Beauty and self-esteem

Dove published “The Real State of Beauty” report in April 2024 ( 1 ). The reason for the report was an earlier discovery that only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful. This is due to “unrealistic beauty standards set” by the beauty industry, and “Dove took action to build body confidence and self-esteem for millions of young people.” To be able to take this action, “Dove has conducted the world’s largest ever study by a beauty brand, building on 20 years of insights and listening to 33,000 people across 20 countries, to understand the reality of beauty and the pressures women and girls face.”

Although only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful, 90% of them say,

“Real beauty is being authentic, being who you are.”

Here at Virkee, we see that ‘beauty’ is a concept created by people and doesn’t actually exist. This is because the concept of ‘beauty’ has been formed during human development and certain characteristics or standards have been associated with it over time. The Dove report highlights this clearly when it states that “unrealistic beauty standards have been set” and it is people who have ‘set’ these standards.

A sunset is a good example. If a sunset is considered beautiful, ‘beautiful’ is a word used to communicate this to others so that people can enjoy that ‘beauty’ together. However, the sunset itself isn’t inherently beautiful. A sunset is an action where the sun goes below the horizon, but seeing it brings us joy and we associate the word ‘beautiful’ with it.

The word ‘beauty’ is a tool to communicate joy to others.

‘Beauty’ is a positive concept and should bring joy to people, not sorrow.

In the case of a sunset, ‘beauty’ is neutral and creates joy, but when ‘beauty’ is related to oneself, problems occur. Why? Because then ‘beauty’ is associated with ‘self’ and we compare ‘me’ to others.

What actually is the ‘I’? We have our body, mind, thoughts, soul, spirit, feelings and so on. But they are ours; they aren’t the ‘I’. The ‘I’, the inner self is the one who recognizes those.

Beauty is usually related to the body, but it is not You, it’s your body. Think of an elephant, whose sense of self doesn’t change whether its body is decorated or not. Everyone should have the same ability. Then, when one decorates oneself, it is done to bring joy and not to improve self-esteem.

When we learn what ‘I’ actually is, we free ourselves from the prison created by the concept of unrealistic beauty standards. Then, instead of being in sorrow created by others, we start to embrace the joy of our inner self, which will also show on the outside.

Virkee has online courses that teaches how one can experience their inner self and what steps are needed to remain as the inner self in everyday situations. As the majority of women say, that is real beauty.

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P.S. The report mentions that “90% of online content could be AI-generated” and “AI is currently one of the biggest threats to the representation of real beauty.” This prediction is likely true and the majority of the content will be AI-generated, as images on this site already are. The real decision to make is whether to let any image, either real or computer-generated, bring sorrow into your life, which is real right now.

1) https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/global-state-of-beauty.html