Identifying as a feminist might inadvertently increase body image concerns via heightened materialism

A recent study published in the Journal of Health Psychology suggests that identifying as a feminist might paradoxically increase certain body image concerns among college-aged women. The findings provide evidence that feminist beliefs can sometimes encourage the pursuit of a materialistic lifestyle, which tends to reinforce unrealistic beauty standards and digital photo editing behaviors.

In contemporary culture, exposure to media constantly presents women with narrow definitions of physical attractiveness. This continuous exposure can lead to self-objectification, a mental state where individuals begin to view their own bodies merely as objects to be evaluated by others. Recognizing these pressures, many people look to feminism as a mental shield against harmful beauty standards.

Feminism advocates for gender equality and encourages individuals to challenge traditional expectations. Because of this, it is commonly thought that holding feminist beliefs tends to protect women from feeling dissatisfied with their own bodies. Existing research provides mixed evidence regarding how well feminist beliefs actually guard against negative body image.

Researchers Dongdong Yang and Yi Luo wanted to understand why feminism does not always reduce body dissatisfaction. “As a feminist myself, I’m always interested in potential positive influences of feminism on women’s lives,” said Yang, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Montclair State University.

“Because feminism promotes critical evaluations of social imperatives and encourages women to challenge prevalent beauty ideals in patriarchal societies, it naturally leads me to wonder whether feminist identification can protect women from body image concerns and behaviors.”

“Over the past five years, I have reviewed a large amount of literature and led two publications in top-tier journals, examining how feminist beliefs and feminist identification influence women’s body image-related perceptions and behaviors in the U.S. and Chinese contexts,” Yang explained. “Empirical findings have shown that feminism only provides limited protection to women at best in terms of body image, which is counterintuitive. Therefore, I launched this study to explore the underlying mechanisms.”

A central concept in this research is neoliberal feminism, a contemporary framework that links women’s advancement to individual empowerment, personal responsibility, and free-market participation. This approach generally emphasizes achieving gender equality through upward mobility, career success, and financial independence.

Because these values frequently overlap with consumer culture, Yang and Luo designed their research to explore how modern consumerist messaging influences the way feminist women view their bodies. They suspected that some individuals might embrace a “material good-life ideal,” which is a belief system equating personal success with wealth and owning impressive things.

The researchers proposed that embracing this materialistic mindset might naturally lead to internalizing a “body-perfect ideal.” Internalization happens when a person unconsciously adopts an external cultural standard as their own personal benchmark. When someone internalizes the body-perfect ideal, they begin to judge their own self-worth based on how closely they match flawless, media-driven images.

Yang and Luo also wanted to observe how these cultural pressures differ across the globe. They chose to compare college women in the United States and China. These two nations differ significantly in their cultural emphasis on facial appearance versus body shape. They also differ in how individuals view themselves in relation to society, with American culture promoting independence and Chinese culture emphasizing a more interdependent social harmony.

To explore these ideas, Yang and Luo conducted an online survey, offering course credit to those who participated. They recruited a purposive sample of 444 female college students. This group included 208 students from a university in the northeastern United States and 236 students from a comparable university in China.

The researchers specifically focused on women who self-identified as feminists, excluding male respondents and non-feminists from their final data set. The survey asked participants a series of questions to measure their body and facial satisfaction. Participants rated how happy they were with specific physical features on a numerical scale ranging from completely dissatisfied to completely satisfied.

The researchers also assessed how strongly the participants internalized the material good-life ideal and the body-perfect ideal. Next, the respondents answered questions to gauge the strength of their feminist identification. This section of the survey measured how much they felt feminism shaped their personal identity and their sense of belonging to a political community.

Finally, the survey asked the women to report how frequently they engaged in selfie editing. Selfie editing refers to the practice of using digital tools or smartphone applications to alter one’s physical appearance in photos before posting them on social media.

Yang and Luo found that internalizing the material good-life ideal was positively correlated with internalizing the body-perfect ideal. In simpler terms, women who believed that success meant having material wealth also tended to believe that success required having a flawless physical appearance.

The data indicates that internalizing the body-perfect ideal was linked to lower facial satisfaction. When participants strongly adopted societal beauty standards, they tended to feel worse about their own facial features. In addition, internalizing both the materialistic ideal and the beauty ideal was associated with a higher frequency of editing selfies.

“Selfie editing is motivated by internalization of societal ideals rather than body/facial satisfaction,” Yang told PsyPost. “The reason why feminist identification may indirectly lead to selfie editing is that feminist identification increases women’s internalization of material good-life ideals.”

Yang noted that navigating societal pushback might contribute to this dynamic. “Because feminists have long been stigmatized around the world, they have the motivation to demonstrate that they are materially successful and physically attractive, which turn out to be risk factors for women’s body image,” Yang said.

The researchers observed notable differences between the two cultural groups. For the Chinese students, identifying as a feminist was positively linked to internalizing the material good-life ideal. This suggests that Chinese women who felt a strong connection to feminism were more likely to embrace consumerist values as a marker of their personal empowerment.

For the American students, this specific link was not present, indicating that their feminist beliefs did not translate into a desire for material wealth in the exact same way. Yang and Luo suggest this difference might stem from the unique political climates in each country. In China, feminist activism faces significant social and political pushback.

To prove their worth and find a sense of empowerment, Chinese feminists might feel a stronger pressure to demonstrate conventional professional and financial success. This drive for success can easily bleed into a desire for the perfect lifestyle and the perfect physical appearance.

The relationship between internalizing the body-perfect ideal and actual body dissatisfaction was stronger among the American participants. American women who adopted these strict beauty standards felt worse about their overall body shapes compared to the Chinese women. The authors note that mainstream beauty ideals in the United States place a heavy emphasis on body size and physique.

In contrast, mainstream beauty ideals in East Asian cultures tend to place a heavier focus on facial features. The results show that Chinese women edited their selfies much more frequently than American women. For the Chinese participants, the scientists found a direct chain reaction where feminist identification increased the desire for a material good life, which increased the desire for a perfect body, which in turn led to more digital photo editing.

As with all research, there are some limitations. The survey relied on self-reported data collected at a single point in time. This cross-sectional design makes it difficult to definitively say that holding a feminist identity directly causes a person to become more materialistic or to edit their photos more often. It is entirely possible that societal pressures influence both a woman’s political identity and her appearance concerns simultaneously.

Another potential misinterpretation is the idea that feminism is inherently harmful to a person’s body image. The scale used by the authors measured the strength of feminist identification, but it did not measure the specific type of feminism each participant practiced. Some forms of feminism heavily critique societal beauty standards, while other forms focus more on individual choices and consumer empowerment.

“Because the principles of feminism are dependent on sociopolitical contexts, we should caution against generalization of research findings beyond the U.S. and Chinese cultures,” Yang said. Future research could explore how different subsets of feminist beliefs influence body image in distinct ways.

“In addition, future research should specify which iteration of feminisms women are identified with and whether they embrace materialistic values characteristic of consumer culture, when looking at the influence of feminist identification on feminists’ body image,” Yang noted. Including measures of individual cultural attitudes, such as how much a person values independence versus community harmony, could also add depth to the findings.

The study, “Empowered yet dissatisfied: Why can’t feminism reduce negative body image? A cross-cultural study,” was authored by Dongdong Yang and Yi Luo.