Rhetorical Analysis Of Beauty Standards

There are beauty standards all over the world, but America has one of the most highest and unreachable standard of the all. In the article “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines reflects the issue on how narrow-minded society, magazine and the rest of media is depicting the perfect body. The ideal body in America is established as skinny, tall, perfect skin, tight body are characteristics that destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem (172). As girls get older and into their teen years, they have been brainwashed to need to look like the unrealistic, and photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are right in the beginning.

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.

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

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.

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 Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry is a humorous essay, which uses techniques like satire including exaggeration, that gives the reader a funny yet accurate portrayal of women and their beauty standards compared to standards set for men. Barry uses satire, humor to criticize the faults of others, to connect with his audience. Although Barry loves to make funny points throughout his essay he constantly weaves in serious facts and examples of this issue. Barry will make a valid point then immediately follow it up with exaggeration. His use of satire in the essay makes the reading light and enjoyable while showing the reader the double standards of beauty.

In the United States, society pressures females to be perfect starting from a young age, an idea supported through beauty pageants and our nation’s fascination of these competitions. Beauty

Society and the media have an enormous influence on an individual’s concept of beauty and bodily perfection. Even the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” many people allow the media’s influence into their lives, which is a dangerous thing to allow (Vogel, 2015). According to David Newman, author of Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, society is defined as the “population of people living in the same geographic area who share a culture and a common identity and whose members fall under the same political authority” (Newman, 2010, 18). The people within a society constantly create and add to the pressure already placed on individuals which can severely alter and harm one’s self-esteem. Self-esteem is

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:

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the center of attention? Cameron Russell, the speaker of, “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model,” related to this in every shape and form. According to Russell, she is pretty because in her industry pretty is defined by being a tall beautiful white woman. She is what every little girl dreams of being. In Cameron Russel’s ted talk she states that she gets things she doesn’t deserve because she is a beautiful, stunning white woman.

As I was reading The Beauty Bias, by Deborah L. Rhodes, I came across a statistic that perplexed me, saying the total “annual global investment in grooming” comes to $115 billion (Rhodes, pg. 32). This shocking fact provokes a worrisome question: Why do we, humans, spend so much time, money, and thought on our appearance? As a complex question, there are several equally complex answers. However, the simple answer is that everyone else invests their time and thought into your outer shell, eliciting effort from you to improve what they study - your external image. The concern placed on one’s fashion choice or natural features by society takes away from larger, more pressing issues such as the declining economy, or feeding third-world countries.

The logo that I created represents a makeup brand called Beauty. In small letters at the bottom of the logo, there is a sentence that says, “There is beauty in the mystery.” Beauty is underlined in that sentence to emphasize the brand name. That sentence also represents that beauty can exist in anything. To further illustrate the brand name and slogan, the logo is a rose. A rose is typically thought about as beautiful, but most roses need sun and water to become aesthetically pleasing. The rose in the logo is shown thriving in a dark, mysterious background which is a symbol that not all beautiful things are as they seem. The intended message of the logo is that the vibrant rose in the gloomy backdrop denotes that humans themselves can be beautiful

The oppression of women is due to a ‘global culture machine’, which consists of the advertising industry, the cosmetic industry and communications media (Chapkis, 1986). From this, a constricted, westernised ideal of beauty is encouraged to women worldwide. Chapkis analyses rituals women go through to achieve ‘perfection’ such as anorexia or bulimia, using these to reveal the levels of oppressiveness these regimes are for women. “Women are entrapped in the beauty system, but there are possibilities for change if women are willing to accept themselves and their bodies as they really are” (Chapkis, 1986). For this to be possible ‘beauty secrets’ (the processes females go through to conform to the cultural ideal) would have to be carefully scrutinized

(click) The medias portrayal of the ‘unrealistic ideal woman’ is seen in countless images in the media via magazines, films , music videos , in newspapers , on social media such as twitter , Facebook ,Instagram and tumbler. Pretty much all of the photographs you see will incorporate all or some of the same characteristics. These include flawless skin, white teeth, a slender figure , large breasts , large bums , skinny waists ,flat stomachs ,thick hair , big eyes and big lips and the list goes on.(click)

Growing up, fashion and make-up were never part of my life. I have never liked wearing skirts or dresses, I have no idea how to apply make-up, and I do not have any desire to do either. However, as I grew up, I realized that was not the norm of my friends, or “women” in general. When thinking about this paper, I suddenly recalled an episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, where he discussed the Miss America Pageant. I had heard of the pageant before, but I never knew they were a scholarship foundation until watching his show. The Miss America Pageant has been in existence for nearly one hundred years, yet they still judge women primarily on their physical beauty; making it difficult to believe their true mission is to want to help change the lives of young women across America. Though they state they are an organization for women, they enforce anti-feminist and patriarchal views of women.