Recent research published in Journal of Health Psychology Our results suggest that identifying as a feminist may paradoxically increase certain body image concerns among college women. This finding provides evidence that feminist beliefs can sometimes encourage the pursuit of a materialistic lifestyle, which tends to reinforce unrealistic beauty standards and digital photo editing behaviors.
In modern culture, media exposure constantly presents women with a narrow definition of physical attractiveness. This continued exposure can lead to self-objectification, a mental state in which individuals begin to view their bodies simply as objects to be evaluated by others. Recognizing these pressures, many are turning to feminism as a spiritual shield against harmful beauty standards.
Feminism advocates gender equality and encourages individuals to challenge traditional expectations. For this reason, it is generally believed that having feminist beliefs tends to make women less dissatisfied with their bodies. Existing research provides mixed evidence regarding the extent to which feminist beliefs actually protect against negative body image.
Researchers Dongdong Yang and Yi Luo wanted to understand why feminism doesn’t necessarily reduce body dissatisfaction. “As a feminist myself, I’m always interested in the potential positive impact feminism has on women’s lives,” said Yang, an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University.
“Since feminism promotes a critical evaluation of social imperatives and encourages women to challenge the beauty ideals prevalent in patriarchal societies, one naturally wonders whether a feminist identity can protect women from body image concerns and behaviors.”
“For the past five years, I have researched a large body of literature and led two publications in leading journals to examine how feminist beliefs and feminist identities influence women’s body image-related perceptions and behaviors in the US and Chinese contexts,” Yang explained. “Empirical findings show that feminism provides limited protection for women in terms of body image, which is counterintuitive. I therefore initiated this study to explore the underlying mechanisms.”
The central concept of this study is neoliberal feminism, a contemporary framework that links women’s empowerment with individual empowerment, personal responsibility, and free market participation. This approach generally focuses on achieving gender equality through upward mobility, career success, and economic independence.
Because these values often overlap with consumer culture, Yang and Luo designed their study to investigate how messages of modern consumerism influence feminist women’s views of their bodies. They reasoned that some people might hold an “ideal of material abundance,” a belief system that equates personal success with wealth and the possession of impressive things.
The researchers proposed that accepting this materialistic mindset may naturally lead to internalizing the “perfect body ideal.” Internalization occurs when a person unconsciously adopts external cultural standards as their own standards. Once we internalize the ideal of the perfect body, we begin to judge our own worth based on how well we match the media-driven image of perfection.
Yang and Luo also wanted to observe how these cultural pressures differ around the world. They decided to compare female college students in the United States and China. These two countries differ greatly in their cultures’ emphasis on facial appearance and body shape. There are also differences in how individuals view themselves in relation to society, with American culture promoting independence and Chinese culture emphasizing more interdependent social harmony.
To explore these ideas, Yang and Luo conducted an online survey and offered course credit to participants. They assembled a purposive sample of 444 female college students. This group included 208 students from a university in the northeastern United States and 236 students from a comparable university in China.
The researchers excluded male respondents and non-feminists from the final dataset, focusing specifically on women who identified as feminists. The study asked participants a series of questions to measure body and face satisfaction. Participants rated how satisfied they were with specific physical characteristics on a numerical scale ranging from completely dissatisfied to completely satisfied.
The researchers also assessed how strongly participants had internalized the ideals of a materially good life and the ideal of a perfect body. Next, respondents answered questions to gauge the strength of their feminist identification. This section of the survey measured the extent to which people felt that feminism shaped their personal identity and sense of belonging to their political community.
Finally, the survey asked women to report how often they edit selfies. Selfie editing refers to the act of using digital tools or smartphone applications to change the appearance in a photo before posting it on social media.
Yang and Luo found that internalizing the ideal of a materially rich life was positively correlated with internalizing the ideal of a perfect body. Simply put, women who believed that success meant having material wealth were also more likely to believe that success required having a perfect appearance.
Data show that internalizing the perfect body ideal is associated with lower facial satisfaction. When participants strongly adopted society’s beauty standards, they were more likely to feel bad about their own facial features. Additionally, we found that internalizing both material and beauty ideals led to more frequent selfie editing.
“Selfie editing is motivated by internalizing society’s ideals rather than body or facial satisfaction,” Yang told SciPost. “Feminist identity may indirectly lead to selfie editing because feminist identity facilitates women’s internalization of ideals of the material good life.”
Yang pointed out that overcoming social backlash could contribute to this dynamic. “Feminists have long been stigmatized around the world, so they are motivated to prove that they are materially successful and physically attractive, which turns out to be a risk factor for women’s body image,” Yang said.
Researchers observed significant differences between the two cultural groups. For Chinese students, identifying as feminists was positively linked to internalizing the ideal of a materially prosperous life. This suggests that Chinese women who feel a strong connection to feminism are more likely to accept consumerist values as indicators of personal empowerment.
In the case of American students, this particular connection did not exist, indicating that their feminist beliefs did not translate into a desire for material wealth in quite the same way. Yang and Luo suggest that this difference may be due to each country’s unique political climate. In China, feminist activism faces significant social and political backlash.
Feminists in China may feel intense pressure to demonstrate traditional professional and economic success in order to prove their worth and gain a sense of empowerment. This drive for success easily bleeds into the desire for a perfect lifestyle and perfect appearance.
The relationship between internalizing the perfect body ideal and dissatisfaction with actual body shape was stronger among American participants. American women who adopted these strict beauty standards felt inferior about their overall body shape compared to Chinese women. The authors point out that mainstream beauty ideals in the United States focus on body size and build.
In contrast, mainstream beauty ideals in East Asian cultures tend to focus on facial features. The results showed that Chinese women edited their selfies much more often than American women. For Chinese participants, the scientists found a direct chain reaction in that identifying as a feminist increased their desire for a materially rich life, which in turn increased their desire for a perfect body, which in turn led to digital photo editing.
As with all research, there are some limitations. This study is based on self-reported data collected at one point in time. This cross-sectional design makes it difficult to say conclusively that holding a feminist identity directly causes people to become more materialistic or to edit their photos more frequently. It is quite possible that social pressures simultaneously influence both women’s political identity and appearance concerns.
Another potential misconception is the idea that feminism is inherently harmful to a person’s body image. Although the scale the authors used measured the strength of feminist identification, it did not measure the specific type of feminism practiced by each participant. Some forms of feminism heavily criticize society’s standards of beauty, while others focus on personal choice and consumer empowerment.
“Feminist principles are dependent on sociopolitical context, so we need to be careful about generalizing our findings beyond the U.S. and Chinese cultures,” Yang said. Future research could investigate how different subsets of feminist beliefs influence body image in different ways.
“Furthermore, in examining the influence of feminist identification on feminist body image, future research should clarify which iterations of feminism women identify with and whether they embrace the materialistic values characteristic of consumer culture,” Yang noted. Including measures of individuals’ cultural attitudes, such as how much a person values independence versus community harmony, could also add depth to the findings.
The study, “Empowered but Dissatisfied: Why Feminism Can’t Reduce Negative Body Image? A Cross-Cultural Study,” was authored by Dongdong Yang and Yi Luo.
