A Woman's Beauty: Put Down Or Power Source?

For the past century, the ideal beauty has been revolving in a circle, what was popular 20 years ago, is just working its way to the surface again as the ‘new’ ideal beauty. The ideal beauty has constantly changed and it is impossible to predict where it will be in the

The Beauty Myth’s central argument is the growing standards of physical beauty of women as they grow stronger. This standard has affected women in many ways, such as in the workplace, culture, and religion. The standard has taken over the work of social harassment. The beauty myth expands the belief an unbiased measurement of beauty exists and that women want to express it and men would want that women. The author, Naomi Wolf, states that the beauty myth is not about women themselves, it is about the power of men and their society. The myth supplies power to multibillion dollar cosmetics industries and it keeps women from rising too high in the workplace. Within this book, Wolf shows how the beauty myth functions and affects women in the workplace, media, sex, religion, culture, violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the configuration of cosmetic surgery and eating disorders.

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

“You will never look like the girl in the magazine. The girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like the girl in the magazine” Jessimae Peluso. Throughout American history, women have continued to strive for an ideal of beauty. Although the definition of beauty has varied between generations, the pressure and desire to fit the mold of what society deems “beautiful” remains consistent among women from all eras. Unfortunately, this abnormal example seen in magazines, on runways, and in social media platforms is impossible for the majority of the female population to physically reach. Women are always pursuing the perfect look, turning to plastic surgeries transform them into celebrity ideals. People who desire perfect appearance ignore the nature of beauty itself, naturality is a kind of beauty. In recent years, women in America turned to look at models to find the ideal beauty standard and if they don’t meet them they turn to face lifts and plastic surgery to perfect their appearance.

Expectations on women to appear a certain way remain evident in society since the beginning of time. The evidence lies in the modern surge of eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and excessive makeup application. All further enforced by stick-thin, photoshopped models and celebrities in media. Now more than ever, societal pressures regarding beauty lead women to take extreme actions.

Explanation: Sontag discusses the endless battle women face with beauty. By showing that the term beauty “has accumulated certain demeaning overtones” (Sontag 238), she shows the negative connotation beauty has now received and explains

For women, advertising exemplifies the ideal female body. According to Kilbourne, young girls are taught from a very early age that they need to spend lots of time and money to achieve this “physical perfection.” But realistically this cannot be achieved. The ideal woman’s body is Caucasian, very skinny, big breasts, no flaws, and pretty much no pores. This cannot be achieved because it is physically impossible to look like this; the illusion comes from the secret world of Photoshop. No woman is beautiful enough so they leave it to technology to create perfection. The supermodel Cindy Crawford said, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford!” She knew the realities of Photoshop and body image, and more women and girls need to become aware of this as well.

Over the year’s society has developed tremendously; especially when it comes to gender equality. There was once a time where women were not allowed to vote or even leave the house because they were viewed as the people whose job was to stay home to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. It is 2017 now and we’ve come a long way at fighting for our rights. Although we have come a long way, there are still issues we face in society. We are constantly struggling to break these standards that women should look a certain way to be considered beautiful. Along with this there are still many things that in a way state women aren’t as great, strong, or as smart as men. While we’ve succeeded in some aspects to have equal rights, there are many more things

People have been fighting with themselves, and with popular culture at large, for years, regarding the idea of the “perfect body.” Though it could be argued that this battle is being waged mostly by women, there has been a shift in today’s society, where the quest for the perfect body includes both sexes. And as the 20th Century marched on and became the 21st, this idea of a beautiful body became thinner, waif-like, less and less substantial, and most definitely much less healthy. In addition, in her article “Never Just Pictures,” author Susan Bordo argues fashion photography, primarily, but definitely not independently, has been scaling down and thinning out the image of idealized beauty, making it harder and harder to achieve healthily or socially. Bordo explains images, of angular beautiful models has informed all of popular culture, growing beyond merely the realms of fashion. And this, Bordo tells us, contributes to a sense of societal longing and lack of

Makeup is a revolutionary tool used by women and few men to enhance their outward appearance; it was created with the intent to enhance the beauty in women and allow them to embrace their natural given features, not to hide

The development has created much controversy because how it decides to present its perception. Humanity is at fault for how the beauty industry decides how to advertise the perfect image. Yet, in the twenty-first century, there has been a turn of events. Those have educated imaginations are realizing how one standard of beauty is not enough for the millions of versions of beauty there are. Despite, wanting to have no standards of beauty, the educated know that this is no physically possible. Frye perfectly summarizes, “ The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in. Obviously, that can’t be a separated society, so we have to understand how to relate the two.” (86) The educated imagination interprets how they want their society without losing the connection to what we live in. The beauty industry represents the society we live in: superficial, materialistic, and self-indulgent. The educated imagination represents the ideal society: accepting of all and self-confidence. Although it cannot be the ideal society, there are still possibilities of a society where beauty is not a forced by people sitting at a board table. The mixture of these two societies can develop into a society where beauty is not only external but internal. Having the educated teach the weak imaginations how to comprehend the repercussions of the beauty industry, but still, understand it is difficult to change a hundred-year-old tradition. Standards of beauty will always be part of society, it is just how will society determine what is an illusion and

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

This predominantly affects women, making those who care about their beauty, which is deemed as essential in society, seem self-absorbed and superficial. Sontag claims that being beautiful is something expected only of women and not men While this assumption and claim could be seen as divisive when it comes to the gender-inequality debate, Sontag discusses these ideas in such a way that she still does not attack or undermine the inequality problems associated with men. Rather, Sontag focuses on the discussion at hand and demonstrates exactly how the assumption that all women are meant to be conventionally beautiful is detrimental to women in

Women of all ages, especially numerous college-age women embrace unlikely ideals of what their body size and shape essentially should be. These ideas can be in cooperation physically and emotionally corrupt; without them even apprehending the damage they causes themselves. Most women typically want to look their finest try to excel in their goals, jobs, and more just by being beautiful. There are billions of products and even procedures, such as plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, and surgeries to place on permanent makeup, which is available and advertised in the daily media. And all of these advertisements claim that they can help women accomplish these goals of their desired “ideal of beauty”. This is a problem that we can bluntly see within today’s culture. What our society reflects as their view of beauty, has the tendency to change, erratically. And this means that our pursuit of beauty tends to be lifelong and we will be subjected to the fancies of trendsetters, media, and fashion industries on a daily

We are constantly surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman. She is tall, thin and beautiful. She rarely looks older than 25, has a flawless body, and her hair and clothes are always perfect. She is not human. She is often shown in pieces – a stomach, a pair of legs, a beautifully made up eye or mouth. Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. It is forgotten that “beauty pornography”, as Wolf says, focuses on underweight models that are usually 15 to 20 years old. Flaws, wrinkles and other problems are airbrushed out of the picture.