From: Isabella
In this picture is my younger sister getting ready to leave for her homecoming dance. In this picture I have her standing in the center where the sunlight would hit her. I do this to represent her as themain character, how important she is. On the other hand, I also back up to make her look smaller. I do this to capture everything but to also represent how she’s a small part of women beauty standards. As she was getting ready, she had all these emotions and thoughts to make sure she looked pretty but didn’t get judged by others. I then had her pose in the way she felt capture of essence. She told me that she chose this pose because she felt the most beautiful thing about her was her smile. She thought everything was pretty but the one thing she didn’t change, or tweak was her smile in symbolism of being true to herself. Throughout this picture, I believe it’s important to capture the beauty of my sister but to also keep in mind the process she went through. She wanted to look and feel pretty but not to where she came off a certain way whether it was someone trying too hard or someone trying to sexualize her. These are the thoughts from my 18-year-old sister going to her high school dance. It’s not to say woman have it harder or any worse compared to men but instead a way to remind others that there are certain struggles that a man would not understand. As a woman myself who must watch her younger sister think about these things gives me a different perspective. Yes, I as a woman have also gone through these struggles but to see my younger sister afraid of such things is hurtful. The last thing I want my sister to worry about while getting ready for her school dance is whether or not she’ll be judged for not meeting societies idea of a woman beauty standards or none or less being judged in a sexual manner.
2 comments:
From: Carly
I really like this take on the beauty standards that women tend to follow. If our society were to look at social media, they would usually expect to see a picture like this one, a pretty girl in nice clothing with a smile on her face. Our society has made it an expectation to uphold certain looks, poses, camera quality, angles, and other aspects in a picture to ensure that the pictures we post are seen as “post worthy.” Another thing I noticed about the picture is the fact that your sister is framed farther back to appear “smaller.” I see this a lot on Instagram posts because one beauty standard that I believe to be one of the most toxic out there that women try to follow is trying to look as small as possible. This is something that I have struggled with all my life, and something that I see other young women struggle with as well. I also really like how she kept a smile on her face because it was something she wanted to do. In my eyes, that symbolizes the power and independence that women have.
Something that us women always must deal with is what men have to say about the way we look and the way we dress. I honestly find it disgusting and hurtful hearing what some men say about the appearances of women, and how we sometimes feel scared of how they might react to us. I am sorry your younger sister had to be careful with what she wore to Homecoming so that it would prevent her from getting sexualized, and I hope that one day us women will not have to be scared to walk out of the house wearing the clothes that we want to wear.
I really like this concept of beauty standards. Especially in the past couple years, I know that even girls that I’m close with and myself will find ways to angle cameras or do makeup so make ourselves seem smaller or “more beautiful”. My brother would never to think of something like that if he were taking the same picture I was. I really like how you also pointed out that there are beauty standards for both men and women, but there’s more for women to think about. I personally agree with this, because we’re already at such a disadvantage compared to men, that we don’t have the privilege of skipping out on conforming to beauty standards as easily as men can.
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