Google News
In an interview to Glamour magazine, Venus Williams described how the standard of beauty evolved across her career. “Yeah, standards of beauty are definitely dictated by the time and the space that we live in and the standard right now is so different than the standard when I first started playing tennis," said Williams for Glamour.
"But what matters is you don’t lose yourself as an individual – you know who you are and what works for you, and that you don’t have to be everyone. Something a lot of young women are facing right now is this pressure to look standardised and I’ve never gone for that.
I always felt less comfortable if I was pushed into something that was everyone else; I’ve always just wanted to be me. I think that influence definitely comes from my family and my parents, they pushed individuality and confidence in yourself, and playing sports, I believe, gives you that.
Because you fail and succeed, and you see what it takes to actually be great. Hopefully at that point your standard of greatness and who you are as an individual really becomes something you relish and grab onto. So my path has definitely been different."
Venus points out the standard of beauty today
Venus Williams, asked by Abigail Blackburn in the Glamour interview, described what is the standard of beauty in today's society.
“The standard of beauty right now is more inclusive, so that’s wonderful, but at the same time there’s tons of pressure. I think the standard of beauty 20, 30 years ago was ‘be as thin as possible’ and now the standard of beauty has shifted more to ‘be as curvy as possible’, and there’s pressure to augment yourself to fit into the standard somehow and that’s not realistic.
You just got to know you and be comfortable with you – and if that means also augmenting, that’s fine too, as long as you accept yourself”. You can read the full interview with Venus Williams in Glamour UK's October issue.