The Sociocial Aspects 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

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 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:

Beautyism is as old as the existence of humanity itself. There are numerous examples scattered on the path of history related to bias shown only on the base of one trait: beauty. However, in today's world of advanced civilizations, where organizations have evolved greatly, this phenomenon of beautyism is gaining more strength every day. Attractive physical appearance is being perceived the key to happiness. And, this psychological weakness of many is being exploited not only by the commercial entities but also by simple individuals walking among us. A simple example of this daily exploitation can be witnessed at workplaces where better jobs, remunerations and career advancements wait for physically attractive people every day. However, one thing that cannot be ignored is how beautyism can hamper the workplace equilibrium of any organization and the effectiveness of available human resources.

Fair skin, long hair, light colored eyes, and thin bodies, all categories under the European ideal of beauty. While women who have these features are, of course, beautiful, the media and modeling industry have molded these ideals into the ultimate standard to compare the beauty of millions of women across the world. Whether consumers are flipping through channels on TV or pages of a magazine, European beauty standards are emulated in the actors and models the media cast, and with the rise of social media, these ideals have only become more prevalent. The use of these standards may seem harmless; however, Eurocentric beauty ideals have had devastating effects on both the women who do and do not fit within Eurocentric beauty standards.

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.

The modern beauty standard has become an increasingly important issue because people have the freedom to decide, but the media largely influenced these choices on about beauty standard. Our advance of technology helps communicate with each other, but people are not fully aware of the influence of media. That is a major problem. The media broadcast images of beauty to control people consciously. Technological advance helps people to reach the information quickly and cumulatively, but media not always making people feel good about themselves. Most of the people experience powerless when a society values youth and beauty because it is impossible to meet beauty standard. People bombarded by images of men and women who are thin, beautiful, and youthful. This norm is slowly taking away an individual’s freedom of self-expression and consequently lose sense of self-worth. Camille Paglia, an academic and social critic who earned her PhD at Yale University, uses her artistic sensibility to argue that the current trend of plastic surgery leads to ethical issues, such as narcissism, sexism, and racism in “The Pitfall of Plastic Surgery”. Meanwhile, Daniel Akst, New York born journalist, claims that the attitudes of the typical American’s carelessness about their outfit and physical beauty in “What Meets the Eye”. Both authors define the beauty standard that created by the media and claim the issue of how the media set up the wrong beauty standard for audience; it is unattainable for

Society is full of ideas pertaining to the definition of beauty and has been controversial for centuries. Beauty is visually pleasing and can satisfy the other senses as well, but it cannot be fully defined through only the senses. It blossoms from the soul; it is an epitome of serene emotion. Beauty is imperative to the mentality our society maintains as if the world would transform to be completely dark without it. The word “Beauty” originates from the Anglo-French term beute meaning “physical attractiveness” and “goodness and courtesy” (dictionary.com, n.p.) Beauty is charming, mesmerizing, graceful, and captivating. Brutality is invaluable because beauty brings peace to the mind.

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.

A major contribution of this article is that it paves the way for future experiments and empirical studies. The conclusion presented on premia and penalties associated with looks in the article reflect the effect of beauty in all its characteristics, not just one of its many components, such as height, weight, or facial appearance. Future experiment and empirical studies can be built on the layout or techniques presented by this article and can be focused on examining the source of wage differentials and possible discrimination due to a specific characteristic of beauty or various other dimensions such as physical and mental disabilities. Same experiment can also be conducted on data from economies outside of North America to check whether the same premia and penalties of looks exist in other economies.

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.

Beauty standards have been a major issue for many years now and women have been willing to change their bodies over and over to please themselves and others. Beauty standards are often defined in terms of hairstyles, skin color, and body size. The measures involved in having to live up to these standards are often risky in nature. For decades, what is seen as beautiful is centered around a women’s weight and size. Today, that standard is often defined as being thin. Women often resort to drastic means to attain that ideal image. However, achieving these standards can be expensive, can lower self-esteem and can be a threat to a woman’s health and life.

In American culture, the idea of being a beautiful woman is of the utmost importance. Naomi Wolf (2002) stated that “beauty is a currency system like the gold standard” (p. 12) and in today’s narcissistic society her beliefs couldn’t be truer. Advertisers seeking sales and revenue continuously bombard women with ads featuring beautiful women selling cosmetics and other skincare products thereby increasing the pressure put on women to look their best. It is estimated that women in the U.S. will spend 12 to 15 thousand dollars a year on beauty services (Newsom, 2011.) and over 62 billion dollars on cosmetics annually in 2016 (IBISWorld, 2016). According to Thompson (n.d.), cosmetic companies design ads to change women’s attitudes towards products. This encourages them to buy more and as a result influences their attitudes and makes them feel disgruntled with their appearance. It also teaches them that their values lie in their bodies and forces women to measure themselves against an impossible beauty standard. Continuous exposure to stereotypical images and themes surrounding beauty, directly influence the way women perceive themselves and their peers. One study found that “Mass media is especially harmful to women because it constructs negative perceptions of women and reinforces them on a daily basis (Chapman, 2011).”

If beauty is only skin deep, why does it define a woman in every aspect of her life? Society has created a culture in which members perceive that a woman's identity is inextricably tied to her beauty and sexuality. A woman internalizes this belief, using her superego, and creates an unrealistic expectation for herself. This leads a woman to alter her total being to become society's "ideal" woman. In an attempt to attain this achieved status, she denigrates herself and becomes a living mannequin.

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.