Beauty Is No Longer A Personal Matter

The beauty standard is a culturally constructed notion of physical attractiveness that has become increasingly imperative for women and men. However, this standard has become extremely perilous to men and women’s self-image. Camille Paglia, a highly educated individual who earned her PhD at Yale University and became a highly acclaimed author, explicates this conception in her essay “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery”. Paglia suggests that the beauty standard idealizes women to look like “sex symbols with an unattainable grandeur” (776). She continues to claim that it forces her audience of higher class women to pay large sums of money in order to alter their features ultimately conforming to a very “parochial” definition of beauty (776). Although Paglia is a highly credible source, she illogically appeals to the reader’s fears in order to persuade them. Paglia fails to give any credible outside sources which affirms her preposterous beliefs. Contrary to her inconsistencies, Daniel Akst, a social journalist and graduate from New York University provides his audience with reputable sources in order to persuade his audience. Daniel Akst believes that there needs to be a “democratization of physical beauty” in which instead of attempting to alter the beauty standard, we must first change how we view ourselves. Akst provides credible sources to establish his credibility where he observes cases studies and cultural experiments from scientists and organizations including:

The article Cosmetic Surgery and the Cultural Construction of Beauty by Lorrie Blair and Maya Shalmon uncover the never ending popularity of cosmetic surgery. They base their sayings on many articles and researches presented in the March

The modern beauty standard has become an increasingly important issue because people have the freedom to decide, but the media largely influenced these choices on about beauty standard. Our advance of technology helps communicate with each other, but people are not fully aware of the influence of media. That is a major problem. The media broadcast images of beauty to control people consciously. Technological advance helps people to reach the information quickly and cumulatively, but media not always making people feel good about themselves. Most of the people experience powerless when a society values youth and beauty because it is impossible to meet beauty standard. People bombarded by images of men and women who are thin, beautiful, and youthful. This norm is slowly taking away an individual’s freedom of self-expression and consequently lose sense of self-worth. Camille Paglia, an academic and social critic who earned her PhD at Yale University, uses her artistic sensibility to argue that the current trend of plastic surgery leads to ethical issues, such as narcissism, sexism, and racism in “The Pitfall of Plastic Surgery”. Meanwhile, Daniel Akst, New York born journalist, claims that the attitudes of the typical American’s carelessness about their outfit and physical beauty in “What Meets the Eye”. Both authors define the beauty standard that created by the media and claim the issue of how the media set up the wrong beauty standard for audience; it is unattainable for

Thesis Statement: Since the media has placed remarkable pressure on the physical imperfections of women, the majority of females nowadays are unable to understand the fact that getting their face reconstructed to fit society’s concept of beauty is definitely not the way to promote beauty.

One’s perspective about such a controversial topic like beauty can be easily influenced by everyday situations. The theory of social comparison states, “women are negatively affected by constant exposure to models that fulfill the unrealistic media ideal of beauty”. Society has been corrupted by the negative messages portrayed in the media. As beauty continues to evolve the media and other social networks begin to introduce the concept of universal beauty. People continuously create an image and portray it as an ideal self.

Plastic surgery is like a form of art because it’s often a perceived beautification of the human

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.

Plastic Surgery has become a worldwide epidemic in today’s world. The number of plastic surgeries continues to increase since 2010. In today’s day and age, plastic surgery is one of the most popular and requested procedures. Females are opting to have plastic surgery because they dislike their body image. Society has impacted many people by brain washing them to believe that a person’s body has to be perfect. In order for one to be considered beautiful, television and media influence people’s perceptions of beauty.

We live in a society where people worship beauty. As far as recorded history people have gone to extremes to seek beauty. From foot binding in China to wearing strangulating corsets in Victorian era. People from different race and culture have experimented in every way possible way to look beautiful prior to this popular age of plastic surgery. It’s very common to hear people complain about their appearance, whether it’s their crocked nose, thin lips or flat chest. Remarkably, plastic surgery has been the solution for people who complain. Most people tend to think of plastic surgery as only cosmetic surgery and not as reconstructive surgeries. Plastic surgeries seems to be an invention of modern technology; however its roots lie in the ancient history of India. An Indian surgeon contributed towards the establishment of plastic surgery, it was intended to correct physical deformities acquired during birth, accident, disease or war. These surgeries did not gain the popularity it has today until the First World War. It was during the late 60’s, when doctors started realizing the endless possibilities of plastic surgeries. With the help of this surgery a trained surgeon can replace an amputate body part, remove skin cancer, get rid of unattractive scars and visible birthmarks or rescaling a nose or enhance body parts. Today more and more people from different age groups opt for plastic surgeries to obtain dramatic physical changes. These surgeries were envisioned to restore

Have you noticed that some parents who are extremely young beauty pageant contestants contest that competitive can provide confidence for their children? Or students who are trying to show their individuality by negotiating abandoning uniform policy? Or, that some companies are more willing to hire a person when they are attractive? Nowadays, people are more focused on external beauty than inner beauty. Sometimes, older people joke that pretty people have a better future than less attractive people. Thus, society judgement is unfair to those who were not born with beautiful faces and often they resort to plastic surgery. However, resorting to plastic surgery to enhance one 's beauty is an improper way to correct people’s opinion. Teenagers should not resort to plastic surgery for several reasons.

Today, the industry of plastic surgery plays an important role in the market of aesthetics, in 2014, 15.6 cosmetic surgeries (minimally invasive and surgical) were performed in the United States, which represents a three percent increase from 2013 (American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2015). According to Holliday and Cairnie (2007), social and psychological forces are the main drives of the 21st-century phenomenon of plastic surgery. This phenomenon is linked to a “body ideology” in which women are trying to achieve the perfect body. They modified their physical appearance in order to fit with the aesthetics norms of society. Plastic surgery represents an alternative for women that are unhappy with the way they look. In the late 1980s and early 1990s plastic surgeries were already popular but, by that time women would not express explicitly their desire for big non-natural breast, a big breast that is “to big to be real”. Nowadays, women are looking forward for a “fake-looking” as a way of conspicuous consumption; they want to demonstrate that can afford an expensive surgical procedure to enhance their beauty. Plastic surgeries have become a symbol of status, success, wealth, and fame (Gimlin, 2013).

Together, we can lower the numbers of people dying from eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries by resisting the beauty ideal. We can choose “to not participate in the beauty rituals, to not support the industries that produce both images and products, and to create other definitions of beauty” (WVFV, pg. 232). The most crucial and easiest solution is to create other definitions of beauty. Ultimately, it is up to the individual to decide what is beautiful. What if someone decided that the only thing that could contribute to one’s beauty is who someone is on the inside? Wouldn’t our world be a completely different place? Instead of

Cosmetic surgery does not operate under the same distinct goals that regular medical practices operate under: the removal, relief, or curing of maladies. Cosmetic surgery is mainly deemed as a luxury, one that is allotted to those with the means to send money on something that is often deemed purely superficial. These surgeries do not stem from a base of medical necessities, however there is a certain level of suffering that can accompany some of the patients desire for surgery. The suffering, coming from mostly issues with self image, are directly related to social norms. These social norms are constructed by society as a whole based on what they deem as “beautiful”, “expectable”, or “desirable.” These norms are either accepted by the individual, in this cause, the individual assimilates with the norm and has internalized the norm as something in which they agree with. In comparison, the individual may reject the norm as something they do not align themselves with however, because the majority accepts the norm, he or she may experience difficulties being excepted by the majority.

In today’s society has paint a picture in which beauty is curvaceous goddess with fare complex and sex appeal. This portrayal of the standard of beauty has convinced and blind society to believe that on must achieve such look to be happy or feel good about them. These standards of beauty are projected through the media, magazines, advertisements and the ideal beautiful portray. Many people feel that the only way to achieve such looks is through the process of plastic surgery, women especially. Women feel an immense amount of pressure to achieve a certain look to be considered beautiful. Plastic surgery is a cosmetic procedure in which in helps to alter the appearance and functions of the body. Over the cosmetic procedures have become a norm and many people see it as a necessity in order for them to love themselves. These standards of beauty have become a tool, in which measures a woman’s sense of worth. This sense of worth has become more accessible due to society’s due to the acceptance and availability of surgical procedures today. Although plastic surgery can help to improve patients’ appearance and self esteem through both reconstructive and cosmetic procedures, it can lead to poor conquensces, emotional issues and even death. Today there have been forms of these cosmetic procedures that have left patients disfigured and other times they have help patients achieve a certain look. These surgeries have become more medically and technologically advances, which has open

Elliott (2011) argued that popular and media culture today are introducing a wholesale shift away from a focus on personalities to celebrity body-parts and their artificial enhancement. The interest of celebrity is gazing at their body-parts, and it links the relationship between celebrity culture and cosmetic surgery. While there is a desire on being alike to the celebrity can achieve beauty, the demand of cosmetic surgery has increased in the society. As not many people could meet the standard of beauty, cosmetic surgery is the fastest way to obtain a perfect body and is generally accepted by the public nowadays. It allows the commodification of the body. Swami (2009) reported that individuals who have negative self-perceptions of their attractiveness or are dissatisfied with their appearance may view cosmetic surgery as a means of repairing damaged self-concepts. For those who are distanced from the ideal beauty, cosmetic surgery provide an opportunity to have a modification of the body, it is a process of using money to exchange beauty. And it become increasingly popular in the society as many people are seeking for the face of celebrity, cosmetic surgery fulfills people’s desire in creating the perfection of the body. Maltby (2011) suggested that higher levels of celebrity worship will be associated with elective cosmetic surgery with the individual establishing an identity using the celebrity as a physical exemplar. Celebrity body as a commodity is always associated