The Feminine Beauty Ideal: Makeup, Surgery and More

Hey there, friends! Welcome back to Turning Heads Blog, an online space for women to come together and grow closer to the Lord with honest conversations about the Christian lifestyle. I’m so glad that you’re here! This week, we have a topic that many women struggle with: beauty standards.

We’ve all been there: morning alarms screeching, a rush to jump out of bed and cover our faces in powder, bronzer, foundation... anything to make us look more alive. The pressure to cram a heavy workout into a loaded day, the feeling of deep disappointment after looking in the mirror to see no change whatsoever, no magical transformation into what the world tells us we should be.

Modern society demands that women have an hourglass figure, with large breasts, a slim waist, thigh gaps, high cheek bones, plumped lips and perfect straight hair. Many women feel pressured into plastic surgery to change their body to fill the role of this perfect woman whom society deems ”good enough”, with hundreds of thousands of dollars being funneled into plastic surgery procedures per year.

It’s not only now - altering the body has been custom to many countries for centuries. In Burma, Padaung, girls as young as five years old are forced to have medal rings put around their necks for a giraffe-like effect. In Europe (and now, modern America), corsets were/are used to create the desired tiny waistline. Even in fairy tales, the feminine beauty ideal is often portrayed, where beauty is often linked with being white, economically advantaged, and virtuous.

Society presses beauty onto women, forcing them to feel uncomfortable and ugly in their own skin. They press onto us the feminine beauty ideal, or the notion that our worth comes from our appearance, and that perfect beauty is something all women should strive to achieve and maintain. Women feel forced to show up flawless everwhere they go, as if being anything less than perfect is a crime to humanity. We turn to makeup and surgery, trusting societal beliefs that being deemed ”beautiful enough” will give us a sense of worth inside.

This is not what God wants for us! For the Lord Most High hand-crafted us from the dust, creating each of us in His own image. If the great King over all the earth created us from His heavenly hands, who are we to criticize His work, to look at ourselves in the mirror and tell ourselves that we are not good enough? The God of Abraham and Moses, He who reigns over the nations, He who is seated on His holy throne... He created us in His image, He looked at us and saw that we were good.

I want to highlight the fact that there is no shame in getting plastic surgery or wearing makeup. There is nothing wrong with wanting to spruce things up a bit, but we need to be conscious about our motives behind the beauty. Who are we doing this for? From what part of our lives are we drawing our self-worth?

Whether wearing makeup, getting surgery or going transparent and clear-faced, we as Christian women need to remember our value. The King of the Universe created us in His image to go into the world and do good works. Our purpose as daughters of faith is to spread the Gospel, and getting twisted up in society’s take on the perfect feminine beauty ideal will only do us more harm than good.

As you go into this next week, I encourage you to practice appreciating your value, no matter your physical state. Take time to praise the Lord for molding you with His perfect hands, for creating you in His image and calling you His daughter no matter how you look. I pray that as you go into your next few days, you begin to see past society’s notions of beauty-based worth and find the truest, most authentic version of you!