90% of young women use a filter or edit photos before posting

Professor Rosalind Gill, from City, University of London's Gender and Sexualities Research Centre, has today published a new report to mark International Women's Day.

The report - Changing the Perfect Picture: Smartphones, Social Media and Appearance Pressures – is based on research with 175 young women and non-binary people in the UK.

Covering a range of issues – experiences of lockdown, feelings about 'body positivity', how to show support for Black Lives Matter – the research documents young people's persistent anger with a mass media that they deem 'too white', 'too heterosexual' and too focused on very narrow definitions of beauty.

Ninety per cent of women report using a filter or editing their photos before posting to even out their skin tone, reshape their jaw or nose, shave off weight, brighten or bronze their skin, and their whiten teeth.