What Are “European Beauty Standards”?

[OG Talk]

And why do they seem to only apply to Black women?

For example. I’ve never heard Black men or Asian women talk about the pressures of living up to this so called standard.

I’ve been hearing this term brought up by our sisters a lot recently.

How long has this standard existed? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for holding this up as the “standard”?

 

[Collateral]

Folks don’t like having serious conversations about topics like this that’s asking to dive deep into the psyche of the Afro mind. Because everybody is perfect and don’t have insecurities.

European standards of beauty would apply to women because men don’t care about shyt like that. Asian women go through it too, not just black.

 

[HARLEM AL]

Its a made up excuse....

 

[JadeB]

Traditionally tall, slender, fair skin, thin noses, smallish lips, regular sized eyes and one or some of the above

Of course, these beauty standards change over time and many Europeans and people of European descent nor longer ascribe to these

Asian women also DEFINITELY have the pressure to conform to these standards. Eyelid surgery and skin bleaching are rampant in Asia.

It originated in the Age of Discovery as a foil to the women that European colonizers encountered

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

. The western world used euros as the beauty standard. This was both explicit - media, advertising, who you see on TV - as well as implicit - wealth, power. Fair skin, long straight hair, small noses, blue eyes, etc. women of all colors suffer from it - eastern Asians walking around with umbrellas, southern Asians and some Latin American countries bleaching, black women with perms and weaves - and this part hits black women most as we’re generally the only race with kinky hair - many Latinos, Asians, and euros have straight to wavy hair so they fit closer to the western euro beauty standard.

 

[intruder]

Basically light skin complexion, super thin body, straight flowing hair, thin pointy nose, etc

 

[Deuterion]

And why do they seem to only apply to Black women?

For example. I’ve never heard Black men or Asian women talk about the pressures of living up to this so called standard.

I’ve been hearing this term brought up by our sisters a lot recently.

How long has this standard existed? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for holding this up as the “standard”?

It applies to everyone but it is more impactful when it comes to Black women because they have less in common physically with White woman than others. Black women have a completely different hair texture, fuller lips, wider hips, larger posterior, and darker skin tones so there’s a lot they have to do to fit in with a European standard of beauty.

 

[Devilinurear]

And why do they seem to only apply to Black women?

For example. I’ve never heard Black men or Asian women talk about the pressures of living up to this so called standard.

I’ve been hearing this term brought up by our sisters a lot recently.

How long has this standard existed? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for holding this up as the “standard”?

White people

 

[OG Talk]

Black women have a completely different hair texture, fuller lips, wider hips, larger posterior, and darker skin tones so there’s a lot they have to do to fit in with a European standard of beauty.

Don’t Black men have these same distinctions?

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

When 'race' became a thing, these 'beauty standards' were already in-place. They just varied from location/culture/etc. After the Age of Exploration and the Enlightenment, they became codified and enforced by the dominant culture.​

 

[Collateral]

Don’t Black men have these same distinctions?

Black men have wide hips and phatasses?

 

[OG Talk]

Black men have wide hips and phatasses?

Not to get all Jimmy The Greek, but Black men are physically built differently than white men.

 

[Deuterion]

Don’t Black men have these same distinctions?

Black men are seen as the exemplar of masculinity that’s why American society feels necessary to emasculate and demonize us at every turn.

 

[⠝⠕⠏⠑]

Don’t Black men have these same distinctions?

Men aren’t judged for beauty in the same way or to the same degree as women are. Also lightness/darkness carry engendered connotations in our white-washed society. This darker features are seen as masculine which blk men align with and whiteness is associated with femininity in alignment with lighter and white females.
That’s why blk dude will have the same skin tone as a blk female, same hair texture but look at her and call her ugly or a dark butt one of countless insults based on self-hate and internalization of white beauty standards. I don’t make the rules.
That’s also why some tease light skinned dudes or white dudes as being soft.

Imagine not being attracted to the features your dikk produces with people that look like you…culturally induced mental illness.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

And why do they seem to only apply to Black women?

For example. I’ve never heard Black men or Asian women talk about the pressures of living up to this so called standard.

I’ve been hearing this term brought up by our sisters a lot recently.

How long has this standard existed? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for holding this up as the “standard”?

Pick up western mainstream magazines on fashion or women

Or western mainstream movies

Runways a decade ago

And you'll notice that all the women have a look -> that's the Western standard of beauty

I don't know where you got that it only applies to Black women.

Doesn't a significant segment of Asian women with means use surgery to straighten their nose, slit their eylids, or get blue or green eyes?

https://www.medicalbag.com/home/fea...-of-asians-seek-eye-surgery-to-look-american/

“Round eye.” It was once a derogatory slang term Asians would use at times to refer to Westerners, but particularly, it applied to Americans. Now the term “round-eye” has taken on a whole new meaning in Asian culture and is associated with more than a touch of envy and beauty. How ironic that an Asian woman’s almond-shaped eyes, thought to be mysterious and alluring to many Western men, are now considered an ugly deformity in some Asian cultures, most notably in Korea and China, where the Western look is now coveted.

[...]

The round-eye look is a sign of Western beauty, and Western ideals of beauty bombard Korean and Chinese media, which has bought into it. These Asian societies are inundated with images of gorgeous American women, including models, celebrities, and superstars who constantly appear on television, on billboards and posters, on the Internet, in magazines, in advertisements, in train stations and at bus stops, in storefront windows, and on TV commercials. Korean and Chinese actresses and pop stars also have a heavy influence; many famous Asian women have had this type of eyelid surgery, creating additional desire for young Asian women to have a pretty face just like their own stars. Beautiful American women pitch beauty products, creating desire and envy for the look that is now an accepted part of Korean and Chinese culture. Plastic surgeons report that young Korean and Chinese girls continually complain about their small, narrow eyes. Thinking that they will be prettier, they want their eyes to look bigger. In their eyes, bigger is better.

Asian Women Are Now Getting Surgery To Have Thinner 'Caucasian' Lips

Thailand-based dermatologist Dr. Nuttae Nuttapon is attributing the trend to Asian women’s aim for a more Western-style beauty.

“Asian men and women typically prefer Caucasian facial features, which are narrower cheekbones, deeper eye sockets and thinner lips,” Nuttapon was quoted as saying.

I Can't Stop Looking at These South Korean Women Who've Had Plastic Surgery

There's a full-length mirror and a scale on every single floor of the all-girls high school where Julia Lurie works. She's an American teaching English in South Korea, the country with the highest per capita rate of plastic surgery in the world. One in five women in Seoul have undergone some kind of procedure. Most popular: Eyelid surgery, to make the eyes "more Western," and getting your jawbone shaved or chiseled down for a less-square and more V-shaped look.

[...]

As an experiment, Lurie asked her students to describe a beautiful woman. "White skin," they replied. "Big eyes." Thin. Tall. B cup. Sounds like the same narrow standards of beauty fashion magazines and designers doing runway shows adhere to, standards that are eventually broadcast with images seen around the world.

Where does it come from? Colonization and the spread of the American way of life & culture which inundated the whole world media as early as the 1950s.

Nobody is "responsible". It's a cultural phenomenon.