Dear Future President,

     Every day there are women who are unconsciously lowering their self-esteems because of high beauty standards. Beauty standards are the socially constructed notions of a woman’s most important assets, something that many women strive to achieve and maintain. It can vary from culture to culture, such having pale skin or having an hourglass figure. Now that the beauty ideal is getting higher and harder to obtain, more women are getting  plastic surgery, botox, and other procedures to “improve” their appearance. I believe that women beauty standards should be lowered.

      A beauty standard can change how someone sees themselves or how others see them. It can affect anyone, but it seems to affect women the most. Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers told NEWSWEEK that qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time landing a job, while more than half advised spending as much time and money on ‘making sure they look attractive’ as on perfecting a resume (NEWSWEEK ). The high beauty standards we have are making it harder for those who don’t fit that beauty ideal to get a job. “Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and the author of The Beauty Bias, is herself an interesting case study. During her term of chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Working Women, she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question (NEWSWEEK).” These women were facing a double bind, expected to conform to beauty standards of the day, yet being condemned for doing so. “There must be in our very nature… a very radical and widespread tendency to observe beauty, and to value it. No account of the principals of the mind can be at all adequate that passes over so conspicuous a faculty (George Santayana).” What George Santayana is saying is that we value beauty. We enjoy watching beautiful women compete in pageants like “Miss Universe” because it is in our nature to like beautiful people. So, it may not matter if the women with the acne is the most qualified for the position. The woman with clearer skin and straighter teeth may get the position because she is more visually appealing.

     I think that a solution to this issue is to find way to spread more love and positivity to others. “ It’s time to break girl- on- girl hate. "When we band together, we can leave behind the negativity and achieve amazing things( metowe.com).” What this website is saying if we didn’t bringing other women down about appearances, what they do, or how they act we could achieve amazing things. “ Lily Singh, one of your favorite YouTubers, decided to use her platform to encourage more love, positivity, and support women and girls to help end “girl-on-girl hate.”(Huffpost Living).” Lily Singh is trying to use her fame as a way to spread positivity to others and trying to stop the cycle of hate. “ I think it’s so important for women to support one another and not necessarily always be hostile and compete against each other,” …(people.com).” I think this person is trying to say trying to spread around the love instead of spreading around hate.

 Women's beauty standards are drastically way too high. I believe that these women beauty standards should be lowered. It is important because women self-esteems are dropping lower because of what they thinking about themselves and what others are saying about them to their face or behind their backs. What I want you to do is find ways to spread more positivity and love around like create a Girl Love day where women and girls can help build each other up rather than tear them down. 

Sincerely,

Danielle