“Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.”
Most of the cosmetic and beauty enterprises develop on the idea that there is a constant need for women to look good and be perfect. In fact, women are conditioned to not feel nice about themselves and as a result, they are ever thriving to be fairer, taller, or thinner. There is always a set benchmark that defines the beauty of women. Curly hair, chubbiness, short height, dusky skin are considered ugly.
In the Indian matchmaking system, women are compelled to look like the ideal type. When a woman reaches a “marriageable age”, the matchmaking process shatters her self-confidence and self-love.
The Indian Matchmaking
We all know that India is a nation of varied heritage and customs. However, largely, the matchmaking processes are the same, the bridegroom and relatives visit the house of the bride, to find whether the bride is ‘beautiful’ and ‘compatible’ with the bridegroom. They discuss the skin, hair, smile, body posture, and everything about the bride and later discuss if they take the process ahead. The priority is always given to the appearance and not to the behavior or sync between the two partners who might be getting married.
The Indian beauty Test survey
The Indian beauty Test survey was an independent survey conducted by Hansa Research and authorized by Dove. In that survey, between the age group of 18-35, around 1057 women from 17 cities across India participated in the online questionnaire survey. The Dove’s self-esteem project report revealed that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. Only 11% of girls are comfortable in describing themselves, 72% of girls feel tremendous pressure to be beautiful and 82% of women agree that every woman has something about her that is beautiful but does not have confidence in their beauty.
The report also stated that more than 54% of women globally agree that they are their own worst beauty critic.
Even though there are a lot of beauty eccentric cosmetic enterprises that promote the outside allure and the necessity of being beautiful by looking fairer, slimmer, and tall, they also conduct beauty tests to check whether you are ugly or not with their beauty parameters. How weird, isn’t it? On the face of all this, one of the successful international cosmetic groups Dove is partnering with the leading matrimonial site shaadi.com to affirm that the matchmaking process should be beyond beauty biases.
Dove’s self-esteem project is committed to assuring the empowerment of 8 million young people, to help them boost their body confidence, and self-dignity to conquer any body issues.
The Need to Change!
By supporting the objectives of the “stop beauty test” campaign Sania Mirza, a famous Tennis player said, “At 8 years of age, I heard people tell my parents ‘don’t let her play or put in the sun. If she gets dark, who will marry her!’ How I wish I could go back in time and show this film and ask ‘aakhir kitni khoobsurati kaafi hai?’ I am glad that I stepped out in the sun because it made me who I am. The tan lies in the biceps. Not meeting societal beauty standards was worth it. As a daughter of this country, I urge each one of us parents, brothers, daughters, future in-laws to speak up, step up and stop the beauty test.”
It is not surprising that about 45% of women have the same experience of hearing “You are not beautiful, and who would want to marry you?” It’s time to change our perspectives on the common, stereotypical standards of beauty. Be that voice of shift and join in the stop beauty test movement. Let’s make our world beautiful, the way we love and want!
“When it comes to your body, love the one you’re with.”
Image credits: Highlife North
Udisha Srivastav is a Freelance Content Writer with Femsay.com