The Importance Of African American Beauty

As stated above, African-American women have been subjected to measure themselves against white women. White women are viewed, in this society and since the beginning of the concept of race, as the epitome of beauty. Logically, African-American women attempt to emulate the white standard. This creates an inferiority complex, because the epitome of beauty is white woman, than any other race can be deemed as inferior; this deteriorates African-American women’s self-worth. To remedy worthlessness, many body modification techniques have been made to fully mimic white women in terms of beauty. This emulation still is being done and it is continuous, because of the psychological ‘white fantasization .

Lorraine O’Grady uses her essay “Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity” to address the issue of how the black female body is portrayed within art. She discusses the racist portrayal of the black female body compared to the white female body in art, explaining how the black body is only their to accentuate the white one, in the contrast of colors and subject matter. The black female is presented in art often as a slave only their to serve the white female. Lorraine O’Grady explains how the black female body is given no individuality and is objectified. She describes how the black female is presented in the back or shadows of art as a supporting role to the main focus of the white female. Lorraine O’Grady uses this essay in order to reclaim how the

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.

Gerald Early, the author of the essay Life with Daughters, describes the hardships of being African American especially when trying to raise two daughters who don’t believe they are beautiful . Early’s purpose is to inform the reader of all the difficulties that black girls face growing up in a society who has defined beauty with the image of a white, skinny blonde. He adopts a bitter tone in order to point out all of the difficulties these girls face in order to appeal to similar feelings and experiences of other African American girls their parents.

As the modern civil rights movement grew, visual culture became and important force for combating the negative view of African Americans and counteracting the dangerous effects of stereotypes. The birth of the modern African American pictorial magazine in the 1940s and 1950s provided an outlet to disseminate positive images of African Americans to a large African American audience. These images inspired activism, bolstered self-esteem, and acted against the damaging effects of prevailing stereotypes. Positive images of African Americans were also present in primarily “white” media. The presence of these images was intended

African-American ladies played significant bolster parts amid the Colonial time frame by giving help to the volunteer army. Their help included parts, for example, moving into the "huge house" to bolster the slave owner’s significant other when he left to serve in the volunteer army, dealing with wounds, and working close by the men in building fortresses for security from both the Indians and the British.

Renee Cox, as an African American woman and artist, uses her body and identity to start a discussion on the Black experience in America. Besides representing a population of minority artists, the female and the non-white, her art has affected society with her brazen approach to her craft. Cox’s significance comes from her open display of race and sex. In many of her pieces, nudity and the celebration of the African American experience is the focus. In addition to this, her medium of choice, mixed media and photography, is opening an outlet of art that isn’t traditionally used. In essence, Renee Cox is an artist that can pave the way for future artists by diversifying through medium, race, and sex.

Since the early 1900s, Black women have had a fascination with their hair. More explicitly, they have had a fascination with straightening their hair. The need to be accepted by the majority class has caused them to do so. Though the image of straight hair as being better than coarse hair still hasn’t left the Black community, there has been a surge of non straight hairstyles since the nineteen sixties. Wearing more natural hairstyles, which ironically enough include ‘weaves’ and ‘hair extensions’ has been considered to be more empowered and more enlightened. However, this image comes with a price, and though it appears the ‘natural’ hairstyle movement has advanced Black women, it has actually set

Throughout many decades, African American women have been able to set their own standards of beauty. Lonnae Parker, a writer for The Washington Post, states in her article Black women heavier and happier with their bodies than white women, poll finds, that “Freed from that high-powered media gaze, generations of black women have fashioned their own definitions of beauty with major assists from literature, music, and help from their friends” (Parker, 2012). The importance of this quote is that they were getting help from their culture, the music and literature is essentially the culture that helped them to define their own standards of beauty. By being isolated

“No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have Black women… when Black people are talked about the focus tends to be on Black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.” - Bell Hooks

Although embracement or celebrations of this stereotypically black feature may empower these women who reverse or redirect the hegemonic gaze that had been centered on their backsides for so long, these Eurocentric derived presumptions and idealizations of female blackness, nevertheless, remain. However, attempts to redefine these social constructions, while accentuating this feature Beyoncé refers to as “bootylicious,” has transformed beauty industries and ideas of sexual desirability which “subverts social hierarchies and normalcy” (Hobson 88). These redefinitions of beauty, more specifically, black beauty, from the “grotesque, carnivalesque body,” (Hobson 88) seeks “a healthier body image than their white counterparts” who are exclusively depicted as slender and petite (Durham 36-37). Thus, black women begin to visualize their own bodies and other black women bodies in ways that lead to non-sexualized, non-deviant conclusions. Challenging these “controlling images,” as Patricia Hill Collins identifies in Hobson’s article, only “unmirrors” black femininity and its history, a term Hobson cited from black artist and theorist, Lorraine O’Grady, because in order to “name ourselves rather than be named we must first see ourselves” (89). She later adds

It does not come as a surprise that women, in large, are dissatisfied with their bodies. This widespread body dissatisfaction amongst women was coined “normative discontent” (Rodin, Silberstein, & Streigel-Moore, 1984). Although body dissatisfaction seemingly plagues women as a whole, there are several factors that can either serve as a protective factor or a risk factor for the development of body dissatisfaction. Much of the research regarding this normative discontent excludes culturally relevant factors for African American (Black) women. Looking specifically at African American women, the factors that affect body image and body dissatisfaction greatly differ from those that affect non-minority White women. Skin tone or complexion,

Racial Discrimination is Beautiful The ideal image of beauty has been constantly manipulated by society for decades. Both men and women have contributed to the features that are valued the most in today’s society. Through the empowerment of women, seen in Lupita Nyong’O’s Black women in Hollywood speech, imagery is used to correlate with the ideal image of beauty, evidentially breaking down racial stereotypes of beauty and educating young women that external beauty is only valid with internal beauty.

As Atwood suggests in “The Female Body,”, female artists are selling products, along with themselves, with their ‘beauty.’ They do not advise the society to appreciate women despite their imperfections, but rather acts as a catalyst to the solidification of women’s image as an

American beauty (1999, Sam Mendes) is a very unique film with many different themes. The main characters in the film, Lester (Kevin Spacey) and Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) prove that there is a big difference in appearance versus reality. With the help of Colonel Frank Fitts, (Wes Bentley) we learn that people cannot just be judged by their outer appearance, but rather by what’s inside, because people are not always what they seem.