I gaze into the mirror and all I see is imperfection: stretch marks, cellulite, acne, oddly shaped legs, little breasts, boring eye, flat hair, freckles. “Nobody is perfect, you’re beautiful just the way you are,” people say but they lie. There is no way I can be perfect, my body isn’t stick-thin like the models the fashion industry flaunts, nor is it well endowed like the women featured on social media. I’m constantly aware of it, but I realize other girls are also impacted by beauty standards. The constant, nagging pressure to conform to these standards is detrimental to the physical and mental health of numerous women. One area that this pressure come from is the push to appear beautiful on social media. Every day we are …show more content…
Thus, it is no surprise that beauty often overshadows the emotional connections in some relationships. Unfortunately, because of the intense focus on appearance, “ we are surprised when someone who is beautiful is also intelligent, talented, and good” (Sontag). It’s understandable yet depressing. Moreover, it is degrading and hurtful to one’s self-image when one’s appearance is more valued than one’s personality. Similarly, jobs even outside of the fashion and cosmetic industries focus more on beauty than ability or intelligence. This is an illogical yet uncontrollable issue so, we cover our pores and blemishes, pluck and draw on our eyebrows, and hide our fat rolls under constricting Spanx. Attempting to be beautiful is a burden, mentally and physically yet many jobs rely on it. Alas, cosmetic surgery is now “considered a career necessity” (Rosen). However, appearance doesn’t seem as if it would be a factor in obtaining a job. Therefore, even if it was your appearance that hindered your ability to get a job, it would often be blamed on shortcomings in your brain or skill set, creating a much more detrimental impact on one’s self-esteem. Rather than feeling worthless about a trivial attribute like looks you feel incompetent and worthless which, from personal experience is far worse. For feeling unintelligent cause you to feel utterly worthless and you start to think:
Although, beauty is longing for it is not always beneficial to the beholder. For instance, McIntosh explains how “these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive” (31). Sadly, I can relate to her feelings many people do not see beyond my looks and I often find myself becoming part of a stereo type. Many people believe that because I am attractive I wont have to work to be successful. Others express how I will probably end up marrying a wealthy man who is older.
In the novel, Beauty by Robin Mc Kinley, the family of a wealthy merchant looses their wealth when the shipment boats get lost at sea. There are three daughters named Hope, Grace, and Honour, whom is nicknamed Beauty, and a father. The family is forced to move to the country and start a life more modest than accustomed. After the family adapts to country life, one of the older sisters gets married to an iron worker who used to work at the shipyard owned by the father. They have babies. Life goes on in the country.
In our modern superficial world, there are people who are solely known for their good looks. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you may be or how beautiful you may think you are, the media will distort your mindset to make you have an idea that you could be better one way or another. With the growing industry that is Cosmetic Surgery people can now copy and paste parts of their body, they don’t take a fondness for. The beauty standard that is demanded by society and the media has caused body-image issues, addiction to surgery, and the traumatic death involved in cosmetic surgery.
Beautyism is as old as the existence of humanity itself. There are numerous examples scattered on the path of history related to bias shown only on the base of one trait: beauty. However, in today's world of advanced civilizations, where organizations have evolved greatly, this phenomenon of beautyism is gaining more strength every day. Attractive physical appearance is being perceived the key to happiness. And, this psychological weakness of many is being exploited not only by the commercial entities but also by simple individuals walking among us. A simple example of this daily exploitation can be witnessed at workplaces where better jobs, remunerations and career advancements wait for physically attractive people every day. However, one thing that cannot be ignored is how beautyism can hamper the workplace equilibrium of any organization and the effectiveness of available human resources.
The subjective element of beauty involves judgment, not opinion. Many people feel beauty is only something seen by the eyes. St. Thomas Aquinas views beauty in both the supernatural and natural orders. Aquinas lists the attributes of beauty to be found in nature. These are; unity, proportion, and clarity. We will see how these attributes of beauty are seen through the eye and felt by the heart.
Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.
In today’s society, it is effortless to argue that women are too pressured to have a perfect body. Women have an idea that they have to fulfill a look to satisfy other people because of what appeals to the common eye. Women always lower their self-esteem because of the way models look in magazines, movies, television, etc. Beautiful celebrities like Megan Fox, Kim Kardashian, and Beyoncé are what the common eye admires. Celebrities tend to be slim, wear loads of makeup, and have ideal curves. Women look up to these celebrities and wish to be just like them.
A major contribution of this article is that it paves the way for future experiments and empirical studies. The conclusion presented on premia and penalties associated with looks in the article reflect the effect of beauty in all its characteristics, not just one of its many components, such as height, weight, or facial appearance. Future experiment and empirical studies can be built on the layout or techniques presented by this article and can be focused on examining the source of wage differentials and possible discrimination due to a specific characteristic of beauty or various other dimensions such as physical and mental disabilities. Same experiment can also be conducted on data from economies outside of North America to check whether the same premia and penalties of looks exist in other economies.
The unrealistic standards of beauty is hurting this generation of what the media and society thinks a girl has to look like, for many years the media has been trying to construct the ideal image of what a “perfect woman” should look like. They believe there only beautiful if they have long legs, great hair, and curves in the right places (HuffingtonPost2017). Which is not the influence that we want to carry down to future generations of girls who feel like they must live up to the expectations of girls who have the “perfect body”. With media apps being popular in the 21st century, there was a survey done on some of the top media apps, their study #statusofmind surveyed almost 1,500 young people aged 14 to 24 on how certain media apps impact health ( CableNewsNetwork 2017). Body images statistics say 80% of woman say images,
Society creates a standard of beauty for women that often changes along with society due to a new perspective on what it means to be beautiful in our culture. These standards for beauty create what our society believes makes a woman desirable, attractive, perfect, and overall beautiful. Which then enforces unhealthy and unrealistic beauty ideals that negatively affect women's self-image and their body image because society has attributed beauty to self worth. The result is with the ever changing standards of beauty means women use various ways to alter their bodies and appearance by clothing, makeup, hair, dieting, exercising, and even taking extreme measures to perfect their looks through surgery.
Beauty standards in America are always changing and continuously on the rise due to society’s constant obsession with the perfect body image. This image is built upon the things we see in movies, television shows, and magazines, which causes girls to feel the need to look flawless and set far-fetched goals for their physical appearance. Today’s era marks tall, skinny and flawless faces as beautiful, and if girls don’t have any of these attributes, they truly believe that they aren’t as beautiful and will do whatever it takes in order to obtain that beauty. In today’s ever-so-demanding society, social media, flawless models, and pressure from not only peers but from family as well, have all implemented a negative impact
The definition of beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty has negative and positive influences on mostly people. Beauty is described by the inside and outside of us. Due to beauty, our self-esteem has been hurt dramatically, especially towards girls. Beauty is not always about our outside looks but it’s about our inside personality also.
We see girls in the media who have perfect lives, go to the gym religiously, are always weirdly flawless with a full face of makeup, and we can't help but think to ourselves: “Why can't I be like that?” or, “I wish I was her.” Because we see these women who are beautiful, get all the guys, seem to have their lives figured out, we feel this pressure to look and be like them, and when we don't look like them we tear ourselves down and point out all of our flaws. I have fallen victim to this many times, it’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to stop. I have noticed that Instagram models all have been working for a certain body type and face image that make them all blend in. They all have beautiful full lips, small chiseled faces, small waists, wide hips, and enormous posteriors. Most of the time, for celebrities, these things are achieved by plastic surgeons, which is why it's such a dangerous body type to idolize as a young girl. No matter where I go or what I watch, women with these body types are everywhere. They are sung about, rapped about, and praised everywhere for their body, and it makes me think: Maybe if I looked
What is beauty? How do we decide who is attractive and who is not? Society is full of information telling us what is beautiful, but what fact is that information based on? The topic of beauty has been studied, analyzed and controversial for centuries. We all know the feeling you can have when you hear a beautiful song that brings joy to your heart, stand in a field of flowers that excites your eyes, or admire a face that is visually pleasing. As human beings, we are all drawn to beauty, but what is it that makes something beautiful? The controversial issue that surrounds beauty is that some believe that true beauty is defined by someone’s outer appearance, while others believe it is something that is experienced through a person’s
On the other hand, cosmetic surgery can help certain individuals look younger, so they can have more opportunities throughout their lives. Those who believe they do not meet the standards of beauty can many times risk job discrimination and have mediocre relationships (Griswold and Driscoll 2). Procedures will help those whose income depends on keeping a specific look (Hilton 44). Some careers depend on physical appearance in order to make a living (Beggan). In certain workplaces, meeting beauty standards is extremely important. Occupations such as a model, actor or any job that requires being in front of a camera, or even merchandising beauty products demands a perfect body and face. However, even careers that are not as prestigious seem