Women throughout history have experienced higher levels of prejudice and inequality based on their appearance than men, and that emphasis on perception has forced women into performative boxes. According to writer and cultural critic Rayne Fisher-Quann, women, especially in online spaces, have made themselves more palatable to men or a male audience by dumbing down their multifaceted personalities into broad categories.

With social media causing visual perception to dominate opinions, women have begun defining themselves by aesthetics– aesthetics that revolve around appearance. Some common female sub-genres and archetypes are the Clean Girl, It Girl, femme fatale, dark/light feminine and etc. Shayna Friedman is the president of Girl Up, a club at SHS that focuses on feminism, and describes the appearance of the most popular aesthetic of 2024.

“The Clean Girl aesthetic — like the slick back and Uggs — that’s the first one that pops into my mind,” Friedman said. “[Clean Girls] dress pretty standard, like leggings and a sweatshirt.”

The Clean Girl aesthetic, which embodies minimalism, simplicity and effortless beauty, is heavily influenced by and catered towards men. It creates an unrealistic standard that every woman has no imperfections– when in reality, participants in this aesthetic usually spend considerable amounts of money and time on their hair, nails, skincare, clothes, etc. to appear as though they naturally wake up flawless. However, the performance of women is not limited to this one aesthetic.

“I feel like there’s a pressure to fit in one of those boxes, and especially with social media I feel like you can definitely compare yourself to other people,” Friedman said. “I feel like it’s harder to be unique when there’s these, like, categories and you have to fit yourself into them.”

“Categories” is a perfect word to describe what women feel pressure to conform to. Most aesthetics have requirements that must be met in order to claim oneself as a part of that aesthetic.

“It’s like, if you want to be considered a coquette girl, you have to wear bows,” Friedman said. “Being put in boxes for personal style restricts personality. It doesn’t matter if a girl actually likes wearing bows, she just needs to appear as a girl who likes bows.”

According to Sophia Viglione, the club advisor for Girl Up, decentering men (or society’s opinion in general) may ease the pressure women feel to look and act a certain way. Viglione said she grew up in an unconventional household and that experience has made her outlook on conformity and aesthetics different from most.

“I think that I was a little bit shielded from [feeling pressure to like what other people liked] because my parents are like alternative hippies, and I also went to a school where we had to wear a uniform, so people were less defined [and influenced by trends], like we all wore the same ugly outfit,” Viglione said. “And so that kind of helped me feel a little more comfortable just liking what I like.”

Brianna Headen, a lesbian who claims she decentered men from her life, reveals her different thinking pattern that allows her to escape patriarchal values.

“I just think ‘am I good with my own thoughts?,’ not like ‘are other people good with my thoughts?’ Headen said. “And I won’t censor my thoughts to be like, “oh this isn’t what a man wants so I’m not going to think in this way.”