War is peace, beauty is misogyny: an exploration into women's Euro-American beauty standards, competition, and body dissatisfaction

The feminist movement has made great progress over the past decades, yet the oppressive
nature of beauty is “strikingly muted” (Bordo, 2023, P.31). This thesis explores how Euro�American beauty standards profoundly influence body dissatisfaction and competition among
women and exposes the often-unspoken truths behind constricting societal beauty
standards. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with ten female university students
aged 18-23, I question the normalised practices of beauty and how they place women’s
social power at a disadvantage. I extend Manne’s (2018) contemporary perspective on
misogyny by proposing that beauty standards are a branch of misogyny; using Foucauldian
thought to emphasise the overarching gaze that exists at its core. Subsequently, I expand
the scholarly field on internalised misogyny by proposing a new definition with internal
surveillance at its centre. This new outlook on misogyny is a necessary addition that is
relevant to current feminist academia. My research asserts the danger of beauty standards
by revealing their underlying power structures, and the detrimental stranglehold they have
over the feminist movement. My analytical framework draws from Orwell’s seminal work
1984 (1949) to unveil how the dystopian architectures of power are relevant to my recent
findings on beauty, body dissatisfaction, and competition. Whilst uncovering the multifaceted
dimensions of beauty standards and their impact on women, I simultaneously reveal how
beauty standards follow the historical patterns of oppressive power.