Beauty by numbers
When Dove's largest global beauty study to date, The Real Truth About Beauty: Revisited, was released in 2010, it sparked many conversations about beauty.
The survey revealed that 54% of women globally agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic.
South Africa wasn’t one of the 20 countries that participated in the 2010 global survey, so Dove South Africa commissioned a local online survey to see how local women measured up.
The South African survey wasn’t far behind the global figure of 54%, with 45% of South African women admitting that they are their own greatest source of beauty pressure.
While South African women are far more confident with their own beauty than the women represented in the global survey – in contrast to the global figure of 4%, the local survey revealed that 53% of the 470 women that participated described themselves as beautiful – the South African study did reveal that women locally experience the same beauty pressures as women the world over.
“What’s interesting is that the further the survey delved into the average South African woman’s perception of beauty and societal pressure to look beautiful, the more their answers mimicked those women in other parts of the world,” says Dove marketing manager Kate Swan.
While the majority of women globally admitted to feeling pressure to be beautiful (59%), 32% of South African women said they feel pressured to be beautiful most of the time and 49% said they feel pressured to be beautiful occasionally.
Image courtesy stock.xchnge
The global research uncovered an interesting beauty paradox: while 80% of women see the beauty in others, agreeing that every woman has something about her that is beautiful, they are unable to recognise their own beauty. South African women fall prey to the same dilemma. Forty-three percent of the women surveyed admitted they accept a compliment easily, yet 47% admitted that the aspect of themselves that they criticise the most is how they look.
“We’re encouraging women locally to join our conversation around real beauty and to share their opinions. We want South African women to change the way they see beauty and to be less critical of themselves,” says Swan.
