The beauty industry is one of the biggest capitalist industries in the world, estimated at over 500 billion dollars. The market is expected to grow 5.86% to over 700 billion dollars in just three years. According to standard social models, the beauty industry negatively affects people’s mental health by portraying what is attractive.
Images displayed on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram promote thin body ideals unattainable for most people. Despite warnings that pictures have been photoshopped, influencers, media platforms, and images still have a massive role in what consumers perceive to be the perfect look. This promotes unhealthy measures, such as dieting, increased body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating attitudes.
According to a study done by researchers at the University of Plymouth, individuals who fail to conform to traditional binary notions of gender identity and gender presentations are stigmatized, ostracized, and socially delegitimatized. These beliefs harm transgender and nonbinary communities more because people outside their community set the criteria for appropriate gender expression.
Societal Standards of Gender Expression and Beauty
Societal norms demand that people fit a specific look and hold them accountable when they do not. One example is when an older person wears something deemed not age-appropriate, and people criticize them for being too old for their attire. Another example is when a woman chooses not to wear makeup or dress in a feminine style, she is often called a tomboy, lesbian, weird, or depressed.
When most people think of transgender individuals, they often think of celebrities that fit the standard of beauty, like Laverne Cox and Elliot Page. Stars have the money, resources, and support to buy cosmetics, surgeries, and makeup artists, allowing them to conform to society’s wants. However, all trans and nonbinary people do not have those advantages.
Despite warnings that pictures have been photoshopped, influencers, media platforms, and images have a massive role in what consumers perceive to be the perfect look. Photos of cisgender women plaster the ads of beauty marketing, which rarely includes transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming individuals.
Beauty Standards Effects on Mental Health
The National Library of Medicine reveals that “almost 90% of [young people] (ages 18–29) reported being active users of social media and being continuously exposed to different content and images”. Additionally, it reports that one-third of cisgender women worldwide suffer from severe mental health disorders due to social and cultural influences. Girls as young as 12 years of age begin to display body dissatisfaction, which increases through social media images in adolescence and young adulthood; this is further impacted if their mothers suffer from similar body issues.
Transgender individuals face stricter consequences, such as physical harm, suicide, and murder, for not fitting expectations of the gender binary. In the United States, the prevalence of documented suicide attempts among transgender women is 42%, which exceeds the prevalence of suicide attempts in the overall population (4.6%).
Changing Perceptions of Beauty and Gender
Race, class, and gender-privileged individuals, mainly cisgender middle-class women, are often heeded and become the mainstream voices of beauty standards. Ignoring the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, and sexual orientation excludes people impacted by more than one dimension and becomes fixed; using women as a term of classification creates the misconception of a binary world and fails to account for the complexities of sex and gender.
Transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming individuals and men use cosmetics, and the beauty industry consistently overlooks and underrepresents them in marketing. The influence of Cisnormative beauty standards impacts society’s opinions and treatment of transgender and nonbinary people. It can have detrimental effects, such as the perpetuation of violence, prejudice, discrimination, and violence.
One way to change the perceptions of gender-marginalized people would be to remove feminine labels on products for cosmetics, hygiene products, and advertising. Eliminating the pink tax would also contribute to a more gender-equitable society. In addition, we must demand that the beauty industry utilize people from every demographic in advertising and marketing. Furthermore, not stigmatizing individuals who choose not to use makeup to fit beauty standards is one of the most critical changes needed to protect people’s mental health.
Here is a list of the top 10 most inclusive beauty brands you can check out and support!
