HOW THE REAL-LIFE TOLL OF TOXIC STANDARDS MOVED ME TO TEARS

Searing indictment of the ideals foisted on women is grounded in the author’s experience in the beauty industry, writes Édaein O’Connell

One 13-year-old girl said she doesn’t leave the house any more because she isn’t pretty enough in real life and looks better online

Idon’t usually cry while reading books but a passage in Pixel Flesh forced salty tears to splatter on the pages beneath me.

Writer and brand consultant Ellen Atlanta recounts a conversation with one of her best friends, Eliza, who has grown frustrated with the beauty and societal pressures that smother most women. “I just can’t do this any more,” she says. “I can’t cope with the constant f***ing chat about Instagram girls and nose jobs and what we all look like. Yeah, I’ve gained a bit of weight, but you know what? I actually don’t care… I just want a day where I don’t have to think for a single second about my appearance, or if I’m going to get the right photo, or if I can eat a croissant for breakfast, or if my bum will look good in my outfit. I don’t f***ing care.”

Mostly, I loathe using the word ‘triggering’ but this is exactly what this book was. Personally, I’m at a time in my life where my body and how it looks and moves is at the forefront of my mind. It consumes almost every thought.

Like Eliza, I too have put on weight, and while I am far from reaching the stage of not caring, I can wholly sympathise with the resentment she harbours. The mind of a woman is a suffocating place to exist and in the “capitalist, patriarchal world” Atlanta describes in this book, we can’t catch our breaths.

In Pixel Flesh, the author holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal, as well as the intense pressure on females to present a perfect image to the world while living in an age of constant comparison and curated feeds on social media.

Atlanta herself has firsthand knowledge of the tangled web the beauty industry has created. She was a founding editor of Dazed Beauty and a consultant for industry heavyweights such as Estée Lauder and Milk Makeup. In 2019, she left the land of beauty to become a founding member of both The Stack World, a network for female entrepreneurs, and Communia, which reimagines social media platforms and aims to create better digital spaces for women and marginalised genders.

Not only does Atlanta have direct knowledge from an industry that profits from female insecurity, she is also a woman who is living with her own doubts. In Pixel Flesh, she regularly weaves in her personal story and the experiences of other women and it is a highly intelligent move.

WORLD OF PARADOXES

She presents an idea, such as a chapter on ‘coloniser culture’ describing the history of injustices against women of colour, then introduces the modern day stories of women who are still discriminated against by the beauty industry. It provides the reader with a clear overview of the links between history, society and social media, and why women behave and think in such inconsistent ways when it comes to beauty.

She analyses how we live in a world of paradoxes. Women know the standards placed upon us are unhealthy, but we also recognise the power of pretty and how being beautiful can get you ahead.

We hate social media but we continue to use it in droves. We know that some images and videos are fake, that Photoshop and Facetune are in the toolkits of influencers and celebrities, yet we still continue to strive for an ideal and compare ourselves negatively to it.

In many ways, Atlanta is not breaking new ground. These are not unfamiliar ideas. The first chapter is dedicated to the Kylie Jenner effect, and how the reality star has managed to influence millions and shape the beauty ideal of our time. By now, most of us know and understand that the Kardashian and Jenner clans have clouded our judgement of what is deemed attractive.

We also recognise that algorithms are powerful and social media companies are profiting from our self-doubt and desire to be thin and pretty and perfect. These revelations are not shocking but it is the personal struggles caused by them that are deeply distressing. From eating disorders to debt caused by cosmetic procedures, digital beauty culture has had grave ramifications for women’s mental and physical well-being.

In one particularly haunting portion of the book, Atlanta describes a night out at a club where women are granted entry based on how attractive they are. She chats to one girl called Nadia, who hadn’t eaten all day so she could look ‘skinny’ in her dress.

Nadia also wants a nosejob and plans to travel to Turkey, where it will cost £12,500. Her boyfriend is abusive but has promised that he will pay for it. “I just have to stick it out for the summer,” she tells Atlanta.

A few chapters on, Atlanta investigates just how damaging social media pressure and beauty fillers are to younger generations. One 13-year-old girl tells her she doesn’t leave the house any more because she doesn’t feel pretty enough in real life and that she looks better online. Her friends nod in agreement.

The honesty and truth of the book is incredibly depressing, but it is entirely our reality. Beauty is a blessing and a curse. Girlhood is astonishing but damaging at the same time. We will always strive for something more and may never win this war against ourselves.

Atlanta says that “to be a woman is the most violent thing I will ever experience and yet I wouldn’t want to be anything else”.

I agree wholeheartedly.

⬤ ‘Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women’ by Ellen Atlanta, published by Headline, is out now