Unrealistic Standards Quotes

“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive.

Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers. Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks - call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex - and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical-grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks.

Biologists call this "supernormal stimulus" [...] Our beauty receptors receive more stimulation than they were evolved to handle; we're seeing more beauty in one day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. And the result is that beauty is slowly ruining our lives.

How? The way any drug becomes a problem: by interfering with our relationships with other people. We become dissatisfied with the way ordinary people look because they can't compare to supermodels.”
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

“In truth, feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed. For whatever reason, we hold feminism to an unreasonable standard where the movement must be everything we want and must always make the best choices. When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“When you want to be a woman, follow my advice. Speak in a thin, pretty voice. It has to be high-pitched. Try pushing it up into your nose. Cover your mouth when you laugh. Press down firmly and neatly when writing. Grow your hair to your shoulders. Curls are discouraged. Flap your wrists often. Show enthusiasm about grocery shopping and cooking. Beef up your cooking skills. Be unfailingly kind to others—especially men. Use your charm to get out of danger. Fall in love with a man. Eat very little. Even if you really want to finish it, leave some on your plate. Make sure you attain a slim figure and maintain it for your whole life. Play dumb, with no regard for your actual intelligence. Disparage your driving. Be chatty. Try your best to sincerely enjoy cleaning and doing laundry. Think of weakness as a virtue, and let your strength rot away. Wear makeup even in your dreams. Wear bright clothing. Conceal your sexual appetite, and take it to your grave. Become shyness incarnate. . . . There’s a fuckton more where that all comes from. I just couldn’t write it all down. To act the part of a woman, you’ve got to memorize a hefty script.”
― Dolki Min, Walking Practice