Gendered beauty standards at UTM
Universities are often seen as microcosms of society. So, what do experiences of beauty and expression mean for students?
The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) is located in one the most diverse cities in Canada, with students and faculty from all corners of the globe calling the campus their home. As a microcosm of society, there is no particular set of societal beauty standards that students are expected to follow. Yet, given UTM’s calls for diversity and acceptance, I believe there is a certain pressure imposed upon women and LGBTQ+ people of colour to either maintain or even go beyond the standards embedded within a North American schooling system. This becomes more complicated when students are also coerced to adhere to their own cultural standards which often clash with the freedom of choice that a university environment promotes.
Research suggests social media is one of the biggest culprits in establishing and promoting restrictive standards for women. Our digital environments, where we increasingly spend more time, uphold a clear dissonance between the ideal body type marketed to women and women’s real bodies. I would argue this creates a needless and unfair competition among women to achieve features perceived as objectively “attractive”. Women of colour are further targeted, as North America tends to place Euro-centric features on a pedestal, disregarding or even suppressing all other physical identities.
But how do unrealistic gendered physical standards manifest in students at UTM? According to a U of T student equity census, around 19 per cent of students identify as 2SLGBTQ+, and approximately 42 per cent identify as a person of colour, which makes UTM an appropriate setting to test whether students feel such standards imposed upon them due to their ethnic, gender,or sexual identity, or perhaps all.
So, I decided to interview a few students around campus to get their input on how beauty and societal standards have personally affected them as people of colour.
What does UTM have to say?
An anonymous second-year student felt that although initially she didn’t see herself consciously conforming to any strict beauty standards, she does realize that many women tend to lean towards hyper-feminine fashion, jewellery, mannerisms, and appearances, and that these women are subtly rewarded more so than those who do not. This seems to suggest a conditional relationship forming for women, where their appearance correlates to the positive attention they may receive without their awareness of it due to the subconscious biases ingrained in Canadian society.
However, this is not the case for everyone. Several students also found UTM to be a more accepting environment and didn’t feel the need to conform to certain standards. An anonymous first-year international student from India commented how she was expected to look polished and perfect back at home and UTM allowed her to break away from the archetypical image of femininity and express herself in a more authentic manner.
Another fourth-year student added that since they surrounded themselves with a diverse group of friends, they did not feel judged or ashamed for not conforming to “typical” societal standards. To me, this implies that a lack of diversity significantly contributes to creating such standards for women in the first place.
Do men feel the same?
I believed that although a patriarchal system does force men to follow often unachievable physical and societal standards, such as by socially defining masculinity as lacking emotions, these restrictions bore more severe consequences for women. In several countries, gender roles and expectations are deeply rooted in how a society operates. In places like India, gendered expectations that befall women—that of being a sacrificial mother, a dutiful wife, and a obedient citizen—normalize patriarchy’s brutal cost. While men also suffer under patriarchy, misogyny murders, rapes, and denigrates women. For men, the consequences are not so dire.
Data also seems to suggest that women are more likely to be dissatisfied with their body image than men, but arguing what arbitrary beauty standards are more harmful than others is a fruitless discussion. It is still important to acknowledge that women and queer people of colour face additional challenges, but that is just another facet to this complex conversation.
The diverse student body at UTM brings forth a more nuanced view of dominant societal standards. There is a possibility for there to be higher expectations for in-group standards when students usually socialize with others belonging to similar ethnic backgrounds, but as an LGBTQ+ friendly university with a majority identifying as people of colour, I believe UTM allow for more freedom than other North American universities.
One of the more intriguing responses I received during my conversations was that deviating from “traditional” beauty standards and being perceived as more aesthetically unique, even as a man, brings its own set of problems, such as unwanted attention and disrespect of boundaries. Hence, it is important to ensure that we are not invalidating anyone’s experiences with following or rebelling against beauty standards regardless of whether their identity plays a role in it.
What do beauty and societal standards mean at UTM?
Through conversations with students, I confirmed that the idea of perfect beauty standards differs from person to person and group to group on campus, with most people stating that a coherent beauty standard doesn’t exist. Instead, it is shaped by the past experiences of students, their status as an international or domestic student, and their social identity. Some women of colour feel they are never ‘good enough’ to meet Eurocentric standards while others are surprised by the acceptance they’ve experienced at UTM by virtue of our campus’s diversity.
A better way to understand such standards on campus would be to take individual circumstances into account and then present recurring patterns that affect those who veer away from their own perceived notion of these standards. Ultimately, instead of painting UTM with broad brush strokes, we can better appreciate our student body by exploring how ethnic narratives and people’s unique positions affect how they internalize society’s standards. I think that makes for a much more interesting conversation about the gendered student experiences.
