The Loss of Female Facial Diversity

They’re all getting work done to look the SAME. #TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

Recently while watching a reality TV show, it took me nearly half the season before I was able to tell three out of the four female leads apart from each other. 

This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time, and I do actually think I must have some kind of mild face blindness. (If I’m starting a new TV show or watching a movie, it generally takes me a little while to orient myself and differentiate between any characters who look similar, and I’ve had a movie ruined more than once by thinking two different actors were the same person.)

But something different was going on with this show. Something bigger and more troubling: these women really, really looked alike. 

It’s not just that they were all super-skinny and conventionally attractive white girls with long blonde hair and white teeth, either. That was definitely the case, but it was the copy-and-paste nature of their overall faces that made them so difficult to differentiate. 

Last week I wrote about how our culture is facing the tragic extinction of unique and interesting faces (click here to read it!), and this is a prime example of that pattern.

Thanks to the convergence of social media filters, influencer culture, and the rising popularity of cosmetic interventions whose goal is always vaguely stated to be “facial balancing and harmony,” women’s faces are all starting to look the same. 

For years now, women—and in particular women with a certain amount of money and visibility—have been meticulously removing anything about their faces that make them stand out, while simultaneously adding things to their face to move them closer to the cultural “ideal.” 

Some people describe this new aesthetic as “Instagram face” or “influencer face,” because women whose careers are built around their image tend to all get the same kinds of cosmetic treatments and procedures done, and are working from the same kind of template.

To be clear, it’s not the work that each individual gets done itself which is identical, but rather that the end goal of the work being suggested and done is.

If you go into a medspa or plastic surgery consultation and ask “what should I do to look better?” you will automatically be given recommendations designed to fix any “flaws” that make you look unique, and move you closer to the “ideal face” that everyone else is being encouraged to move toward as well.

It’s worth noting here that when a surgeon or provider is looking at someone’s face and making suggestions about what should be fixed or changed to make them look “better,” the aesthetic ideal that they’re working from is entirely gendered. 

This is why I say Botox, filler, and plastic surgery are all “gender affirming care”—because people almost never want to get work done that will make them read as less visibly aligned with their gender identity. 

If a woman shows up at a clinic or doctor’s office and asks them to help her look “better” overall, her provider will immediately compare her to a mental model of an “idealized female face,” and suggest ways to close the gap. 

Everything her doctor suggests will be designed to move her closer to that model of youthful femininity: full lips, smooth/bright skin, big open eyes, full/high cheekbones, a slim jawline and tapered chin, and an overall feeling of softly contoured features flowing gently into each other. 

If a man walked into the same clinic and made the same request, however, his provider would automatically compare him to a mental model of an “idealized masculine face,” and start giving him suggestions for moving him closer to that model of virile manliness. Squared and angular jaw, strong chin and browbone, high/wide cheekbones, and an overall feeling of sharpness, angularity, and distinctly chiseled features. 

Also, the people who provide and market this kind of cosmetic work always say they’re helping people achieve "facial balancing and harmony,” but like… what does that actually mean? 

It sounds harmless in theory, but in practice this tends to mean erasing all the unique qualities of a person’s face in favor of creating a homogeneously symmetrical, proportional, and conventionally attractive face. 

Do you have a slightly crooked smile? You can fix that hideous deformity with Botox. Deep laugh lines? Smooth that embarrassing flaw out with filler. Genetic dark or puffy under eyes? Inflate them up or scoop them out! Cute little chin? Project it out to “match” your other features! Baby fat or roundness? Get rid of it! Hollows or shadows? Fill them in! Forehead too small? Move the hairline back. Forehead too big? Move the hairline down or get a brow lift! Hooded eyes, dark spots, or jowls? Get rid of something! Features not sharp or full enough? Add something!

The work itself is endless, but the goal is always the same: get closer to the (gender-appropriate) “ideal.” 

And with millions of women all striving for the same goal and calling upon the same interventions now, their faces are getting more similar than ever before. 

This is what was happening on the show I was watching—the female leads all had a version of “Instagram face” that made it hard to tell them apart. 

They all looked very pretty, but in a bland and sort of uncanny way. And by scrolling back in their social media feeds (something I like to do when I see people with this kind of face), I was able to confirm my suspicions: these women looked absolutely nothing like their photos from five or so years ago!

It’s true, of course, that we all look different as we get older, and we can all look very different depending on our weight, styling, and lifestyle habits during different eras. But these women were truly unrecognizable compared to their past selves. 

And while I can absolutely acknowledge and appreciate that these women are conventionally attractive and beautiful now, I find that, without exception, I feel more drawn to their older, more unique, less “worked on” faces. 

To be clear, these women have absolute bodily autonomy, and I support their right to do whatever the hell they want with their own bodies and faces. It doesn't and shouldn’t matter what I think, and I know my opinions and preferences are utterly irrelevant. 

But… It's interesting to notice how their old “imperfect” faces seem to light something up in my brain that their new “perfect” faces simply don’t. 

And this makes me sad—not about any individual woman, but about the overall cultural loss of female facial uniqueness. 

If you go back and watch TV or movies made in the 90s or early 2000s, you will see a level of facial diversity among women that is currently unfathomable. 

The actors and celebrities of this era were still being selected according to the beauty and body ideals of the day (which were incredibly rigid and strict), so the majority of what we were seeing was already a pretty genetically limited group of “regular-looking-but-conventionally-attractive white people.” 

In some ways there was actually a lot less diversity being represented back then. It was far less common to see characters of color on screen, for example, and it was extremely rare to see people in large or disabled bodies. 

Over the last few decades, society’s shift toward inclusivity and diversity has allowed us to successfully integrate a whole bunch of unique human traits into our mainstream idea of what’s considered normal and even beautiful, which is amazing and important progress!

Top supermodels Diandra Forrest and Winnie Harlow have shown us that traits like albinism and vitiligo can be not only normal but stunning, and we’ve made a ton of progress in terms of body diversity and minority representation in marketing and media overall.

We’ve come a long way from the 90s in terms of body diversity and representation… so then why, when we go back and watch the classics of that era, does the mere presence of untouched and imperfect human faces feel so jarring, surprising, and subversive?

It’s because within the category of “regular-looking-but-conventionally-attractive white people,” there was a ton of facial diversity, and each female celebrity of that time was known and celebrated for her unique facial features. 

In the 2000 reboot of Charlie’s Angels, for example, the actresses were widely considered to be three of the most beautiful women in the world, and they each looked so different from each other. 

• Lucy Liu was considered striking, and celebrated for her sculpted cheekbones, wide-set hooded eyes, and angular jaw. 

• Cameron Dias was considered sexy in a playful way, and celebrated for her wide smile, apple cheeks, and big blue eyes. 

• Drew Barrymore was considered adorable, and celebrated for her soft features, sultry smile, and natural “girl-next door” beauty.

These three women had plenty in common, of course. They were each able-bodied, extremely thin and toned, and “feminine presenting.” They each had a huge amount of beauty and body privilege, having been selected from the very small range of genetic variability present in Hollywood at the time, and they represented the sexist trope of the “three types of women” that Hollywood said we could be back then: blonde, brunette, or red-head. 

But within those parameters, these three women looked nothing alike. And instead of viewing their facial differences as flaws, we celebrated them.

Nowadays, Drew Barrymore’s soft features would be given a strong dose of cheek and jaw filler to sharpen everything up, and her “baby fat” roundness would be fixed with buccal fat removal, all to move her closer to the feminine ideal. 

Cameron Diaz’s signature expressiveness would be frozen with Botox, her eye crinkles and laugh lines smoothed out with filler, and her chin and jaw projected out to “balance” her apple cheeks.

Lucy Liu would have needed work to meet the current beauty ideal for women too, I have no doubt… but I just googled photos of her from that era and admittedly can’t figure out what kind of “flaws” her doctors would have told her to fix!!

Our definition of beauty has changed so dramatically in the last few decades that it actually feels a bit weird and scandalous to revisit media made before, or to watch British and other non-American TV/movies. 

These people just… show us their faces! Their foreheads move! We can see their laugh and frown lines! They have “imperfect” noses and chins and jawlines! They’re asymmetrical and imbalanced!

In other words, they’re human, and it makes my brain feel so good to watch them. 

For my own mental health and sense of safety and belonging in the world, I try to balance out the uncanny valley faces of American shows with British shows or other media where people have untouched human faces—imperfect and asymmetrical faces that move and express without restriction. 

I can literally feel my nervous system relax when I watch these kinds of shows. 

My body relaxes the unconscious tension it carries when I’m watching overly perfected people. My brain revels in the unique qualities of each face, and I rarely if ever struggle to tell people apart. The characters being played by actors who look like real and unique humans in this way hit me more deeply, and their stories feel more moving and meaningful.

How about you? Do you see what I’m seeing? And if so how does it impact you?

Hit reply to share your thoughts!

Big hug,

Jessi

PS I have a few new coaching spots opening up, so if you’ve been looking for support around body image or confidence, hit reply or apply for coaching with me here!!