To write your first book, Virtual diva. How an image-obsessed world has distorted women’s bodies, British Ellen Atlanta (30) interviewed more than 100 women of different ages and backgrounds. Of normative or non-normative beauty, young and old, large, medium or small, cis, trans, white, black… they all agreed on the same thing: their bodies were not what they wanted. “The prevailing conversations were the feeling of not feeling good about oneself and an idea of constant surveillance that even eight-year-old girls told me about. The latter is a subtle perception, it’s behaving as if they are constantly watching you and putting their guts into it when you sit in a restaurant or check if your hair is positioned correctly while you work. It’s a permanent self-control that is exhausting,” she reflects in a video call. All the women told stories about their bodies that they were ashamed of, but when they opened the box of secrets it was discovered that they had all had similar experiences: “We live in a world where feminism is talked about and it should be over, you are expected to have power and there are pink messages on Instagram saying ‘You are amazing’. But then women feel worse than they did 20 years ago and they can’t explain why.”
Aesthetic pressure is nothing new, it is something that has always accompanied women (a walk in any art gallery is enough to confirm this), but it has never been so extreme. Nor had it been as present as it is now, through screens that alternate and normalize filters of perfection or breathless aesthetic interventions. Yes inside The myth of beauty Naomi Wolf analyzes how the arrival of the mass media has worsened the situation, Atlanta updates the 1990 feminist classic with the role of social networks. “They make us believe that every person has the opportunity to choose how to present themselves (outside the constraints of traditional media). Instead, the data suggests the opposite,” she writes in the book where she collects data on how the problem is impacting the mental health of younger girls, who according to the WHO already double the rates of depression among boys. Algorithms are neither harmless nor neutral: programmed mostly by men, they increase the visibility of those who best fit the canon.
It’s a mechanism that’s hard to escape: “I’ve spoken to women who have told me that since they don’t wear makeup or would ever consider surgery, the topic doesn’t concern them. But you start asking them about their relationship with food, exercise or sex and ambiguous feelings always appear. The idea of beauty is much broader than we usually recognize. It’s not just about makeup or cosmetic surgery, but about the whole way our body is perceived by society, how it is interpreted and how this affects opportunities, respect or safety.” So everything ties into gender or class or race.
“With the standards we’ve become accustomed to, if you look at photos of 90s celebrities on the red carpet today, it almost looks like they’re disheveled.” There are unkempt eyebrows, different noses, unwhitened teeth, thin lips, makeup that reveals the pores… The list of requests to be satisfied is increasingly unattainable and has grown in a short time. It’s also more expensive than ever. A few weeks ago Kris Jenner appeared on the cover of Vogue Arabia boasting a surprisingly rejuvenated face after undergoing a lifting which could have cost him around 255,000 euros. “Beauty is a question of class. In the future the rich will be able to look 20 years old, with all the benefits that this entails, and only the poor who cannot pay for these treatments will age. It’s a slightly dystopian idea, but we are getting closer,” says the author, who reflects on all the derivatives. Because, at the same time, “low-income people are judged for getting manicures, even though sometimes that makes the difference between feeling able to go out on the street or not. Maybe getting your nails done means getting a job as a receptionist. Beauty has become so important in our society that to be seen and respected it must meet certain requirements.” Some that are not the same for everyone, because in beauty there is also privilege. Ella Emhoff or Lola Leon (Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter and Madonna’s daughter respectively) can afford not to shave; If a racialized woman did it, she would immediately give up even applying for a job in front of the public.
The role of celebrities is very important, increasingly present on those social networks that influence so much. This is why we should expect more from them, defends the writer. “I try to empathize with them, but I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I understand what it means to be a highly visible woman and the pressures that come with it, however, most of these celebrities, especially the Kardashians, manipulate authenticity. They hide information as a strategy and take no responsibility for the ways they have harmed so many women and girls by selling diet pills, appetite suppressants, or providing body ideals that are unattainable for most. However understand their position is difficult, they take advantage of the system. They are rich and famous, but they also want to play the media game of “I’m a victim too”. In the case of such visible women, we tend to valorise the entire context from which their decisions arise (pressure, machismo, patriarchy, etc.), but this is where the funnel stops to analyze the context that derives from those decisions and how they feed the machine of which they say they are victims.
Returning to the Kardashians, always an archetype to illustrate this problem, their faces and bodies are happy with them reality and vary according to the season. The latest trend? Since the arrival of drugs such as Ozempic, thinness. They never wore plus sizes, but often showed off challenging curves. The issue of size is delicate, because fat bodies unleash a visceral hatred almost comparable to that aroused in reactionary madmen by those of trans women. Both challenge the system. “There is a book by Sabrina Strings, Fearing the black bodywhich argues that the root lies in racism and colonialism. I think there is a return to morality linked to thinness and the idea of controlling one’s body to stay thin. Especially in the case of women, it is something that society appreciates and rewards, the ability to demonstrate that one can punish oneself and be obedient to lose weight, even if we know that losing weight does not depend on following the rules. “There’s a lot of moralizing about fat, which is associated with loss of control.”
I think there is a return to morality linked to thinness and the idea of controlling one’s body to stay thin.
On the other side of the mirror
Existing as a woman today means navigating an ocean of paradoxes in which it is difficult to be optimistic. Especially when the increasingly restrictive rent is sold as a choice. Or, worse yet, as empowerment. The departure will be together. “We can fight against this phenomenon as a collective, without forgetting individual power. You may not be able to change the structure, but it will affect the women around you. For example, letting your belly breathe or wearing that bikini you don’t feel comfortable in, will still see a girl who will internalize that all bodies are beautiful. Use one less cosmetic or give up a procedure.”
Resist each to the extent of their possibilities and their margin of action: “I’m white and blonde, so obviously it’s easier for me than for a trans woman or a woman with dark skin, so my responsibility is also greater. I go to give conferences in schools and I like to vary the way I present myself, to demonstrate that I can appear well-groomed or not, and I always deserve to be listened to. It’s not about putting an end to everything, I’m a great believer in the fact that beauty can be fun, an expression of self. Playing with makeup at a sleepover, sharing secrets while painting in nightclub bathrooms or hair salons. The version of beauty culture that connected us, the one that allowed us to experiment, has been taken away from us. We must reclaim that beautiful part and decisions that do not contribute to the oppression of others is a political act.
Ellen Atlanta
Deusto, 2025
336 pages. 22.95 euros
