The Pressures of Perfection

Hey my beautiful readers!

You've seen in movies that the women are perfect and that their hair is always on point, but that's not always the case. Sometimes, these women wanted to show the world their "morning angle" and what they look like when they just woke up in the morning.

Let's face it! Every woman out there just wants to look like a tomboy without getting questioned about their sexuality. Do you think that how you dress matters to your sexuality? Because it doesn't. It only matters when things gets a lot more difficult to handle. That's where the pressures of perfection comes in. You see things on television, movies, and even the media that people are showing "perfection" every time. And it makes hard on someone, especially for people like me.

As a Filipinx, straight hair is the norm for Filipinx beauty. When I first came back to the Philippines after ten years, my mom wanted for my sister and I to get our hair permanently straightened. I thought that she was crazy because she said that "everyone has straight hair" and started to list names of a few Filipinx celebrities. This made me feel bad about myself because I'm not the kind of person to apply the standards of Filipinx beauty on me. Don't get me wrong here. I love the fact that there's an evolving trend for beauty in the Philippines but it's not what I see on my side of the media.

In Philippine Media, women are often seen in clothing that highlights their sexuality. For heterosexual Filipinas, its skin-tight outfits. For Filipinas in the LGBT+ community, its masculine type of outfits. There's no in between. There's a problem with that for me because I often seen my family watching the Filipino channel on their tablets or mobile devices. I glance over to their device to see what they were watching and I feel so bitter about the sexualization of women in Philippine media.

The things that I see on the Filipino Channel is different from someone else's point of view. My point of view of Philippine media is that the young women that I see on variety shows seems to be sexualized. This breaks my heart because I don't think that people are seeing the big picture on how much the media affects a person's mind. The media makes people believe in the things that pressures young girls to change the way that they look in order to fit in with what the media says that they should look like. I'm not going to lie to you and say that I'm not one of those girls because I am and so are the older generation.

Growing up as a Filipinx, I'm supposed to be someone who is ladylike and is willing to show off her sexuality. But there's a problem with that. The problem is that when a Filipina turns 18 years old. She often celebrates her 18th birthday as a huge celebration. I'm going to admit to you that I had three debuts. The first one was when I was 7 years old and it was held at Storyland at SM Mall in the Philippines. I wore Belle's yellow dress and danced with my cousins. The second one was ten years later and I wore this uncomfortable gown. The party, to me, was more of a pressure to be the girl that my family always wanted me to be. It felt like work rather than a fun little evening with my family. I felt like I was worthless to them. I know that that's upsetting to read. But it's true, you know. My family didn't know me well enough because they didn't even care to talk to me about what I actually like to do and what I'm into. My mom and my sister knows that when I go on a tangent about something that I like. I will never stop talking about it.

It's funny how I could never relate to anyone on the Filipino Channel because every female character that I see on the channel are either too sexualized or undeveloped and most of the character development is on male character. The young women seemed to be left out of the equation when it comes to getting their voices heard. They are also the characters that applied a lot of the standard Filipinx beauty. I don't get it. Doesn't the female character gets to choose how she sees the world around her? Because all I see is a girl being pressured to be perfect. This is the 21st Century, right? So, women shouldn't be treated as sexual beings in the media. I know that actresses from the Classic era has their way of moving themselves away from society. Why can't I move myself away from the social norms of being a Filipino? Besides, Philippine History is filled with people who can't keep a nation under their belt. As messed up as that sounds, that's the history that I was born with. It's not perfect but I got used to having an imperfect history. Why can't society do the same with people?

Till then,