The Importance Of Beauty

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius. Beauty has had a specific image or ideal for the past 100 years from the help of pop culture and advertisements that women are constantly viewing daily. We can go through the different ideas of beauty through idolized women in the past who were often considered to be the ideal beautiful. With the help of makeup and the aid of different styled clothing, women were able to fit in to form into the ideal beauty.

For my final essay, I chose to write about The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and her chapters about work, sex, and hunger. These were the chapters and topics that I felt had the most impact during my reading. The first chapter, work, is about the ways in which the Beauty Myth threatens the huge steps that women have made in the workplace. Wolf discusses how women are still being held back by having to work two shifts (one being paid for by employer and another for the unpaid work done at home) compared with the single shift worked by men – still made strides; and how the introduction of a third shift, the beauty shift, serves the purpose of keeping women down by keeping them tired and preoccupied. Too tired and preoccupied to be successful at work,

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

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

The term beauty applies to each and every person. Today, so much value is placed on a person’s physical appearance. Appealing girls and guys are known to be as gorgeous and captivating, and those individuals who don’t meet society’s standards of “beauty” are scorned or ridiculed. They have control over those who choose to listen, and those type of people are the reason why we haven’t come to realize what the true meaning beauty is. Their definition would be something plastic and naturally stupid, something relevant as a barbie. It is something with not enough common sense to know that all that fake material can potentially damage you. Those who do not agree with society tend not to be a part of it.

Beauty standards, then, determine what is adequate and what is not, which facial features are perfect and which will never meet the requirements. They decide what is sexy, which body woman should seek to have, and supported by the media, they are installed as a mechanism of social control that

Since the beginning of civilization there have been beauty standards, but as time has gone on, they have continually evolved and changed into what they currently are now. What was once beautiful two hundred years ago may only be average or desired by some, whereas in the past that may have been the most popular look or body type. However for decade’s women put beauty to the side and focused on the evolution of their rights and equality, but now since they have attained many of the same rights as their male counterparts the importance of gender equality seems to be changing. Currently many women are resorting back to issues of beauty and looks because of the societal norms that have come to be popular and important to the masses.

Imagine waking up every morning, struggling to get out of bed and hating to look at yourself in the mirror. Girl’s will look into the mirror for hours and criticize every last inch of their body with the words “fat, ugly, worthless” echo in their head. They think their body isn’t good enough and want to look skinner like the other woman in magazines or people they see on TV. The media has a big part in self-image toward young woman. The message being sent to these women on the media is that they are not pretty enough or thin enough. Which results in people having an eating disorder.

Beauty standards evolve as people do and are based on the need to procreate. Human beings have been adorning themselves with products to look for appealing for thousands of years. The serious problem we haven't addressed are the subversive messages our corporate owners inculcate us with through media. The hijacking of beauty standards is corporate means to an end. Putting a good looking plus sized woman on the cover of a popular magazine doesn't solve the relative that we are inculcated with falsity.We aren't tackling the root

Beauty has always been defined outer appearance. Men and women of all ages and races spend time, money, and energy to bring out their outer beauty in order to gain acceptance and impress others. It is evident that one must look good in order to be accepted by society. This can be shown through how much people value makeup, Snapchat filters, and fashion trends The next time you find yourself watching T.V., pay attention to the commercials and count the amount related to makeup, such as nails, eyebrows, and facial skin.

By having a standard that women seek to conform to, social order can be maintained (Ferrante, 2014, p. 28). Beauty, by itself, is a very fluid concept. What one person defines as beautiful may differ from what another person considers as beautiful. However, having differing opinions can often lead to disagreements among a group of people and thus disrupt the social order. Ideally, by having a standard definition of beauty such a disruption could be avoided.

Expectations including unatainable beauty standards with young women being objectified and unrealistically portrayed the most in the media. Everyday we as consumers of media are subjected to these images, morphing our mentalities and leaving individuals that don’t meet society’s expectations and standards particularly vulnerable. The encouragement from the media to embody an impossible image for the majority of women can lead to a number of different mental health problems. Statistically unrealistic images formed and reinforced by the media affect young women and girls more so than their male counterparts in regards to mental illness, particularly disordered eating and body image issues. At one treatment facility for anorexia and bulimia, of 138 patients, only four were male. (Bokind-Lodahl) Nearly all of these 138 patients stated that they had developed an eating disorder because they had wanted to be as physically desirable as possible, to them and many other women in America translating to being as thin as possible. All of the patients were very vulnerable to actual and perceived rejection, however the patients that identified themselves as female were more likely to believe that their bodies and sex must somehow be the reason for that rejection. So why are so many girls and women affected by body image issues? Between the ages of thirteen 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.

Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.

Beauty standards have been socially constructed in diverse and various shapes in every society or culture in the world, and cause people to think they are not beautiful if they do not fit the common standard of beauty that has been set by the society. Most people are pressured into the standard by the social milieu. The people who are different from the socially pursued standard of beauty do not think the standard itself is absurd, but they rather tend to be insecure about their appearance. Once people see the beauty through individual’s perspective, not through the socially constructed standard, they would realize how much they have unconsciously forced each other to be fit in the beauty standard. This is something that I have also experienced. I was not a person who fit in the standard of beauty, and that made me shy and timid. However, once I saw myself through a different perspective of beauty, I could see it as a social problem that unconsciously forces one particular standard of beauty.