Introduction

What defines beauty? What makes a woman beautiful — or do women have to be beautiful? The standards of beauty adopted by society go through constant and drastic changes. While the theory of evolution may explain part of the underlying rationale of beauty standards through mate choice, beauty standards remain, to a large extent, a social product. However, regardless of how the standards of beauty change, women often tend to be the primary subject of such standards. I am seeking to determine if beauty empowers or oppresses women with a particular focus on technologies. More specifically, I argue that modern technologies reinforce the standards of beauty that are created by patriarchal norms and fostered by capitalism. By reaffirming traditional beauty standards, technology contributes to the subordination and commercialization of women, rendering gender equality even harder to achieve.

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I will first defend the feminist argument that the popular standards of beauty are to a large extent a form of materialization and subordination of women by patriarchy. To do so, I will respond to a common critique which contends that beauty standards empower instead of oppress women. How modern technology contributes to the oppression of women by reinforcing problematic beauty standards will then be examined. The two forms of technologies that I will discuss include beauty apps and social media platforms. Lastly, I will particularly examine the intersection of capitalism, technology, and beauty standards. More specifically, I argue that capitalism functions as the invisible hand behind the manifestation of beauty standards, now with the use of the perfect tool -- technology. 

 

The Feminist Debate: Is Beauty Oppressive?

Feminists have been writing about beauty standards for decades. Probably one of the most classic pieces is The Beauty Myth authored by Naomi Wolf in 1990. In this famous book, Wolf criticizes how the use of beauty images entails unrealistic beauty expectations for women to be skinny. More specifically, she argues that the use of beauty images should be considered a “political weapon against women’s advancement”[1] in a male-dominated society. Wolf points out that while women are now more powerful legally, they are exposed to a different form of insecurity: their physical appearances. Wolf provides multiple examples of beauty standards that are of that kind: the expectation for women to be skinny, to use makeup, to not age, and so on. According to Wolf, these beauty standards have at least one thing in common: they objectify women by implicitly delivering the message that appearance is the top priority for women. For example, Wolf points out that only women and relatively lower status men, for example, the skaters, are expected to use glitter on their face. Wolf argues that this helps highlighting their look over anything else, while for the rest of the men, glitter is not expected to be used as it will only distract the audience from listening to the content of men’s speech.[2]

 

However, on the contrary, other feminist scholars contend that beauty standards exist because what the standards call for are simply beautiful -- and being beautiful is crucial for women to express their self-autonomy. For example, in Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism, Linda Scott challenges the traditional feminist point of view and highlights the importance of stylization for women’s self-expression. For Scott, the beauty standard is therefore feminist instead of patriarchal and oppressive. Similarly, Rita Felski argues that, by considering women’s choice to adhere to beauty standards as a result of social pressures that persist within a patriarchal social structure, traditional feminist scholars downplay and devalue women’s self-autonomy and free agency. Meanwhile, others argue that a woman’s decision to adhere to beauty standards is not considered a choice of her own, and women’s stated enjoyment and pleasure gained from their efforts to be beautiful are diagnosed as examples of internalizing patriarchal norms. Yet, for Felski, the denial of the authenticity of women’s pleasures gained from beauty points to the inherent flaw of traditional feminists’ critique of beauty.[3]

 

Reviewing the critiques, it is clear that they share one central theme: women’s adherence to beauty standards is a free choice of their own, and as long as they feel empowered in this process, the creation of and adherence to beauty standards should not be considered problematically anti-feminist. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to start a conversation over whether individuals will still be able to preserve self-agency in the face of socialization or what defines authentically free self-agency, the section below will explore the role of modern technological development in coercing women to adhere to the manifested standards of beauty. It argues that, in modern society both patriarchy and capitalism use technology to pressure women to adhere to the manifested standards of beauty. 

 

The “Creation”of Beauty: Empowerment or Deprivation?

The development of modern technology has given rise to various online beautification tools. These technologies include beauty cameras, which allow users to make their faces “more beautiful” through a filter. This function recently became popular on social media platforms like Snapchat, Tiktok, and Photoshop, allowing users to adjust the shape of their body, skin tone, and facial features.

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An Example of Beauty Cam​​​​​​

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An Example of Photoshop: Screenshot of an Online Shop that Sells Women’s Jeans

 

Observing the two examples of beauty cameras and Photoshop presented above, it is clear that they adopt a similar approach to “beautification”: whiter skin tone, smaller face size, red lips, bigger eyes, longer eyelashes, and curvier body shape. In addition to being problematic in the way that they assume beauty standards are homogeneous and deny the diversity of beauty, these examples also reflect the reinforcement of highly patriarchal norms. First, the created standards of beauty entails a double standard for men and women.[4] For example, the online shopping platform depicted above only edits the photos of the female models to give them longer legs and curvier body shapes. When it comes to men’s products, the emphasis of the advertisement does not focus on their body shapes and body edits are rarely done to them. Below is a screenshot of men’s clothes sold on the same platform: the model’s body shape is not edited and the focus of the photo clearly shifted back to the product itself. The double standards of beauty preys on women solely, reinforcing patriarchy by degrading women’s value to their appearance only. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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An Example of Men’s Products: Screenshot of an Online Shop that Sells Men’s Top

 

In addition, these examples reveal the infantilization of adult women’s bodies: a “beautiful” woman is expected to be slim, small, and fragile-looking. These expected standards infantilize the body of adult women, perpetuating an underlying social tendency to make women look more sexually vulnerable so that they are physically more attractive to men.[5]

 

These manifested standards of beauty are deeply rooted in patriarchal and sexist norms that conflate women’s values to their physical appearances, objectifying and subordinating women. This objectification of women through the perpetuation of beauty standards significantly threatens gender equality and women’s rights, as  objects often do not object. Studies reveal that the social oppression and subordination of women are justified through the process of objectification and socialization, and therefore women who internalize the social objectification of them often have lower engagement in social activism for women’s rights.[6] This correlation implies that the perpetuation of beauty standards contributes to upholding the patriarchal social structures, rendering the goal of gender equality further from  being achieved.

 

While the patriarchal standards of beauty are not new inventions created by technology, the use of technology has worsened the problem because the homogeneous beauty expectations are circulated online and are made achievable in the virtual world with technological assistance: the unrealistic imagination of beauty can now be translated into visual forms. There are three implications of this technological change. First, technology reinforces the public normalization of beauty. In 2019, surveys found that the “perfect woman” is described to be “5’5”, 128 pounds, with a 26-inch waist.”[7] This indicates that the public generally holds this homogeneous and unrealistic expectation of beauty. Furthermore, people enforce it for themselves and each other, as revealed by women reporting to have been evaluated by male partners based on the unrealistic images created by beauty technologies. Therefore, unrealistic images created by beauty standards are being used to assess women in reality, and are leading them to experience stress, anxiety, and lower self-esteem.[8]

 

Second, as beauty technologies make the previously unrealistic beauty standards possible in virtual space, the prescriptive nature of beauty standards are reinforced, which Ramati-Ziber et al. describe as the “prescriptive beauty norm (PBN).” As stated in the name, PBN refers to how  beauty standards change women’s behaviors to align with the expected beauty standards.[9] Women may use harmful methods to pursue the unrealistic standards of beauty so that they can look like the models or the social media influencers online. Common methods include restrictive diets, plastic surgeries, form-enhancing clothing, and potentially dangerous beauty products that alter skin or hair. This can result in eating disorders and serious mental issues, along with increased financial burdens caused by increased demand for beauty products.[10]

 

Third, the ease of using a filter or adjusting their body shape through Photoshop makes the apps “addictive.” Such apps become a necessary tool for women to feel pretty, which also makes them feel safe and confident.[11] The issue becomes even more problematic when considering that beauty has long been considered an extension of womanhood and femininity.[12] Thus, women who fail to comply with the beauty standards are not just labeled as not beautiful, but may even face scrutiny about their womanhood. 

 

The above paragraph responds to the critiques of Scott and Felski, who argue that affirming beauty standards help women to express their identity and achieve empowerment. However, when women who do not conform to the manifested standards of beauty are prohibited from feeling socially empowered, secure, and confident in their own identity, then actions to conform cannot be considered free choice or demonstrations of self. Women’s conformity to the beauty standards becomes not an authentic expression of their independence, but a result of coercion that reinforces patriarchal norms –– contributing to a phenomenon that feminist scholars have coined “pseudo-feminism.”[13]

 

In addition to the beautification technologies discussed above, another form of technology that has contributed to the increased objectification of women is social media. In The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord criticizes the consumer culture of modern society. He argues that images now construct the guidelines on what people need. The center of social life had been moved from the state of “having” to the state of “appearing to have.”[14] The recent development of social media platforms worsens the situation that Debord was critical of. In the case of the beauty standards, what women are told are essential traits to have has become homogeneous with beauty traits that are inherently oppressive. Social media platforms have resulted in an unprecedentedly high level of women’s self-consciousness over their physical appearances. Studies have found that beauty standards circulated on social media platforms often influence the content posted by individual female users, who tend to be extremely concerned about whether the public believes that they have successfully met the expected standards of beauty or not.[15]

 

The Invisible Hand: Capitalism and Beauty

If patriarchal and sexist norms are the foundation of the manifested beauty standards that oppress women, capitalism is the invisible hand behind the scenes that seizes the “valuable” opportunity of commercialization of women’s bodies. This dynamic is exacerbated by modern technology. Corporations that create beauty technologies claim that beauty cameras and beautification filters empower women. One example is the BeautyCam (Mei yan xiang ji) in China. After interviewing multiple professionals working in this business, Peng found that they tend to argue that their product offers a chance for its female users to feel empowered.[16] Indeed, by framing its product as a means for women to obtain empowerment, the market advertisement of BeautyCam was successful. However, authentic empowerment was never achieved and the gendered norms in China were further reinforced by BeautyCam.[17]

 

The beauty technologies created by profit-seeking corporations also benefit the entire fashion industry because it primarily targets women as its consumer population. One example is the screenshot above, which is the product page of a business in China that sells women’s jeans. Beautification technologies enabled business to make the legs of the female model become thinner and longer, which helped it to increase sales by conveying the message that consumers will be able to look as tall and thin, and thus as beautiful, as the model if they wear the same jeans. In this case, beauty technologies help the fashion industry to create a demand for their products by reinforcing the unrealistic beauty standards that perpetuate gender norms. 

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, in this paper I reiterate and affirm the feminist critique of the manifestation of beauty standards and assert that such standards of beauty are, by nature and in effect, oppressive, patriarchal, and deeply rooted in the objectification and materialization of women’s bodies. In opposition to scholars and tech professionals who argue that women achieve empowerment through adhering to beauty standards, this paper points out that modern technologies have made this proposition hard to prove. Beauty technologies and social media platforms often function to perpetuate unrealistic and homogeneous beauty standards that conflate women’s values and identities with physical appearances solely, which are rooted in patriarchal norms and reinforced by capitalism. The use of beauty apps and the normalization of unrealistic standards through social media platforms therefore contribute not only to the commercialization of women's bodies but also to the psychological and social pressures that women face. This intersection of technology and feminism reveals that the pursuit of beauty, as framed by these technologies, is not a liberating choice for women, but rather an act of compliance within a system designed to uphold gendered inequalities and justify the systemic oppression and objectification of women.  

  

Endnotes

1.  Wolf 1991, pp 10.

2.  Wolf 1991; See also: Bordo and Heywood 2003; Bartlett, Black, and Northen 2011

3.  Felski 2006.

4.  Rhode 2010.

5.  Başbuğ 2018.

6.  Calegero 2013.

7.  Bradley University 2021.

8.  Henriques and Patnaik 2020.

9.  Ramati-Ziber et al 2020.

10.  CBS Austin 2024.

11.  Ibid 13.

12.  Polyester n.d.

13.  Peng 2021.

14.  Debord 1994, Thesis 17.

15.  Boyd 2014.

16.  Peng 2021.

17.  Ibid 18.

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