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The years 2000 brought femininity to a new area of extremes. We went from an over-sexualized femininity at the beginning of the 21st century towards a more natural approach of things. Still, women have always the pressure to look good and to fit a certain stereotype. Here are 3 big lies and how should you get rid of them.

Lie N.1: Men prefer thin girls

This is obviously a lie. Men in general prefer to have a “little more than a little less”. Men prefer to see shapes and to be able to relate to femininity without any compromise. There are always exceptions but it is interesting to see that almost all the feminine press that has been advertising skinny girls are all leaded by women.

  • Vogue – Anna Wintour
  • Elle magazine – Roberta Myers
  • Harper’s Bazaar – Glenda Bailey
  • Cosmopolitan – Joanna Coles
  • Marie Claire – Anne Fulenwider
  • Net-à-Porter – Lucy Yeomans
  • Glamour – Cynthia Leive
  • InStyle – Laura Brown
  • Madame Figaro – Nicole Picart et Blanche Rival
  • Vanity Fair – Edward Graydon Carter (the exception)

So if for the past 10 years all these powerful magazines have been managed from the editorial side by women, how come we still see images like these?
skinny-women-danger skinny-women-in-magazines skinny-women
It is astonishing to see women writing about fashion trends and trying to influence you about what is cool and what is not by showing so skinny girls. If you take the above first picture of Bella Hadid. She is 5 ft 9 in or 175 cm for 55 kg or 121 pounds. This means she has a BMI of 17.96. Her health is in danger. She should have 10kg more for her heigh. Is she a good example for young girls? No. Same thing with Gigi Hadid. Same BMI. Also not a good example. Seriously girls, with 10kg more you would be just amazing! Here are some key interesting facts about real women and the ones we see on magazines.
ideal-femininity-through-time
According to an article published in Time Magazine, there is a consistence difference between a man’s perception of the women’s body vs the same perception done by a woman. Several women and men were asked to give their beauty standards by playing with images. Here are the results for women and men about the woman’s body. Interesting to note that men have been much more generous. So please ladies stop thinking about your weight.
ideal-woman-vs-fake

Lie N.2: Grey hair sucks, not really

Funny to see that when men get grey hair we tend to say “what a George Clooney you are“. When a woman gets grey hair people might tell her 2 things:

  • “You are getting old”
  • “When are you going to dye your hair?”

It is admitted that women should dye their hair because grey hair gives an image of someone not taking care of herself unless you are 80 years old and you place yourself as a grand-mother. Is grey hair wrong? Not at all.
sensual-woman-with-grey-hair sexy-woman-grey-hair woman-with-grey-hair
Each age should get its pleasures and advantages. Everybody gets grey hair (and white hair after). It is about getting old (no choice) and genetics. There are times in people’s lives that your hair follicle looses its capacity to pigment the hair. It is part of the natural life cycle. Obviously some people get grey/white hair faster than others. Grey hair is beautiful, you just need to take care of it as the nature of your hair changes. With age, your hair follicles produce less lubricating oils, so your grey/white hair have a natural tendency to become dryer. In order to keep a natural and beautiful look, you might need to change the products you use and eventually complement them with regular moisturizing masks.

Lie N.3: Wrinkles are the enemy of beauty

We are not all equal in front of mother nature. Some people get aging much better than others. Obviously some people request the help of surgery to erase some aging marks. Are wrinkles the enemy of beauty? Not at all. Again, a man with wrinkles is an experienced man with charisma. A woman with wrinkles is… an old lady. This is the image that has been presented during the last decades. Women should feel free from this as wrinkles are part of getting older. 90% of wrinkles are due to sun exposure. So it means that if you treat your skin properly you should age just fine. You can accept your wrinkles are generally they mark important moments of your life. The good moments and the bad ones.

nicole-kidman-pirelli-2017

pirelli-calendar-2017

Still, you can help your skin to get through the ageging process in a good shape. Just keep it clean, mosturized and avoid (if you can) bad habits like sleeping few hours every night, smoking too much, sun over-exposure, stress and too much alcohol. The above pictures of were taken from the latest Pirelli calendar. In this edition, Lindberg decided to do a “photoshop-free” edition which means that each woman shows her true skin and ageing marks. They all look fantastic.

As we can see, the 3 above topics are all lies. They were built to support a false idea of the perfect woman. From a marketing concept we made a society standard and it is interesting to see that standards can change quite fast, sometimes in less than 10 years for some of them. So, do not feel blocked by such pre-concepts. Liberate yourself and live your femininity the way you want.

LA

Info sourced by the author for LuxuryActivist.com. All content is copyrighted with no reproduction rights available. Images are for illustration purposes only.