Let's Fight Aesthetic Pressure

This project was born out of several talks and multiple real experiences of youth workers, educators in the non-formal and formal education system, as well as the young people we work with. Throughout these conversations and experiences we observed the need to create fairer, safer and more caring spaces for us as young people and for our social circles. It is not uncommon to find our own and others' experiences of aesthetic pressure and the discrimination and violence suffered as a
result. In our daily life as youth workers we witness them and we have even been and are perpetrators of them, most of the time unconsciously.

We made this project because we think there is a lack of in-depth knowledge about the concept of aesthetic pressure, the causes of this social phenomenon and who is addressing it through social or educational circles. Young people and youth workers face difficulties in analyzing and recognizing how aesthetic pressure affects them at different levels in their lives. This is also due to the lack of spaces for reflection and tools to be able to deepen this process, as well as a lack of skills for the creation and management of safer spaces where young people can reflect, understand and share their experience with issues such as aesthetic pressure, self-esteem, self-perception or identity.

Our aims are:

• To provide you with in-depth information on the concept of aesthetic pressure, its main causes and channels, and a number of diverse social, activist and academic role models.
• To provide you with tools to explore, analyse, identify and reflect on the impact of aesthetic pressure on their lives in three dimensions: personal, social and cultural.
• To provide you with guidelines on how to create safer and braver spaces in a environment of respect and non-judgment to share experience and feelings with aesthetic pressure, self-esteem, self-perception and identity and methods to put this into practice.