I'm pretty chilled out when it comes to my appearance. I don't mean that I don't care about how I look, but I want to be comfortable at the same time. That's why it kind of perplexes me to think about the lengths that some people go to for beauty. You've got people lexing their legs, spending two hours a day putting on makeup, wearing high heels and other uncomfortable clothing. But to most people who do these things, they aren't that bad. It's worth a little bit of pain and discomfort to look the way they want to, and feel good about themselves. And while it's kind of interesting to think about on its own, what really caught my interest was looking into examples of how suffering for the sake of beauty is taken to the extreme. Up until the 20th century in China, women with small feet were considered beautiful and desirable, so many girls usually around the age of five had their feet broken and bound to ensure they were married into a rich family. In some indigenous African tribes, lip plates are considered for women to be a symbol of beauty, and for men a symbol of power and status. And in the Victorian era in the UK, women would wear extremely tight corsets to appear thinner, and use dangerous ingredients like tar and lead as makeup. There are so many examples across history of how humans have purposefully injured and even disabled themselves to achieve beauty or status. Suffering as a representation of power is fairly easy to understand. You've suffered through pain and survived it, so you're a strong person. But why would we want to physically harm or handicap ourselves for beauty? Shouldn't it make it more difficult to find a mate if you look on healthy or can't move properly? Well, unlike most animals, humans are not fighting for survival. We don't need to look for a partner who can run away quickly or come afloat of themselves into the environment or fight off predators, so it's not as much of a handicap for a human to lose the ability to walk, as it would be for a tiger living in the wild, for example. Since we don't need to look for survival capabilities, we can look for other more useful traits in a partner such as wealth. Foot binding, for example, was originally practiced among upper class women, and so it was possibly an indicator that a woman was rich, for example. But why such a painful and harmful procedure? Why not just assume their wealth based on how expensive the clothing they wear is, for example? The most common story for us are agendas like this. The Emperor Lee Yu sees a dancer who's bound to a feet into the shape of a crescent moon, and he's like, well, that's pretty hot. Don't you think so guys? Yeah, do you want to whack a foot's feet like that? It's thought that the practice began in the 10th century, so it's exact origin is not 100% clear, but it speculated that it was initially enforced by men to keep women dependent on them, as they couldn't travel far or move easily in some cases. But as it was passed around that rich men like the Emperor preferred women with bound feet, even lower class women began binding their feet as they felt they had to in order to marry into wealth. Mothers would do it to their daughters because they thought that it would be best for them, and it eventually became a tradition. Eventually everyone was doing it because it was the standard of beauty. Women with unbound natural feet were considered ugly. Whether or not the procedure was enforced by men, it was done as a way to appeal to them and ensure that a woman would marry, which is a common theme throughout the majority of examples of suffering for beauty. However, as a society we have evolved out of these painful beauty traditions. It's no longer so important to attract a partner because men and women can now live comfortably without one. Now that it's not a requirement to have a partner, we can take a time with it and be more selective based on our personal preferences. So why do some people still go through pain and discomfort to achieve beauty standards if they are no longer a requirement? And why do we still have beauty standards at all if or the qualities are more useful for progressing as a society? A sense of the second question first since it's a little bit less complicated. Beauty is subjective, different people find different things beautiful or attractive depending on their personal preferences. Studies suggest that these personal preferences are most likely influenced by your surroundings and personal experiences as you grow up. So theoretically, being surrounded by the media portraying a certain look as beautiful, this may be why a lot of people are attracted to this image, but not everybody. But why these specific looks pushed as being the ideal? If you look at the people around you, finding people actually look like the ideal is pretty difficult, particularly when you consider the qualities that people can't change about themselves. Why do we promote an image that is unobtainable for a lot of people? Well, the answer is probably because of money. I mean, it can make sense. By promoting an ideal image that is ultimately unobtainable for most people, companies can sell their products along with the idea that if you keep buying these from them, you can look like that. Except you can't. But again, if attracting a husband or wife is not a requirement anymore, then why do people still care so much about what they look like? Well, romantic relationships are still considered extremely important to a lot of people. Not having a partner or never having one is typically looked down upon by society, likely because of the importance of relationships on our society, and not being interested or particularly active in seeking romantic relationships is seen as unusual. Some even go as far as to judge it as a failure, as if you don't have a partner you're an unsuccessful person. As a result, people particularly teenagers feel pressured to find a partner and therefore strive to look like the ideal man or woman in order to get one. If you're someone who feels like they have to look a certain way to find a relationship, remember that beauty is subjective. This is not the standard. Nobody expects you to look this way, and you can achieve a perfectly happy and successful life without it. Heck, you're probably actually more happy if you don't look like this. It's crazy how much time and money some people spend on their image. Must be super stressful. When did this turn into a video about promoting positive self-ravech? Anyway, all I want to say is that you don't have to suffer to achieve beauty unless you actually enjoy it. That's a thing too. I'm not condemning the use of cosmetics or getting fit or anything like that if it makes you happy. I'm just saying that you don't need to go out of your way to police people that you don't even know. you