The Beauty Of Beauty

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

“You will never look like the girl in the magazine. The girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like the girl in the magazine” Jessimae Peluso. Throughout American history, women have continued to strive for an ideal of beauty. Although the definition of beauty has varied between generations, the pressure and desire to fit the mold of what society deems “beautiful” remains consistent among women from all eras. Unfortunately, this abnormal example seen in magazines, on runways, and in social media platforms is impossible for the majority of the female population to physically reach. Women are always pursuing the perfect look, turning to plastic surgeries transform them into celebrity ideals. People who desire perfect appearance ignore the nature of beauty itself, naturality is a kind of beauty. In recent years, women in America turned to look at models to find the ideal beauty standard and if they don’t meet them they turn to face lifts and plastic surgery to perfect their appearance.

What does being beautiful really mean? It is the possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, or think about. It goes way beyond the looks but what is within. The media seems to have a different view on beauty. The concept to tell someone what they are or what they should be, is what the media exhibits to society with ideal females known as “models.” In Curtis Sittenfeld, “Your Life as a Girl,” she describes the life as a female and the way they are being viewed. Although all females are beautiful, they feel like they need to appear a certain way to be categorized as such. Living in a world where others opinions are more powerful than one’s own, makes it harder for women to actually consider themselves as being beautiful.

Everyday people stare at billboards, magazine covers, movies, television, or pictures on the Internet of someone or something that they classify as beautiful. Some things people glance over and other things fascinate them. For example, when Farrah Fawcett’s famous picture of her in her red bathing suit came out; many teenage boys hung that picture in their bedrooms. Their idea of Farrah’s beauty was based strictly her outward appearance.

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.

Through the media society puts out high standards and expectation on women to adhere to what they say is beautiful. Making women judge mental and self consciousness about themselves and even judging other woman in a split second. In the book Mrs. Breedlove speaks on the affect the movies had on her,”She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it with some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (122). This explains how the media can cause society to be judgmental among their peer and categorize them as either beautiful or ugly. Giving society room to isolate and antagonize the ugly and adore and idolize the beautiful.

perspective of society. The image of perfect beauty in the mind of humanity has plagued the

Beauty’s innate commentary to Society Concepts of beauty can be portrayed in everyday life. Jane Martin’s play entitled Beauty is the perfect example of how society perceives beauty and the subsequent benefits of possessing these unrealistic attributes. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, this is a phrase that many may relate to and Jane’s play is a representation of this, making it a commentary to society’s unrealistic views of beauty. An in depth look, at how society’s perceptions of beauty affects not only those who measure themselves up to these standards but also those who fit into the mold themselves and this will be the aim of this essay.

Have you ever thought of what true beauty means? In the article “Pop Culture Is Destroying True Beauty” by Rachel Drevno, she explains how pop culture and the media are influencing people to believe that they aren’t good enough because they don’t look a certain way. The beauty Drevno discusses are the actors and celebrities in commercials, movies, and magazines. She believes that people are trying and changing themselves to look like those in commercials or movies because that’s how standard beauty has been portrayed. I strongly agree with her argument because the media only presents images of attractive, beautiful, and sexy figures.

The development has created much controversy because how it decides to present its perception. Humanity is at fault for how the beauty industry decides how to advertise the perfect image. Yet, in the twenty-first century, there has been a turn of events. Those have educated imaginations are realizing how one standard of beauty is not enough for the millions of versions of beauty there are. Despite, wanting to have no standards of beauty, the educated know that this is no physically possible. Frye perfectly summarizes, “ The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in. Obviously, that can’t be a separated society, so we have to understand how to relate the two.” (86) The educated imagination interprets how they want their society without losing the connection to what we live in. The beauty industry represents the society we live in: superficial, materialistic, and self-indulgent. The educated imagination represents the ideal society: accepting of all and self-confidence. Although it cannot be the ideal society, there are still possibilities of a society where beauty is not a forced by people sitting at a board table. The mixture of these two societies can develop into a society where beauty is not only external but internal. Having the educated teach the weak imaginations how to comprehend the repercussions of the beauty industry, but still, understand it is difficult to change a hundred-year-old tradition. Standards of beauty will always be part of society, it is just how will society determine what is an illusion and

Beauty standards are an extremely critical issue facing young women today across the country. Beauty standards are changing the way we perceive ourselves. Beauty standards change the way we dress, our make-up, our hair, and our size. We think about what others will think based on how we look. In the morning, while getting dressed, we may say to ourselves, “What will they think?” or “Is this shirt too tight? Too loose?” We wonder if our hair is the right color, or if our teeth are white enough, and the largest standard of all, if we are skinny enough. In a short clip, “Beauty Standards Around the World,” created by Buzzfeed (2014) shows how each country defines beauty. Buzzfeed uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and logos to effectively convince the viewers that society is manipulating women’s perception of beauty. A young girl sent out a photo with no make-up on and her hair pulled back to photo shop experts around the world. The results were upsetting.

For centuries mankind has unsuccessfully attempted to define beauty. Greek philosophers, including Plato, tried to define beauty as if it were as simple as any other law in nature. However this cannot be so because the idea of what is beautiful has varied throughout cultures and the ages. In the 1800s women who were pale and rather plump were considered objects of desire; but in today’s society, desirable women are slender and tan, among other things. The fact is that today, beauty is as unobtainable as it is indefinable. All of today’s supermodels, as seen in millions of advertisements, have been modified, airbrushed, and photoshopped. Women desiring this beauty have turned to various

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" wrote Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. A well-known quote that was told to me at a very small age and has stuck with me my whole life. I had very low self esteem growing up and the day my mother sat down with me and explained her definition of this quote it changed my outlook about what my peers thought of me . I started thinking more of myself and not of my outer looks. More of the beautiful young lady deep down inside me. Not everyone has the same taste in what one calls beauty and that's okay. The world makes a perception of what a beautiful female should look like and act like, they stamp a beautiful woman as one with flawless outer body features. This has being happening for ages. In ancient Egyptian times,

The media focuses on the types of beauty that is acceptable to society. But when asked what is beauty? There are a multitude of answers. What media illustrates is a beauty that has been shifted and shaped by misogynist men and by a society that does not believe in individual beauty. Media centers around outward appearances which produced a shallow frame of mind. For instance, women stand in the mirror disappointed they don’t appear as the women in the media. Unhappy with their bodies with their self esteem dwindling slowly they see that beauty, in

Beauty can be defined as a combination of qualities of a person or object that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction and that are aesthetically pleasing to the senses. While we are told as young children that beauty lies within, in today’s world for many people, that is regretfully untrue. We live in a very superficial society where most everyone is judged by their physical appearance. We are forced to change our values and purely focus on our appearance in order to be accepted and feel wanted. In recent years, the desire to be “beautiful” has become an obsession for many, leading sometimes to devastating consequences. The pressure to be beautiful relates to women’s studies and feminism because as