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It's going to be International Women's Day tomorrow. Every year around this time, we would do a special episode.

So far we've talked about the history of feminism, workplace stereo types, and shared with you stories of some truly fascinating women.

So what are we gonna talk about today？

When it comes to anxiety we face as women on a pretty regular basis, I'm sure a lot of you will agree that one major source of anxiety is related to body image.

In other words, do I look good enough？Especially in this day and age, for a woman, looking good is almost seen as a requirement rather than an option.

Go on any social media platform, you'll see countless influences trying to show off their perfect body; and even more of them trying to teach you to secrets to attain that perfect body through all sorts of exercise, diet and products.

近年来火遍社交媒体的什么A4腰，漫画腿，锁骨养金鱼等等，都是刷出了一波又一波的焦虑。

It's pretty difficult not to fall victim to these increasingly harsh standards.

But a thing is, when we talk about the ideal body, we sometimes tend to forget that the idea of beauty is not only subjective but constantly changing.

So in today's episode, I'm going to take you back in history, take a look at the changing standards of female beauty in the west.

今天的酒馆里，璐璐就带你看看西方历史上那些不断峰回路转的对于完美女性身材的定义。

Let's start with prehistoric times.

Some of the earliest known representations of a woman's body in the west are the 'Venus figurines'.

These are small statues from over 20,000 years ago in Europe. These figurines usually portray round, pear-shaped women's bodies, many with large breasts, large hips, and large everything symbolizing fertility, the ability to have many babies.

And moving on to Ancient Greece and Rome. The ideal female body should be slim but robust. So you have to have some strength, high, round, useful breasts.

They don't have to be very big, narrow shoulders, small waist, but wide hips and thighs, and long legs. Just check out some of the ancient statues in museums.

And because this look was not that easy to achieve. So even as early as Ancient Roman Times, women already found ways to wrap their waist, push up their breasts.

One interesting thing to point out is although that throughout history, women were usually subjected to impossible beauty standards more so than men, Ancient Greece was an exception. Because in this period, men faced a much higher standard of beauty and perfection than women.

Moving on to the Renaissance到了文艺复兴时期, roughly 14th to 16th century, the idealized beautiful women as depicted in a lot of the paintings in this period were commonly curvy, pale, but with slightly flushed cheeks, and soft round faces.

They usually had fuller hips, large breasts, fleshy arms and legs, and a round stomach.

A woman with this image was also a great reflection of her husband's status. Think Mona Lisa, everything was pretty round, wasn't it？

就跟在中国，像我这种丰满型的，就经常开玩笑说想回到唐朝。

In English, women with more curves also joke about wanting to go back to Renaissance Italy where they appreciated curvy women.

But it's not just Renaissance, going into 17 century, a particular artist in Europe created loving depictions of full-figured women. Full-figured usually means larger with more flesh, and his name is Peter Paul Rubens.

In his paintings, women are usually depicted as soft, rounded, and voluptuous. They've got plenty flesh on their bones.

Even when he painted the French queen regent, he focused on a full-figured look. Now because of this distinctive style of his, there's even an adjective in English called Rubenesque, which means as voluptuous as the women in the paintings by Rubens.

英文里的一个形容词Rubenesque就是指的和鲁本斯画作中一样的丰腴美人。

So far in history, we are seeing a lot of focus on being voluptuous being rounder. But then things started to change in Victorian England.

This is between 1837 and 1901,英国的维多利亚时代, even nowadays, you can still see a lot of historical drama about this period.

During this period, domesticity, family, and motherhood were highly valued.

So women were basically only linked with domestic life and motherhood. And during this period, the pale, frail, and weak look was all the rage.

And in order to create that frail weak look, women wore corsets to make their waists really really small; and they would also wear things to make their skirts look bigger, to highlight how small their waists were.

This is why when you read novels from that period, you notice it's very easy for women to faint, simply because they couldn't really breathe, the corsets were too tight.

And another pretty extreme beauty standard during the Victorian era was that the sick pale look was in fashion.

So women suffering consumption were thought to be very beautiful.

Consumption也就是肺结核，过去也叫肺痨，在维多利亚时代得了肺痨奄奄一息的病美人也成了当时的颜值天花板。这要按现在的社交媒体玩法，估计也会带火什么肺痨仿妆吧。

So now fast forward to the 20th century.

If the female beauty standards in the west were mostly set in Europe before this point, then in the 20th century, the US started to lead the way, starting with the Gibson Girl.

So in the late 19th century and early 20th century, artist Charles Dana Gibson did a lot of pen and ink illustrations of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness.

In other words, Gibson was painting what he thought as the perfect beauty. And this was later seen as one of the original ideal women in America.

So what does the Gibson girl look like?

Well, the Gibson girl combined elements of the fragile lady as well as the voluptuous woman. 20世纪初在美国出现的 Gibson女郎，她的形象可以说是综合了丰腴和纤瘦。

So from the fragile lady, the Gibson girl took the basic, slender lines to show a sense of respectability.

But from the voluptuous woman, she took larger breasts and hips. So the typical Gibson girl looks tall, slender, yet with rather plump chest, hips and buttocks.

She also wears a corset to exaggerate that S curve.

She has long, thin neck, and really exaggerated tall hair.

Going forward to the Roaring 20th, the Jazz Age, and say hello to flapper girl.

在美国20世纪那个爵士时代就出现了一种新的美人标准，她们被叫做 flapper girls.

The original term was actually not very positive.

Flapper girls can be found at all sorts of jazz parties with their immaculate curls and their bling bling.

They’re overall very slender, with quite flat chest and hips. But that doesn't mean they lacked sex appeal.

The focus has simply shifted from breasts and hips to legs.

And the flapper girls would wear shorter skirts above the knee to show more of their legs, especially when they were dancing to jazz music.

Nowadays you still have women who really like the 1920s flapper girl look. But unfortunately, a lot of those flapper girl dresses are really designed for very thin slender women with small bust.

As I said earlier, beauty standards for women constantly go back and force.

So going into the 1950s, there came the era of the hour glass, and the Pin-up Girl.

上世纪50年代，西方美女的关键词一定是像挂历女郎一样性感的S型沙漏身材。

In the 1950s, the depression and World War II were history. People were in a mood to celebrate.

And with that indulgence, came a slightly fuller-figure, the hour glass figure was really favored, and having large breasts was strongly encouraged.

Advertisements of the time even advised skinny women to take weight gain supplements to fill out their curves.

Playboy magazine and Barbie were both created in this decade, both worshipping a tiny-waisted, large-chested ideal of female beauty. And Hollywood also experienced the Golden Age.

Think about movie stars at the time like Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor with their curvy bodies and tiny waists.

However, this hour glass figure didn't stay in fashion for very long.

In the 1960s, fashion models like Twiggy started a wave called Androgyny.

60年代的Androgyny, 可以被理解成中性。

Instead of accentuating female curves, the body ideal for women turn to ultra-slender, ultra-slim, with no waist definition, and especially thin thighs, stomachs, and arms.

Honestly, popular models in that period like Twiggy, they always looked like very young boys with their short hair and super slender frame.

And historically, this is also when the second wave of Women's Rights movement began.

So some would say moving away from hour glass “sex object look” to have this “thin curveless look” gives women more freedom when it comes to their bodies.

But the fact is there was still an ideal body type of this very young and thin look. Women were simply pressured to starve themselves to become thinner to chase that look.

Going into the 1980s, the ideal body changed again. This was a period that is all about fitness.

You have to be slim but not as skinny as before. Instead, you need to have great muscle tone.

随着八十年代的健身操风潮，完美的女性身材又开始强调肌肉线条。

And this is linked with the energetic lifestyle image of the working woman back then.

Women aspire to these super models like Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, and Linda Evangelista.

For the first time, muscles are acceptable and desirable on women.

In a way, it's both empowering because women are no longer expected to be weak and fragile; but it was also discouraging because women still needed to chase after an impossible ideal.

And then going into the 1990s.This was a particularly confusing period because with super models like Kate Moss, there came a style of beauty called Heroin Chic.

90年代由超模Kate Moss带起来的一个风潮被叫做Heroin Chic.

What is that look you ask.

Basically you're so skinny, you look like you’re on drugs. This ultra-slender look emphasizes on long, slender legs, and basically no meat on the bones at all.

Luckily, going into 21st century, the idea of female beauty started to change again.

With a focus on the Yoga Body which is long and lean with flat and hard stomach.

And in the past 10 years or so, with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, large breasts, tiny waists, really thick and tone bottom, started to become the ideal.

As a result, many women started to hit the gym trying to achieve that look was weight training.

And that ends our journey back in western history through different ideals of female beauty.

Now we're sharing these different body ideals here not to say that we should just all let ourselves go, or we shouldn't do anything to make us look better; but it's more trying to take some of that pressure and anxiety away, and also to move away from potential body shaming.

Body ideals like everything else in pop culture are a trend. They are shaped by social and cultural changes, economic development, media hype, or even pure fantasy of some people.

Nowadays with Photoshop and BeautyCams, any one of us can create an unrealistically perfect body, and use that to feel even more body image anxiety.

So really what I would like to say to all of our listeners, especially female listeners as well as myself is that if your body isn't considered perfect by today's standard, so what?

Perfect is an illusion that no one can attain.

So don't let that idea of a perfect body take your intrinsic power away.

Be happy with the body you have and celebrate all the things that make up your gorgeous, imperfect, but unique self.

After all, the idea of beauty is subjective and changes, but confidence is always in style.

And Happy Women’s Day. I'll see you next time.