We admire what we see others admire. We can’t escape the advertising and social media telling us what's attractive. We women want straight hair if ours is curly or curly if ours is straight. We want longer legs, bigger (or smaller) breasts, and a smaller (or more rounded) butt.
A man might want a stronger chin, a flatter belly, some extra inches in height, or penis length and girth.
Cultural ideas about beauty are a form of fashion, and like fashion in clothes, they change. Cultural ideals are also extremes–most of us simply can't get close and shouldn't try.
It's not like you haven't heard this before–but still, it's so easy to feel bad if your look isn't in vogue.
So let's tour the American female body over the last 125 years.
Unusually tall women with haughty expressions became fashionable in the 1890s. Their height matched our current high-fashion clothing models.
In the 1920s, the bridal updo disappeared, and flat-chested, narrow-hipped girls were getting dates. Height was no longer required. If you were tall, now you felt gawky instead of gorgeous.
Busty curvy women reigned in the 1950s with the arrival of Barbie dolls. Curvy Marilyn Monroe won our hearts. But by the 1960s, all eyes were fixed on a model called Twiggy, who could have been Marilyn’s pre-teen daughter.
Grooming norms changed too. People wore pointy bras and hair spray until the big shift in the late 1960s into the 1970s, when it was cool for hippy "chicks" to burn their bras and wear their hair long and parted in the middle, with no hair gel required. You also didn't need to shave your underarms, legs, or 😸.
Today's "Brazilian-style" waxing would have seemed bizarre: were you trying to look like a presexual child?
In the 1980s, the new supermodels were a combination of earlier fashions, women with height but narrow hips and flat chests. We started to see toned muscles.
Then came the usual zig-zag: the boy-child look got another moment in the 1990s when tiny women like Kate Moss and Winona Ryder won attention.
And here we go again, back to embracing curves. Extreme curves, like Kim Kardashian.
Someone is always left out: You can imagine that a slight petite girl longed for long legs and an hourglass figure in the 1890s and today craves a big muscled rear-end.
Two things are wrong: the standards are extreme, and our bodies aren't all that malleable. You can’t make your legs longer. The size of your breasts or butt really isn’t under your control. You can gain or lose weight and work out, but it’s very hard to make and keep significant changes.
If you're concerned about being attractive to romantic partners, the truth is that tastes vary. Even when thin is in for women, lots of men like women with curves rather than protruding ribs. People most want to know that you're into them. It's hard to walk away from someone happy to see you, laughs at your jokes, and is super-responsive in the bedroom.
Sure, it's important to eat a healthful diet and exercise. Focus on a "live-it" rather than a "diet": eat in a way you can live with rather than adopt a regime that feels like you could die. Scientists debate whether beauty ideals for women may have underlying waist-to-hip ratios that indicate fertility and health. Let your goal be healthy, and your own style of beauty will shine through. And should your look be out of style, go look at photos from 20 years earlier.
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