WUNRN
Lebanon
- Campaign for Authentic, Diverse, Female Beauty Perceptions
Lebanon campaign ‘anadiva’ aims to show an alternative to plastic surgery
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
August 20, 2009
BEIRUT:
How many Lebanese women have you seen today with plastic surgery or who look
like they’ve spent several hours preening? With Lebanon having acquired
something of a reputation abroad for its predilection for surgery, the answer
is likely to be several. Tired of being subjected to pressures of physical
appearance, one Lebanese woman has launched a campaign in order to celebrate
authentic, diverse beauty – the kind she argues is rapidly being lost to “look
alike” surgeries that are often styled on the features of a select few
celebrities and models.
ANADiva
(Arabic for “I’m a diva”) is the brainchild of 26-year-old Gwen Bou Jaoude. As
part of the campaign, she has launched a social networking site where members
can discuss representations of beauty, and a competition to create the
campaign’s character. The website is one of the first Lebanese initiatives to
demonstrate that other means of self-expression exist for women, Bou Jaoude
said. “This online community proves that there are still members of the public
who are against this metamorphosing of our society.”
The
campaign will conclude with an alternative fashion show that celebrates real
women’s bodies in all their shapes and sizes. Lebanese cartoonist Stavro Jabra
and Nienke Klunder, a Dutch-American photographer who works with the themes of
body image and self-expression, have already signed up to collaborate on the
campaign, as has web developing company Star Point Star, who offered to design
the website.
“Everyone
has a different opinion of beauty,” Bou Jaoude said, adding she hoped the
ANADiva campaign will improve Lebanese women’s perceptions of themselves,
celebrate individuality, and encourage critical thinking about mainstream
standards of beauty. “The public should be given an alternative” to the one
currently toted by the mainstream media and advertisers, she added. “They
brainwash you [about how you should look] without you even realizing.”
Bou
Jaoude’s efforts come at a time of growing debate within the fashion and
cosmetics sectors about beauty. Dove, a leading beauty products company, has
launched its own “Real Beauty” campaign and fashion magazines like Vogue and
Elle are now actively trying to use more black and Asian models in an effort to
show the beauty industry does not only view white women as attractive.
One
of the reasons Bou Jaoude decided to launch the campaign was she felt the
Lebanese, through surgery, were losing their cultural identity and becoming
carbon copies of their European and North American counterparts. Lebanese women
should embrace their looks, Jaoude said. “Variety is healthy within a
society.”
Cosmetic
surgery and the cosmetic industry are lucrative trades – according to the
International Herald Tribune, in 2007 alone, the two were estimated to be worth
around $14 billion in sales globally. More and more women, though also men, are
opting for surgery, swelling the industry’s coffer’s by an additional $1
billion each year.
In a
questionnaire conducted by ANADiva of 65 Lebanese women between the age of 21
and 38, 46 said they would go under the knife in order to “look sexy.” With
billboards, television adverts and pop stars offering a narrow, airbrushed
image of beauty, “women are striving to look like an ideal that doesn’t exist,
an ideal that has been digitally created,” Bou Jaoude said. She cited
statistics showing that the average individual comes across 600-625 images of
women that have been digitally enhanced. Bombarded with images of perfection
from a young age, Bou Jaoude said it wasn’t surprising so many Lebanese women
contemplated plastic surgery.
As
the ANAdiva campaign states, “The average person currently faces the pressure
of upholding certain “body commandments”: women are expected to be thin, tall,
toned and glamorous. In particular, Lebanese women are feeling compelled to
meet such “commandments” at any cost, creating ‘look alike’ females.”
Out
of the seven women questioned by The Daily Star, only one said they would
describe themselves as “beautiful,” and three said they had already had or were
seriously considering plastic surgery. Five of the women said they knew people
who were on diets or had eating disorders.
Yasmine,
who underwent cosmetic surgery earlier this year, said social pressure to look
good was a contributing factor in her decision. “You see all these pictures of
gorgeous women and even if you know you’ll never look like that, you often end
up trying to live up to those images,” she said, adding she spent around $150
each month on beauty products, facials and hairdressing. “You have to match the
standard if you want to attract a man.”
“People
are getting a certain image of how women should look,” Bou Jaoude said.
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