I approached two psychologists who have researched the female body image.

I discussed the following questions with them.
Some studies show that Some people suffer from body dysmorphic phobia. They firmly believe that certain parts of their body are unattractive and exaggerate these ‘flaws.’ But to others, they may not appear to be different from others. Experiments have shown that looking in the mirror can make people with body dysmorphic phobia feel anxious. However, it has since been revealed that healthy people who look in the mirror for more than 10 minutes also begin to experience symptoms of anxiety and stress. The relationship between the mirror and the person can be seen as the “gaze” and the “self” on the one hand, but what is the source of the anxiety that arises when confronted with their authentic self? What is the relationship between this and the authentic self?

On the other hand, the promotion of body positivity has led to anxiety among some people because they are unable to achieve the same level of confidence, which is the opposite of what I had in mind, especially in the current society where women’s rights and status have been improving, but because of some mainstream and traditional ideas that have subtly influenced many people. Even though we know that beauty is pluralistic, can we still not accept our imperfections?

Thirdly, women have been subjected to the dominant culture and the look of the outside world under the female gaze. Therefore, they tend to magnify their flaws and always ignore themselves. Therefore I am hoping to communicate through the language of images by allowing people to express their emotions and thoughts through mirror painting (e.g., drawing slogans, patterns, similar to virtual wearable decorations, etc.). Is this conducive to body image positivity, or do you have any other ideas to share?

lily

First of all, I would like to talk about anxiety; why do people, especially women, often see their shortcomings after looking in the mirror and then become anxious. First of all, it is a social factor. From ancient times to the present, traditional culture has often used women’s appearance as a criterion for evaluating women, objectifying them. Therefore, over time, under the influence of such a social environment, a woman’s thoughts are influenced by self-objectification.

When a woman is aware that her body and appearance are being judged, she will internalize these thoughts and external judgments into her perspective, attitudes, and ideas. Therefore, she also objectifies herself and sees herself as an object. The overall perspective nowadays. There is a ‘fixed’ standard of beauty for women and media campaigns that are very critical of women.

After a woman’s self-objectification, her view of herself in the mirror and her evaluation generate negative thoughts, which are different from the kind of beauty promoted in the media, generating anxiety. In addition, women’s fear is also influenced by the media and traditional culture and their standards of beauty and ugliness.

I think it is because people have formed a fixed mindset, a distorted way of thinking caused by a very long process from childhood to adulthood. As a result, it is difficult to say that this mindset can be changed entirely just because the status of women has been raised.

I also thought of a moment in psychology called projection. You project your thoughts and feelings onto the outside world, onto external people, onto external objects; for example, you see someone, and you find them particularly annoying or something like that.

That may be because of such a way of thinking; like a mirror, the appearance of that person that we see is projected over, just her appearance, and not the personality and all these other things. Having objectified that image of yourself in the mirror, that image that you see, you may project thoughts of yourself and develop a lot of dissatisfaction with him. That dissatisfaction comes from a lot of dissatisfaction that you have with yourself.

Lastly, I saw that you wanted to do a project on painting on mirrors to relieve anxiety, which felt good, but I don’t know how this painting is a way of possibly reducing stress; it might be a way of enabling people to shift their over-concerned emotions about their appearance, to shift their fixed, wrong, or distorted, fixed thinking. It’s about converting. There is also the possibility of breaking the denial of oneself. To face and accept these inadequacies in oneself, rather than being defensive and desperate to deny them or anything else, but I am happy to be part of this process.

LEE

The anxiety of looking in the mirror comes from the magnification of flaws and stress, everyone has a different understanding of their true self, and not everyone is anxious all the time. The expressions that people give to the outside world reflect their inner projections, such as the influence of their family of origin. What one sees in the mirror may not be one’s true self but a projection of one’s inner subconscious. According to Maslow’s theory of needs, people gradually become complete as they rise to a particular hierarchy level. They can realize themselves at a higher level, i.e., self-actualization at the top of the theory. The aim of self-actualization is self-satisfaction, which comes from self-preference and cannot be successful if perceptions do not match ability.

Women see their shortcomings first because they always want to see the better part of the self-actualization part. Still, the process of self-actualization requires one to perfect the ability, not the perfect self in the eyes of others. When people want to become a better version of themselves too much, motivation also affects action, which creates total acceptance of oneself and alleviates the problem of body image anxiety in women.