Quote · Fin vs History
Big Botticelli Gyal (with Paddy Young!) | The History of Beauty Standards (Part 1)
Where this was said
The Ideal Woman
At 10:41 · chapter starts 8:25
The history proper begins 30,000 years ago with the Venus of Willendorf — no arms, no feet, all hips and enormous breasts, a practical fertility totem that Paddy immediately characterises as the original dream woman: no face, can't talk back, can't run away. Fin introduces the term steatopygia — the prehistoric ideal of fat accumulating on the lower body — and notes that this is exactly what the body positivity movement has long claimed is our 'natural' beauty standard. Then ancient Egypt arrives and reverses everything: thin limbs, no curves, androgynous like David Bowie, and crucially — completely hairless. Women used flint scrapers and chemical pastes made from boiled bird bones to remove all body hair. Horatio notes it's surprisingly similar to 2000s Kate Moss heroin chic. The hosts also riff on the androgynous qualities of Egyptian aesthetics and the peculiar ideal of having a dog's head on a Kate Moss body.
30,000 years ago the ideal woman was all hips, thighs, and enormous breasts — fertility was beauty. Then ancient Egypt flipped the script entirely: thin limbs, no curves, full hairlessness achieved with flint scrapers. The pendulum was already swinging before civilisation had even got going.
The earliest known female beauty ideal, dating to around 30,000 BC, focused on large hips, thighs, and breasts — reflecting a fertility-based standard rather than aesthetic vanity.
