Arms up for underarm confidence with Dove
As the cosmetic surgery and diet industries continue to grow exponentially and with an endless array of online filters and photo-editing tools available at their fingertips, women and girls are under mounting pressure to conform to what society defines as ‘beautiful’ – and are going to ever-extreme lengths to achieve this. And these beautuy standards can even extend to areas of the body as seemingly innocuous as the underarms.
Known for championing real beauty since 2004, Dove commissioned the 2023 Underarm Confidence Survey to better understand the impact unrealistic underarm beauty standards can have on the everyday lives and self-esteem of women and young girls. Edelman asked 5,500 women and girls of different ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds in the UK, US, and Brazil to take part in a 25-minute online survey.
As the lead writer on the project, I transformed the data collected in our survey into a 22-page whitepaper examining what women think “ideal” underarms should look like, where these assumptions come from, and how it impacts everything from their participation at school or work to their social and sex lives. This also involved interviewing leading influencers in the body positivity space in order to ghost-write quotes throughout the whitepaper and ghost-writing a foreword on behalf of leading body image expert and professor of psychology, Dr Philippa Diedrichs.
