Double Standards Have Always Been The Gold Standard

BY: Chelsie DeSouza

The beauty and fashion industry have always been spaces that leaned into racism, ableism, transphobia, and fatphobia, with ironclad gates heavily guarded against inclusivity and otherness. If you weren’t tall, skinny, and white, you rarely saw yourself on the runways, pages of magazines, or in advertisements; if you did they were few and far between, and so often laced with sentiments of tokenism.

body neutrality, in which bodies are neither loved nor hated but seen as the useful tools they are. We shouldn’t be commenting on other peoples’ bodies at all. Why are women nitpicked for their weight gain but dad bods are hot and celebrated? The issues are so convoluted that if I were to draw a venn diagram it would be unfathomable and upsetting.

If I tried to list all the examples of the double standards we’ve seen in the beauty and fashion industry, I’d be writing a dissertation, because the shit runs deep. From gender to race, different bodies, pretty privilege, class, nepotism, and disability discrimination; all aspects of what it means to be deemed beautiful or accepted seem predicated on things that ostracize and deem otherness not up to editorial standards.

Why was Serena Williams described as “rule-breaking” for the way she wore her nails? We see time and time again the difference in language used in the media to describe Black women in relation to beauty and trends. White heteronormativity is the beauty standard to which we have been indoctrinated to compare everything to. The Eurocentricity of the beauty industry as a whole has made it commonplace to leave Black women out of a conversation that they deserve to be in—often, a conversation about trends they created, from acrylic nails to cornrows and locs.

What I do know is that the Kardashian/Jenners are front page news for spearheading long acrylics as if they have pushed the boundaries of nail art, when in reality, Black women have been rocking fake nails decades before they were “cool,” back when the world described them as “ghetto,” and asked “how can you do anything wearing them?” The recurring theme is that it’s the color of a person’s skin that makes something trendy and acceptable. Repackage something from Black culture in whiteness and boom, it’s mainstream.

Why was Tess Holliday deemed “the worst dressed” in 2020 for wearing the infamous strawberry dress that subsequently went viral on TikTok when skinny people wore it? It’s fatphobia, the double standard created for bodies. The same thing can be seen in the way slimmer celebrities are called brave for showing their slightly bigger bodies but Lizzo is told she needs to get healthy. Body positivity should be de-emphasized in favor of

Why did Candace Owens have a problem with model Haleigh Rosa, who uses a wheelchair, starring in a SKIMS campaign? On her Feb 28 episode of “Daily Wire” she said, “I don’t know why this needs to be done. I’m just getting tired of this all-inclusivity thing. It seems ridiculous.” She seems to think that people with disabilities should not be shown in advertisements. The cis-heteronormative divisive ableism in her message overlaps with the outrage when Halle Bailey was cast in “The Little Mermaid,” when Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light did an ad collaboration, or when Colin Kaepernick received a deal with Nike—it all stems from white supremacy because why else are people, and by people I mean bigots, enraged if not because they want those that are other than white, straight, or slim to be the quietest and most invisible parts of America?

Double standards across beauty and fashion impact everyone who doesn’t fit the mold. Any attempt to include people has either received pushback and/or there’s a bouncer at the door to only let in those who fit the parameters of pretty enough and poster child enough. It’s an egregious misjustice and all the instances of prejudice across the industry I didn’t include break my heart, because we all deserve to be seen, heard and acknowledged, but the bias and exclusion is too much to fit into this 820 word article.

I didn’t even mention the outrage that hijabis in ads brought or the transphobia whenever the trans community is featured in TV shows, but the list goes on and on. The extent at which hate rears its ugly head in an industry that should just make people feel beautiful is something that most of us can’t wrap our heads around, but some of us (hopefully all of us) will continue to fight to correct. These double standards were ingrained in us long before we even knew what beauty and being different truly meant, because in our society, beauty is strictly subjective and those who created the ‘subjective’ definition look through a lens of bias. But if you didn’t already know, that’s not what beauty is.