The Detrimental Dialogue Between Indian Women, Beauty Discourse, Patriarchy and Indian Feminism

Abstract

This framework article analyses the established connection of body image and skin tone to the ideology of power and status and the need for Indian women to achieve those beauty standards to be celebrated in their field. Even though women have gained more power, they are still defined by and in the context of men in India. Men have subtly and constructively translated this power discourse over women that has been stretching across centuries through the channels of art, literature and the portrayal of the goddesses. This pressure to continually conform to beauty’s cultural ideals and sculpt oneself to those unattainable standards leads to body dissatisfaction. It affects the image the woman has of herself. The patriarchal structure that dominates the Indian women habitus has translated the ideology of this Western concept of beauty into a ‘common sense’ that has compelled women to impose a ‘self-hegemonic’ stance and the role of Indian feminism in fighting this emerging oppressive structure.