Being a woman in 2026

One of the biggest things that stands out to me as an adult is how normalized it is for us to police women. We have internalized unrealistic, patriarchal beauty standards so deeply that we have never been quicker to criticize each other, and ourselves, for how we look.

It feels like, no matter what decision we make, we can’t win. If you’re what society considers “attractive”, you’re threatening and should be humbled. If you’re “ugly”, you’re not valuable. If you’re older, you’d better not look older—oh, and you’re also not valuable. If you undergo plastic surgery, then you’re not accepting yourself. Your make-up isn’t quite right. Your hair isn’t flattering to your features. You need to look better.

Don’t smile too much. Don’t furrow your brows. Don’t crease your forehead. Avoid sunlight at all costs. God forbid anyone sees any evidence that we’ve felt feelings and lived life.

Every negative comment on my viral throwback post targeted one of three things: my age, my appearance, or my lifestyle choices. After noticing this pattern, I started seeing women everywhere being targeted in the same ways.

Erin Burford’s post, My outfits this week as a 36 year old in corporate, recently came across my For You Page. Erin was simply sharing chic outfits she wore to work. Imagine my disgust when I opened the comments and found very few focused on the outfits. Almost all shamed her for looking older than they believed a 36-year-old woman should look. And almost all comments came from women, delivered in a cheeky, backhanded manner.

Listen, you not 36 but you cute for whatever age you are.

36 years as in age or as in corporate experience?

She looks amazing for 63

It felt like the same day that I saw Jamie Janejira’s reel about plastic surgery. She read a written reflection aloud, describing how she once longed for plastic surgery and struggled to accept her face and body. As she grew older, she became more accepting of herself after seeing features she once disliked represented beautifully in women around her and in media. She shared the realization that there are infinite types of beauty, and she has come to cherish her unique qualities. I opened the comments expecting support, and at the very top I found:

“Just embrace uniqueness” sounds extremely hollow when the speaker’s story includes getting the chest she wanted. Also seeing the trait you disliked represented as beautiful sounds more like societal validation doing its work than true inner healing.

Now it isn’t enough to love and accept our natural bodies. Apparently, how we come to the conclusion that we love ourselves is also not good enough.

Instead of criticizing the multibillion-dollar industry, media representation, and marketing campaigns that train women to feel insecure about their bodies, let’s just keep criticizing women.

There is no winning within a system that profits from our dissatisfaction with ourselves. Try as we might, no one is immune to the fact that our bodies are skin suits that will rest in the ground one day. I wish we would stop perpetuating the narrative that our value is determined by how beautiful others perceive us to be.

We are sentient beings on a floating rock in space. Beauty is our birthright, and it’s not because our bodies satisfy a certain standard. It’s because it’s a miracle that we are even here at all. Like all other forms of life, we age. There is no wrong way to do it; we just do it. And it’s beautiful.

Seasons change. Water moves. Bodies mature. Women get older. These things are all natural. Yet we attach judgment to these changes. We accuse each other of looking too old, being ugly, letting ourselves go, or accepting ourselves incorrectly.

We have constructed a system of aesthetic expectations that demands women’s bodies not behave like nature.

This is not natural. It is learned.

It starts when we’re babies. The expectations are thrust upon us: the “correct” colors and clothes, how our hair is cut, which toys we’re given to play with. As we become girls, we learn to assess ourselves through the eyes of other people. Eventually, simply existing becomes a performance of womanhood.

Social media augments this expectation to perform. We share, then others engage with what we share. External validation is embedded in the exchange. We curate photos and videos to represent ourselves in the digital world, so the line between appearance and identity becomes increasingly blurred. Likes and comments make our value feel measurable.

Posting stopped being fun for me around my mid-twenties. It felt performative and inauthentic. I would scroll and compare my appearance, accomplishments, and creativity to others. It felt like my light wasn’t nearly as bright as everyone else’s. I had internalized the message from my childhood that I was not worthy unless others recognized my worth. I was not beautiful unless others told me I was beautiful. No wonder I felt lost and unhappy.

I had to step away from the noise. I spent less time on social media. I spent a lot of time with myself. I spent a lot of time with nature. Immersing myself in creation, exploring the connection between my mind and body, and eventually creating life helped me realize that my value completely transcends my body. I am a participant in the natural order of this world. My power comes not from the validation of others, but from the trust I have in myself and in the life around me.

I am as expansive as the universe. The thoughts, feelings, art, experiences, and life I am capable of creating are all beautiful. My very existence is beautiful. What others think of me can never diminish that.