Abstract Rules and Patriarchal Fools by Christa Cripwell
Illustration by Kimberly PrinThiSen
As social media has, for better or worse, become as much a part of our daily lives as our limbs and some essential organs, we are privy to the flurry of trends it produces. While some of these are as innocent as the return of the kitten heel, others are more sinister and reek of patriarchy. If we put our existentialist hats on, we will begin to see just how ludicrous it is that we allow the weird and abstract rules which have been conjured up against our will, to determine our insecurities. The patriarchy has long exploited the power of the media to create said insecurities, and turn them into commodities by creating products to fix them and ensure that the glass ceiling for women is not just double-glazed but bullet-proof.
In 1915, Gillette introduced the first razor marketed specifically for women called the Milady Decollette. As part of their marketing strategy, Gillette championed the notion that body hair on women was inherently masculine and unhygienic. And so, it began, the criteria to be feminine, determined by men. The most prominent trends in recent years have included ‘legging legs’, thigh gaps and the idea that hip dips being are synonymous with cardinal sins. This last one was particularly bemusing as suddenly bestowed upon womxn everywhere was a new insecurity about a body part which they could probably not have located before it became an internet sensation. We need only look at the drastic change in those features which have been deemed desirable for women over the last century, to understand how abstract these standards really are. Arguably the most famous sex icon to ever grace the planet, Marilyn Monroe, was regarded as the pinnacle of beauty standards for women in the 1950s. Just 40 years later, in the heroin-chic 90s, she may have fallen victim to the only-skinny-is-beautiful tinted glasses and not wielded anywhere near the same amount of influence. If we delved deeper into history and look at the art produced in the Renaissance, we would find it nearly impossible to find any representation of the female body which is splashed all over tabloids today. Had the glorious grape-eating women been told they had muffin tops; it would have been taken only as a compliment. By zooming out just a few inches more and tearing our eyes away from our screens, we will be able to see in our peripheral vision that this constant change of beauty standards serves as a reminder that there is no objective standard of beauty. In light of this, we should unchain ourselves from the pressures to conform, and revel in what our ancestors gave us.
