"Looks" pressure on Asian women

I'm inspired to blog after reading this: Fat for an Asian. I’m a big believer of ‘’true beauty comes from within”. However, in Asian culture, there is still so much pressure on women regarding their appearance. For men, they are well accepted if they are successful in whatever they are pursuing….The awful thing is that they criticize women almost “publicly” about their look. When I was a kid, almost everyone said ‘’oh her brother is so cute but she’s not.’’ It made me feel bad every time. I wasn’t as favored as my brother- they all loved him no matter how annoying he could be…! Then my mom said ‘’look is not important, just focus on other things to become a better person’’.

I was always in a top 10 list in school but never chosen as a beauty for any of school ceremonies. It bothered me that I wasn’t popular. It bothered me even more that I didn’t feel ‘accepted’’ and ‘’favored’’.  

The qualities they consider beautiful for women are lighter skin with slim/thin body. I was born with not fair skin and I was a little bit “chubby” for their standards.

Now that I have lived in a different culture/country where there are different expectations and standards about beauty/looks. I have learned that beauty comes from within and true beauty is confidence-loving yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin with all the imperfections.

However, I still know that the pressure for women over Asia is still pretty high. Even if you are comfortable in your own skin that you were born with, if they don’t consider you beautiful and accept you as beautiful, it’s still pretty tough for a lot of women over there. I think it’s so wrong but I can’t change the society or people how to think and what to accept. I can't even change my own parents to accept me as who I am ( well that's a whole different issue :) ). It’s so frustrating....I’m pretty happy here as being who I am and very comfortable in my own skin. But I just wonder sometimes if they could change…or if women as a whole can stand strong and fight to be accepted as who they are? Chances still seem to be thin…