Analysis Of Sit Still Look Pretty

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.

Beauty is determined by society and their standards. Women are expected to be skinny, pretty and a size two which puts a lot of pressure on women. The pressures of society persuade women to go through extreme measures to fit in with society standards. This is evident in the short story “The Falling girl” and “They’re Not Your Husband” as the main characters are impacted by social expectations, insecurity and peer pressure.

In 1997, Shania Twain released the song “Man I feel like a woman!”. The catchy melody immediately made this song a huge hit, but it’s the meaning of the lyrics that made it the feminist anthem that is still loved after so many years. The music video itself is empowering as it shows a confident Shania in the spotlight surrounded by her male musicians. However, the lyrics are what this analysis is more focused on. Twain sings about being her true self and letting loose. The song is an example of feminism, because it challenges gender stereotypes, the pressure put on girls to look a certain way and gender norms. The argument will be structured in three paragraphs, each developing on one of the ideas found in the thesis.

There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner.

The poem, "Barbie Doll," written by Marge Piercy tells the story of a young girl growing up through the adolescence stage characterized by appearances and barbarity. The author uses imagery and fluctuating tone to describe the struggles the girl is experiencing during her teenage years, and the affects that can happen. The title of this poem is a good description of how most societies expect others, especially girls to look. Constantly, people are mocked for their appearance and expected to represent a "barbie-doll"-like figure. Few are "blessed" with this description. The female gender is positioned into the stereotype that women should be thin and beautiful. With this girl, the effects were detrimental. The first stanza describes the

A little girl’s world begins as such a wonderful place. Makeup, dresses, tea parties and prince charming are what little girls dream of. Marge Piercy uses a variety of poetic devises to convey the theme of stereotypes and the struggle girls face is brought to attention in this free verse twenty-five-line, open-form narrative poem titled “Barbie Doll.”

“ideals are developmentally ingrained in children and adolescents”( Englis 1). The idea of beauty and ideal looks are engraved into people at a young age. The little girl being given a Barbie doll shows this in the poem. The idea of beauty and how a woman should act are represented in the Barbie doll. The primary take away is beauty is not everything.

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

Women have power, power over you, me and everyone. What makes them so special is that we (men) can’t live without them. They are sensitive, and at the same time strong, they care, they love, and most important, they are beautiful. Women have come a long way in society throughout time. They 've gone from being nothing to being something. But yet, there are issues with women in today’s society. Naomi Wolf with her essay “A women’s place” and Zulu Kente’s poem “I know you good woman” they address that the role of woman in our society needs a lot of improvement. Women face daily issues such as their voices are not being heard, they are being paid less than men, their opportunities and education are very limited, male sexism through woman, and last but not least, woman are criticized by their physical appearance.

Feeling beautiful deals with many factors but it has become incumbent with focus being placed on the physical aspects of person Una Marson writes about beauty and how it drives many women into changing their features and making those features fit into the standard of beauty. Her poem, “Kinky Haired Blues” speaks about that notion, of women wanting to assimilate to what the norm is. Specifically women of ethnic minorities, she talks more about Black Women and the pressure for them to bleach their skin and to iron their hair. Matters such as race are at forefront of the issues in her society and of the society we currently live in today. Una Marson’s poem “Kinky Hair Blues” speaks to the idea of beauty and the standard of beauty. And how many

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

This excerpt shows how more emphasis is put on women’s appearance and its keep up, and also shows the negative connotation of this prettiness; it is associated with shallowness. Not only is there an assumption that women spend much of their time on their appearance, but also there is the connected fact that others pay more attention to their appearance than their other character traits. This is still a reality of today as can be seen on the red carpet. Female celebrities have a whole industry devoted to making them look fashionable and pretty for events. The focus of these events becomes what they’re wearing rather than their work as actresses and singers.

A young girl may hear a variety of tips on how to beautify herself, but do these pieces of advice make her genuinely happy? That sometimes depends on the music she hears around her, particularly on the radio. Many hit pop contemporary radio singles, generally performed by female recording artists, encourage a distorted perception of beauty that leads to the state of perception, which is usually nearly impossible to achieve. However, a select group of songs by female performers and their accompanying music videos promote the ideology that young women and girls do not have to make dramatic changes to their body or appearance to be perceived as beautiful. This message is widely spread by singers including Beyoncé, Meghan Trainor, and Alessia Cara.