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Ms G
Last week, the United Nations launched 16 days of activism against Gender-based Violence (GBV).
Many joined the global chorus to raise alarm. Domestic violence, among the various forms of GBV, is the most condemned. But a more pervasive, insidious attack against women equally deserves our attention: being fed false beauty standards all the time.
These days, no matter where you look, on TV or scrolling on your phone, the pretty ladies almost all look the same, admittedly with some variations across cultures.
In China, there is a term, baiyoushou, that captures the elements considered most important to a women’s physical attractiveness. It means light skin, young, and thin.
Yes, thin, not lean. Muscles are a no-no. If your thighs look like chopsticks, if your arms are too weak to lift a bucket of water, congratulations, you have got the thin part.
You can imagine how many anxious girls would starve themselves to look this way. Some are so worried about growing muscles on their limbs that they refuse to do any physical training.
A commonly asked question on Chinese search engines about running or rope-jumping is whether the training will make strong calves, which is considered a very undesirable outcome.
Then comes the skin part. To protect the skin from darkening, Chinese girls are the biggest haters of sunshine. Having travelled to almost all the continents of the world, I have made an interesting discovery: it seems Chinese women are the only people who would use a “sunshine umbrella”.
Tanning products will never find a big market in China. All the sunscreens sold in the country are screaming, “This will give you light and glowing skin.”
Finally, age. I imagine all women around the world want to stay youthful. Aging is generally not welcome. But I find this age-anxiety particularly strong in China.
Even when I was a teenager, I learned from the media and female friends around me that 25 is an inflection point. It is said, after 25, the aging processing sets in.
A few years later I heard 35 is another key point. It is the time when your face and bottom and literally everything else begins to collapse. Then some said 40 is the time when a woman can be pronounced sexually irrelevant.
There is even a saying about this, “A 40-year-old man blossoms like a flower, while a 40-year-old woman is nothing but tofu dreg (unattractive and useless).” Like babies who have developmental milestones, women are given one deadline after another, each more intimidating than the previous one, as if we would suddenly morph into a monster when we reach a certain age. Even my younger female friends who are still in their late 20’s would complain about “getting old”.
Everyday, the entertainment, media, and beauty industry is bombarding women with these messages. Everyone looks at the perfect images on the screen and ask themselves, “Do I meet this standard?”
This takes a huge toll both psychologically and physically. A lot of them are secretly resenting and deprecating themselves. All sorts of mean terms are invented for the perceived imperfections: butterfly arms, bucket waist, and elephant legs. But self-confidence in appearances is only a small casualty.
More damagingly, women lose faith in themselves as a person at home and in offices. They do not believe they can accomplish something great. They defer to their partners in major decisions, shun competition, challenges and opportunities, and build their own glass ceilings at work. In extreme cases, which is not in small numbers, women suffer from mental disorders, such as anorexia.
The good thing is more are taking this issue seriously. “Hear Her,” A monologue series produced by Chinese actress-turned-director ZHAO Wei recently went viral in China.
In its first episode, Magic Mirror, a girl looks into the camera and tells how she has been hiding behind heavy makeup, false eyelashes, and double eyelid glue because of an extremely low self-esteem.
At the end of the 30-minute show, she washed away all the makeup and says, “I’m not saying light skin and thinness is not beautiful. But do we all have to look that way to be beautiful?”
It is time we realise while GBV committed with fists can be life-threatening, psychological manipulation of women is no less dangerous.
Online Reporter