The True Meaning

According to Google, the word beautiful is defined as pleasing the sense or mind aesthetically. Also Google defines beautiful as being “of very high standard; excellent”. If this is the definition of beautiful, why do so many girls and women of all ages think they’re not beautiful? Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty focuses on expanding the true meaning of beauty and what it really means for someone to be beautiful. By expanding these boundaries, women of all ages, races, ethnicities, sizes, and shapes can be encouraged to feel beautiful in their own skin. According to the website, only 2% of women worldwide would describe themselves as beautiful. To me, that’s a pretty astounding statistic. 2% of women. The whole entire world. Wow. Why is this so important? The answer is simple. Why should we allow 98% of the female population to feel this way? Women, just as equally as men are, are the future of this Earth. We should teach them to feel confident, to feel comfortable, to feel beautiful in their bodies. That is the main goal of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. The project started in 2004, with public campaign ads and commercials to make women reflect on themselves. By using examples of everyday women in ads, it shows that other women can relate and find true beauty in themselves as well. Also, by showing these ads and commercials, it gets the female public involved, who is their main target audience. Although the campaign doesn’t have any many critics, it has one force that may alter women’s perceptions of themselves. Victoria’s Secret is a multimillion dollar company featuring overpriced lingerie and models that work way too hard to maintain their bodies. Although Victoria’s Secret doesn’t come right out and bash the Dove campaign, a lot of young girls are influenced by these models. Twitter blows up every time the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show comes on about how these models are “body goals” or how “perfect Candice” is. Then, every girl before, during, and after the show tries to find out how to get a body like one of the models and keep it. Along with girls, guys are drooling over these unattainable models, wishing they could just see one in person in their lifetime. Even models like Kate Moss, Kendall Jenner, and Miranda Kerr are all fantasized by young and even older people. So why is this important and what does this teach young girls? It teaches young girls to be like the women they see on the front cover of these magazines or on the runways. It teaches them that they have to have a select beauty style, figure, face, and other qualities to be like these women. Instead of trying to change, Dove encourages young girls and women to embrace their natural beauty, to show off their true colors. What is more important for women? Trying to be like every other model and runway girl that they see on Instagram, or to be themselves, just the way they are. The strategy is to use empowered women that feel confident and comfortable in their skin and have them show off what it feels to enjoy life in your own skin. By using these women, the female population will slowly start to understand that it’s okay to be whoever you are. Driving the strategy are the people behind the Dove campaign, supporting the ads, the commercials, the pictures and making sure the campaign is as successful as it possibly can to make the female population comfortable in their own skin. By persuading the viewers to be happy with their bodies is one of the most important things, and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty achieves that. They show women that being yourself and embracing every part of you is what is special about you and that is the true meaning of the word beautiful.