I actually watched the video, now, and I repeat that its premise is nonsense. Women have always used cosmetics, or flowers in their hair, or pinched their cheeks to make them "rosier" or worn clothing that made them look better, or tried to eat more or less to make themselves look better.
Were they trying to make themselves look like a perfect model on a bill-board? No, they were trying to make themselves look like other women they thought were more beautiful than they. The company making the ad is doing the same thing. They want a model that looks like the real women out there who are actually that beautiful in real life. I know a girl who looks just like Meg Ryan, but prettier. (Meg was never that beautiful, nor was Julia Roberts.) I knew another who could have doubled for Britney Spears. I knew another that looked dead-on like Natasha Henstridge. If you think this last one had some kind of cosmetic surgery, it would come as a shock to her conservative, Pentacostal parents, who insisted on long skirts and high collars. She was only 14 at the time. The other two were similarly unlikely to have been modified. It is quite silly to think that cosmetics or clothing companies are inventing something that doesn't exist. They're merely to trying to capture something real. It's probably easier to make up a good-looking woman for one photograph than find and hire a "perfect" one.
In the past, there was a tiny minority of pampered women who, unless they were just ugly (and some people just are), could use expensive cosmetics, fancy hairstyles and fine clothing to make themselves look "perfect." Meanwhile, other than a few rare women who possessed some preternatural beauty, most women were limited by poverty, and couldn't do that much to enhance themselves. On the other hand, few men were accustomed to looking at princesses all day long. Today, we are surrounded by advertisements, and real-life made-up women, but many more women have a higher standard of living than the wealthy women of yore. More women can afford to dress themselves up.
The bottom line is that women tend to be insecure about their appearance and everything else. No "self-esteem campaign" is going to change that.
