The Art of beautiful women Essay

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.

I collected data from a convenience sample of two interviews and ten surveys of women attending Yale University. I chose interviewees who were self-identified women-of-color in order to get an in-depth perspective on the processes of how beauty ideals affect women of color’s lived experiences. One of my interviewees, Laura, is a Black woman from suburban Southern California. The other, Abbie, is a biracial white and Korean woman who spent the majority of her life in Hong Kong. I chose women of color across ethnic groups and from both Western and non-Western countries in order to investigate potential differences or similarities across these groups and to explore the potential existence of Eurocentric beauty standards in non-Western countries where the majority of the population may not meet them.

Born, P. (2005). New day dawning. Beauty Biz. May 1, 2005 p 26. Retrieved December 1, 2005 from:

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.

Like Georgiana in “The Birthmark”, women often find themselves striving to reach society’s expectation of beauty and perfection. In Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll”, a young girl is finally able to reach society’s version of beauty but she must die to do so. Piercy criticizes the ways “women are socialized into stereotypical feminine behavior” (“Overview: “Barbie Doll”, para. 1) in this poem and suggests that the pressure put on women to meet certain standards of beauty and behavior is destructive. The poem opens with the birth of a “girlchild” and all the “typical toys” that go along with it. When the girl hits puberty, her classmates begin to make fun of her big nose and fat legs. The girl is intelligent and healthy, but the other children only see the imperfections in her appearance. She is told she should behave “coy” and always wear a smile, but the teasing takes its’ toll. She cuts off her nose and legs and offers them up

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.

In recent years, historians and scholars, specifically Susannah Walker, Noliwe Rooks, and Amoaba Gooden, have begun to assiduously examine African American beauty culture from a racial and gender perspective. Accordingly, these historians and scholars now suggest that African American beauty culture was profoundly influenced by the racial and gender politics of the early twentieth-century time period. For example, in her book titled Style & Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920-1975, historian Susannah Walker asserts that African American beauty culture was distinctly unique from other forms of beauty culture because it “explicitly reflected and articulated twentieth-century racial politics in the United States.” Similarly, Amoaba Gooden, a pan-African studies professor at Kent State University, surmises that racialized notions of feminine

Women are marked and judged by their outer appearance rather than their innermost. Tannen distinguished that “each of the women at the conference had to make decisions about hair, clothing, makeup and accessories, and each decision had a carried meaning” (411). Women

Today’s society raises young women to conform to archaic practices with total disregard towards a child self-progression. In Barbie Doll poem by Marge Piercy it is portrayed a young girl who was attacked by society because of having unruly features on her appearance and body. To make clear, Piercy uses the title “Barbie Doll” in her poem to symbolize the cultural American traditions of making young girls live in a fairy tale world; where everything they see or do is perfect. The girl in this poem played with Barbie toys since she was little, but when she reached her puberty people started to criticize her of having imperfections on her face and body; which made her commit a really wrong decision for herself. In today’s society there are a large number of women having plastic surgery, because they do not feel comfortable or confident with their own appearances. Women are not just beauty queens and home makers; they should retreat from female stereotypes at a young age so they do not confront society pressure.

In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" a young girl is troubled by the classification of what it takes to become a beautiful woman. "Barbie Doll" details the image that society projects upon women. From an early age young women struggle to conform to the standards that society has defined for them. Beautiful dolls such as Barbie are frequently the first source of association that young girls have with the image that society has placed upon them.

Her newest show over New York’s Jewish Museum features nearly conservative fashion photos of unadventurously good-looking models. Everything that is in the pictures is standard and recognizable, apart from for the staring eyes that are painted on to the women’s bunged lids, (Nelson, V. 2012). These peepers look so intensely creepy: sensibly detailed but too large, too permanent, too unoccupied, hence making the flesh-and-blood humans who dress in them look as if they have been 3D printed in

High arched brows, pursed red lips, perfectly curled short hair and the coy side glance is the representation of what most young women strived for in the 1950s. They endeavour to look favourable for men in the hopes of getting married as this was their goal and purpose in life. Media influenced the scale of expectations women had for themselves and this created a misrepresentation of what a young women in the 50’s should strive for. Beauty pageants, Barbie and Marilyn Monroe emphasised on the importance of perfection, beauty, and sexuality. Although these messaged sent strong messages to younger girls, they remain in the era due to, in some way or another, lack of defying normality in the era.

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

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.