ALL EYES ON ME

For a long time men were viewed as “less conscious” about how they looked and dressed. This drove a belief that when it comes to looks, men are more confident or less self conscious than women – which simply isn’t true.

The truth is, for decades, women have faced a barrage of media telling them they had to compete with other women when it came to looks. The entire cosmetics industry was built on this. Meanwhile, men back then might have felt more insecure about other more tangible stuff, like how much money they were bringing home or how big their junk was. But these days, the scales have evened a little. With more jacked guys showing off their abs on social media, we now feel more pressure than ever to look and dress better.

The reality is that humans are social creatures, and we are constantly striving to find tribes and to fit in, so anything that makes us feel alienated from each other isn’t good in the long run. But from a “levelling of the playing field” perspective, women can take some solace in the fact that it’s no longer just females who feel the pressure to look good in a swimsuit – that guy you have a crush on is probably agonising about how many sit-ups he can do before heading to the beach, because when you get down to it, we’re all human, and we all have our insecurities.