What India Today survey on women and beauty reveals to us
It’s hard to quantify beauty. Think about it. Your boyfriend tells you that you’re drop dead gorgeous; your sister thinks you can look better, if only you lost those few kilos; your pretty girlfriends make you feel like the "DUFF" (designated ugly fat friend); and that face you see in the mirror, sometimes looks close to perfection, but other times you wish you could hide it in a niqab.
So, you take your quest online, flood Instagram, Twitter and Facebook with pictures and start counting the number of likes, retweets and comments. In China last year, thousands of Chinese women put their confidence on the Beauty and Ugliness Identification Method, where you place your index finger against your chin and nose, if your finger touches your lips, then, you are beautiful. Others put their faith in the "Golden Ratio" which relies on a mathematical formula for defining beauty. Dove decided to take a much more realistic route. At the entrance of a building (this was done in locations, across the globe) they placed a sign saying "beautiful" on one door and "average" on another; and as women walked into the building they had to make a choice.
Facts and figures
Looking to dig deeper, India Today conducted a survey amongst 500 Indian women (ages 18 to 64) for Dove; the results of which were discussed at length at the Dove #ChooseBeautiful and India Today Woman discussion with a panel that comprised actor Soha Ali Khan, writer Ira Trivedi, CEO of mydala.com Anisha Singh and clinical psychologist Varkha Chulani. The Dove door experiment uncovered that most women opted for the door that said "average". Interestingly, when Khan was asked which door she would choose, she gave a practical answer, “I would probably opt for the door closest to me, or base it on how I am feeling at the time”.
Delving further into the psyche of an Indian woman, the India Today survey revealed that while 47 per cent of women feel they look natural, seven in ten are satisfied with their life and feel confident, and a whopping 60 per cent put pressure on themselves to look beautiful. “It boggles my mind, why would anyone want to go through a door that said average. After all, looking beautiful is not just the way you look, it is that X-factor, that confidence, the way she walks, her personality that goes on to define one’s beauty,” explains Trivedi. Our country’s booming beauty industry is a proof of the pressure to look beautiful. No wonder most women in the survey said that hair care products and beauty bar soaps make them feel beautiful.
Don't let complexes pull you down
Looking good and being fit are big factors in the feeling beautiful equation. “I grew up with several complexes and have worked very hard in being fit and looking good. It was only after I had children, that changed me as a person and feeling beautiful became easy,” says Singh, who believes that being confident and receiving compliments has a big role to play. “If you want a self-esteem shaken, do a hair commercial, you are broken down,” says Khan, adding, “What Dove is trying to do therefore is so refreshing.”
However, outgrowing complexes, especially about the way women look at themselves, can be tough. Chulani narrated an incident where a grandmother, who had curly hair and hated it, ended up reprimanding her granddaughter about her curly hair so much that the teen today cuts herself whenever she thinks about her hair. “If you can stand in front of the mirror, naked, feel content and accept yourself the way you are, I would be out of business,” adds Chulani.
Being beautiful means better opportunities
According to the survey almost seven in every ten women feel that being beautiful ensures better opportunities. “In my line of work, looking beautiful plays a big role. But what people do not realise that most images, mine included, are photoshopped and fake,” says Khan, adding, “But even then, in my industry they want women like vegetables—young and fresh.”
Looks play a role, they can get you noticed, perhaps even a foot in the door but from there you have to have talent and skill to take you further. “People think beauty is a passport of better opportunity, but really it’s a visa, it expires,” adds Khan. The flip side to looking beautiful is not being taken seriously. “When I wrote my first novel at 19, people judged my book by the way I look, and that was frustrating,” says Trivedi.
On a guilt trip
“Women are queens of guilt, we thrive on that,” explains Anisha. Chulani believes that since selflessness is a virtue, when women take time out for themselves they are ridden with guilt. “Women globally feel guilty, but the problem is more so for Indian women,” adds Trivedi. How will this change? “It will change only when we start loving ourselves and make small steps of investment in self, unapologetically,” explains Chulani.
(The show will air on May 23 and 24 on Headlines Today, 3.30pm.)