Build Your (Already) Beautiful Body Today!

2023

From the beginning of the 19th century, advertisements scorning bodies to market beauty products and services flooded the eyes and ears of their intended recipients, women. These advertisements modeled what society deemed the “beautiful perfect body” and through purchasing their products and services, that model can be achieved. As a result, women for centuries have been made to be insecure about their perfectly human bodies, forcing them to turn to said products to conform to societal beauty standards. Even as current body positivity movements continue to push for the destruction of these misogynistic beauty standards and many companies have hopped on board with this message and these movements, other beauty product companies and services continue to market their products by prodding at women’s insecurities. Some of these advertisements come in bold statements, others lay drenched in subtlety, using words like unsightly, unwanted, embarrassing, or comparisons such as “batwings” or “ape”. In either case, these strategies leave their long-lasting detrimental effects, especially to those who are young and may lack in self-confidence. And while women are left with deep, lasting insecurities, companies walk away with their profit in one hand and a clear conscience in the other.

This series is meant to be a commentary on the capitalization of women’s insecurities while also condemning societal beauty standards. All phrases in quotations are real quotes taken from multiple negative advertisements from several beauty product or service companies, ranging from the 19th century to as early as 2019. In keeping the phrases in quotation marks, it is meant to be a sarcastic backlash, comparing the beauty of the unfiltered, unchanged, woman body to the ugliness of the misogynistic, harmful words.

This piece was displayed in the For Women, By Women gallery in 2023.