commodities or tokens but as inherently valuable. This is where movements like body positivity and disability justice offer hope, emphasizing dignity over aesthetics. One important flaw of the body positivity movement is that it emphasizes positivity rather than a genuine value of bodies regardless of how aesthetically pleasing. Some critics of this form of body neutrality claim that it encourages unhealthy habits. However, acceptance of bodies is not about health but about people deserving to exist within their bodies free of shame.
To those reading, I ask: What role do you play in perpetuating these ideals? Are you challenging harmful beauty norms or quietly upholding them? We have the power to reject these violent systems by celebrating our humanity, not our conformity. Let’s create a space where beauty is not a discriminatory social currency.
Because when beauty stops being a weapon, we can start seeing ourselves—and each other—as whole.