Yesterday, we pointed out that the pressure to be thin is only one of the many issues that Asian women face. The need to be beautiful seems to increase daily and Asian women are taking extreme measures to get there.
One such measure is surgery. Last month, the public couldn’t stop talking about television personality Julie Chen and her decision to go under the knife to progress her career. Of course, this is nothing compared to the startling amount of surgeries happening in Asia.
Korean photographer Ji Yeo claims, “Plastic surgery has become an integral part of Korea’s current culture, often regarded as an integral step in the self improvement process. It is a culture where men are judged on their financial balance sheet and women on their beauty. The male-dominated media endlessly reinforces its model of the idea woman. As a result of these cultural forces Korea has become a beauty-oriented society where people are judged more for their appearance than their character.”
In fact, a Korean woman recently went through a number of surgical procedures to look like Victoria’s Secret model, Miranda Kerr. Of course, all this comes with a price. Aside from the rather large sum of money women are coughing up to be more beautiful, surgery runs the risk of long-term complications. Take Xiao Lian for example. The already pretty woman decided to get surgery on her face and is now struggling with the deterioration of her face years later.
So what’s a girl to do when she doesn’t want the risks of surgery, but can’t deal with the overwhelming pressure to be beautiful? Apparently, some Asian women are turning to photoshop.
The rise of social media and online dating has its share of ups and downs. A notable downside to online dating is the misleading profile pictures. Who hasn’t heard of proper “myspace angles” when taking pictures or the infamous guy who posts up a pictures of himself ten years younger. Social media users have all been warned time and time again– what you see is not necessarily what you get.
A Chinese news and gossip site recently posted up pictures of a woman before and after photoshop. The images quickly went viral and left many Chinese readers in disbelief. World News Views reports, “Reactions ranged from impressed to shocked to downright disturbed that such a ‘plain’ person could become a radiant beauty when equipped with the right tools. Some people needed to be convinced that it was even the same girl.”
To many of us, the altering of pictures is nothing new. In fact, this has become so common that there are even mobile apps which “beautify” pictures as well. For example, the app Beauty Plus smoothens pores, slims down your face, and brightens your eyes with just one tap.
The pressure to be beautiful will surely increase with the rise in photoshop and beauty apps. So tell us what you think– Is it too much? Did this girl even need photoshop to begin with?
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