Respond To Critical Thinking Questions

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

No matter where in the world you may find yourself, you almost certainly are always going to be judged or stereotyped. Being judged and stereotyped by people has been around for a while and will probably never change. In the essays “Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem” by Fatema Mernissi and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, both women share their stories about being stereotyped and judged. Both Mernissi and Tan use the nonfiction elements of characterization, as well as point of view. Although both Mernissi’s and Tan’s essays have a relatively similar theme, their situations are completely different.

In the context of physical appearance, black woman are only featured with body parts- mainly their “large, rotund behind” (Perry 137). The presentation of the face is mainly limited to white or lighter-complexioned women. The highest idealization of women is one that possesses a “‘high-status’ face combined with a highly sexualized body read by the viewer as the body of a poor or working-class woman” (Perry 137). Perry further substantiates her claim by stating that “women are created or valued by how many fantasy elements have been pieced together in their bodies” (137). She debunks the opposition arguing that the bodies of black women are appreciated by pointing out that only a minority of black women have such attributes, and those without are pressured and struggle to achieve such proportions.

Body image has always been a huge part for women in their lives. In the beginning of the essay Bordo gives a great opening with a good description that open your eyes. She speaks about how a young girl standing in the mirror who thinks she is fat when in actuality she is the right size according to her doctor’s chart. The young lady only thinks she fat because of what she sees on TV and how actress, singers, and artist’s bodies looks. With the media it has people thinking

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:

1. They hired more broads than men. They hired more women than men. 2. He used to hire micks around here.

(4) Knapp describes how” the average American woman is bombarded with ads on a daily basis… which shows a controlled appetite, prerequisite for slenderness, connotes beauty, desirability, and worthiness.” (8) The daily reminders from society resonates in a woman’s psyche which leads to anxiety towards hunger. The anxiety that women feel leads to an insatiable desire to be thin no matter the cost because of fear of being fat, and the negative connotation associated with being fat.

When they would question his particular statement then it would be not able to answer them in the way that he wanted too. When looking through there he was seeing different things for explaining particular things. There are things they’re not understanding what is happening, looking for more things. He was looking through people vehicles in different ways. He was getting questioned through other human population, he is not understanding the other ways of how the community works. When the police question him they were stating that there was a man in the park being questionable. There was a man with a gloomy look on his face, he was seeing the world of light through his head. The community is having different things to stay and having more than different things to feel and what to do with their mind to make sure that there not having prospection of what is this going on and how is he doing it with

Answer the following questions based on the video we watched. Remember to answer in complete sentences using part of the question in the answer. Make sure you answer all parts of each question. Change your answer to an easy to read color (anything but black).

Orenstein acknowledges how Ava, though fat, still embraces her life. Ava is beginning to see the reality that fat is criticized; nonetheless, she handles the comments in a healthy manner for her age. Ava is not the only one facing this obstacle. Individuals have started to acknowledge how young girls, in multiple countries, are reacting in damaging ways to the effects of this so-called fat epidemic. Many are questioning where it comes from. Within the school they attend, among friends they associate with, or media they view, Orenstein points out potential sources that may have caused children to feel conflicted about their weight. She emphasizes about the importance of parents praising their children for what they achieve rather than how they look. However, this advice is easier said than done, because as Orenstein addresses, the world often perceives women for their appearance over other characteristics they may embody. We come to wonder how girls went from caring about bettering themselves and their minds, to obsessing over physical appearance. Orenstein emphasizes the importance of this topic with Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s work on comparing the thoughts of girls that lived in separate centuries. In doing so, one can see how drastically thoughts shifted from internal self-worth to external self-image. Orenstein concludes with the idea

Chang’s writing is focused upon from the view of a sociocultural standpoint, with discovering the internal ideas beneath beauty from the external appearance. It included an experiment with nearly 500 Asian American female participants who took part in a questionnaire package regarding both one’s personal beliefs as well as on social relations with Caucasian-American women. The results of this showed that, there are little to none ethnic group differences in the internalization of the dominant White beauty standards among Asian American women. Despite the lack in differences, the findings made contributions by showing the importance of racial identity and beauty standards in Asian American women’s body image development and psychological well-being.

In other words, the more an individual is exposed to certain images – even alarmingly unhealthy ones – the more desensitized one becomes; in fact, what may have once been considered “ugly” may actually become desirable, if widely accepted and glamorized by the fashion industry. Furthermore, in the title of Bordo’s article, “Never Just Pictures,” we are given to understand that this prevailing cultural sickness is merely a “symptom” of more systemic issues. For example, Bordo touches on “deep anxieties” stemming from “Western philosophy and religion” which have been linked to eating disorders in America today; in fact, for those who are unfamiliar with her book, Unbearable Weight, a greater elaboration on this aspect would have been desirable. She also reveals other subtle messages underlying fashionable face-value images, many of which create powerful currents surrounding the development of eating disorders. According to Bordo, the endless barrage of images (regarding what the fashion industry deems perfection in appearance) serves to strongly communicate “fantasized solutions” to our challenges in life. It is a false narrative which goes something like this: “achieving the body- and beauty-ideal will magically make everything in my life right with the world; I’ll be beautiful, popular, strong, admired, in control, etc . . . .” Bordo’s point is that these types of fantasies may become potently motivational to the individual striving for “the cultural ideal” through starvation and other extreme

The author gives cases of woman from different cultural backgrounds that are forced to accept the westernized beauty standard. She explains that a woman named Zahra Dhanani was pressured by her mother to be thin, because her mother thought that by being thin means beautiful, and it results Zahra to developed bulimia. According to one of the interviewee, Niva Piran, a clinical psychologist, explained that “The ideal of standard beauty is uniformed by the mass media, and attractiveness is often perceived as thin body figure, and light skinned”( McCelland,2013, paragraph 3,p.445). Thus, this component has contributed to people from different culture to develop body image anxiety which can lead to eating-disorder such as, anorexia and bulimia. The author also discuss the history aspect of body image; before the 19th century woman who are larger are consider as healthy and this idea was shifted after the industrialization, and woman are now pressured to accept that being thin is considered beautiful. The author also criticized that the media are constantly demanding light skinned and thin figured woman to be presented. The essay concluded that if the media and the society do not change the idea of accepting themselves, woman will continued to be pressured and scrutinized by the society and therefore feel pressured to look like a certain way.

Bordo establishes herself as an authority figure through her extensive education in English and women’s studies. In her prolific writing career, Bordo often places emphasis on Western culture and its lasting viewpoints toward gender and the body, and in view of this, Bordo’s argument paves way to influence her audience through her credibility as an expert on women and the body images that plague them. As this authority figure, Bordo claims that the media and cultural influence have created a negative influence on humanity’s conceived standard of beauty, and as a result, have caused the spread of eating disorders.

The media have constructed attractiveness for a long time many sociocultural standards of beauty and. Especially women’s body images have been a primary concern because the value of women has been measured how they look like. How women have similar body traits with the modern female body images has been a significant and essential issue, historically. The sociocultural standards of beauty which have been created by the greed of the media have dire impacts on young females. The current beauty level of the female body image in the media is thinness. In fact, the preferred female body images have been changed through the media. Throughout history, sometimes skinny women’s body images were loved, and sometimes over weighted women’s body images were preferred. Whenever the media have dictated the ideal female