Cultural Beauty Standards Quotes

I think the body image thing, everybody can identify with that. In our culture there's just so much pressure and so much attention placed on the way we look. You just turn on the TV or flip open a magazine and there's people who don't look like any of us. I think this movie is like, finally, a celebration of reality and of our imperfections. We're not all a size 2 and we're not all a size 0, and you know what? That's OK, because some of us like to eat!

I do think women are unfairly judged by their physical appearance, but I don’t think it had anything to do with being mixed-race. In my opinion, mixed-race people are the most beautiful.

I guess I am in handsome - in certain parts of the world. If I was, like, in Mongolia, living on a mountain and in my village, I could be the hottest guy. In L.A., I'm... average?

I find it very sad that so many girls who look up to me are young women of color who have been told that they are ugly, and who feel that they are not normal...I think it's so important that women look like me find that they can be beautiful or objects of love, attention and affection.

[Among the Arapeh... both father and mother are held responsible for child care by the entire community...] If one comments upon a middle-aged man as good-looking, the people answer: 'Good-looking? Ye-e-e-s? But you should have seen him before he bore all those children'.

Back in England, a girl with thick black hair, dusky skin and big brown eyes will turn heads. It is vice versa in India.

She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.

When I was growing up, my father would not allow me to get a perm, so I straightened my hair for special occasions.

I especially want to change the way we as Latinas see our beauty. I feel that there is a misinterpretation of what we're supposed to look like.

Every culture has beauty and decorations of body. This is not of itself superficial, this is very human. Decorating when it becomes out of balance, when it becomes about the materialism, about how many shoes, how many handbags, how expensive they are, and the status, then it's no longer just about an expression or looking beautiful, that's more about 'I HAVE MONEY, I AM RICH'. It felt out of balance.

Before I modeled, I never thought I was beautiful. Even right now, I don't think I'm beautiful. I think it's my personality that makes my beauty different and unique. If you look in the past, Chinese people have always considered things like big eyes, pointy nose, or big lips beautiful. I had the same thoughts as a child watching movies.

Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.

Our concept of beauty is taken from Hollywood, which is anti-black. We don't see ourselves as beautiful in most cases. Although we are naturally one of the most beautiful peoples out there, we don't see it. We don't get the point. Hollywood sets the standards.

I tried to conform to what everyone thinks is beautiful. But my genetics gave me a curvy figure, and I've come to understand that in the Latina culture, that is beautiful.