What is beauty?

The term “beauty” comes from the italian term “Belleza” and it means: “Pleasant perfection for the eyes that captivates the spirit”. This concept is passed from generation to generation through family conversations, when we comment about someone’s appearance and among other situations in our daily lives. The media dictates and propagates the beauty ideal so effectively that we do not realize how these impositions can affect our self-esteem.

We learn the concept of beauty from such an early age that, for the most part, it is not something we think about too carefully. However, in times when diversity is gaining more and more space, we must reflect on what this concept really tells us and criticize the old standards of beauty that are still imposed by society.

For example, imagine someone that you consider to be beautiful. There is a high chance that this person you imagined attends certain standards of beauty, oftenly related to race. We have followed and tried to achieve western beauty standards for decades. We were taught since childhood that fair skin, fine features and straight hair for example, are automatically considered to be beautiful. Therefore, it can be conflicting to face this eurocentric view when these ideas are already ingrained in our mindset.