What Is Your Identity Essay

        Clothing and appearance send a message to everyone, sometimes they can communicate our occupation, or in some cases an occasion we are celebrating. Clothing can communicate about some one's socio-economic status, as well as our values, and character. In some religions, people are clearly recognizable by the way they are dressed.

In our popular culture, the media worships the beautiful, perfectly made-up, perfectly-coiffed, perfectly-dressed, THIN woman! Our current standard of beauty is based on super models, actresses, musical artists, reality TV stars, all for the most part very thin women. With the overwhelming amount of these images bombarding us every day, the message seems clear: women who do not fit this standard of beauty are unattractive, unloveable, and unacceptable.

In his article, Sheldon referenced many articles that reported how the exposure to thin models in magazines can lower self-esteem and body satisfaction significantly. The authors of the referenced articles found that women who believe they do not have an ideal or thin body tend to be disappointed, and will work hard to achieve the ideal body to be “accepted” into society. This is caused through the media such as magazines and television as the people in those media can be used as a reference point to make unfavorable comparisons between the viewers and the person they are comparing. Through a body image survey made in 1997, researchers (as cited in Sheldon, 2010) found that 43% of them felt insecure about their body when they see very thin or muscular models. About half of women who were surveyed wanted to lose weight in order to look similar to the

“Unlike biological sex—which is assigned at birth and based on physical characteristics—gender identity refers to a person’s innate, deeply felt sense of being male or female (sometimes even both or neither). While it is most common for a person’s gender identity to align with their biological sex, this is not always the case. A person’s gender identity can be different from their biological sex”. In relation to fashion, gender identity can come out of the norm, the stereotype of what a woman or a male should wear and what is socially acceptable, although this has changed over time .For example it is now more socially acceptable for a female to wear trousers where as in the earlier days it was seen as unfeminine. Going back to gender there is an identity that is referred to as gender fluid. Gender fluidity is an identity that refers to a gender that changes over time; this could be random or could change in response to a circumstance. A gender fluid person can possibly identify at any time as male, female or Neutrois.com (2016) neutrois, which is considered to be neutral or null gender.

It is a little strange that this should be so. After all, these are not the conventional images of nudity that society judges as beautiful. In her essay “Beauty (re)discovers the male body”, feminist philosopher Susan Bordo explores the female stereotypes to which I refer. In a world ruled by images, she claims, women portrayed in the media influence the average woman’s notion that she must be seen. Further, media’s emphasis on displaying women with thin figures signals to society that this is the normative body type, the ideal. Even those advertisements which are meant to highlight women’s “great careers or exciting adventures” (216) are pervaded by thinness: “The plots may say: ‘The world is yours.’ The bodies caution: ‘But only if you aren’t fat.’” (Bordo, 216) Thus, it is unsurprising that women internalize these messages and reproduce them with rigor, criticizing others’ who might not live up to this stereotype. When obese women do appear in the media, such as in diet commercials, their bodies are portrayed as undesirable. Thus, the everyday obese woman is prompted to be ashamed of her body. She is signaled hide it, with or without clothes, when she knows herself be the object of assessment.

“We are, despite our efforts at resistance, conditioned to see thin as beautiful and, more to the point, beautiful as necessarily thin. As Regina Casper points out, early in our teen years we notice that ‘female socialization emphasizes good looks above everything else, and good looks demand what is difficult to achieve in out surplus society, namely a thin body. The pursuit of thinness hence is considered an acceptable and socially desirable goal’ (1994). Furthermore, fat women are not only deemed unattractive, but also lazy, slovenly, dirty, undisciplined, and unsuccessful”

Aerie’s Real Beauty Models are showing both ends of the beauty standard spectrum. Women go to extreme lengths, such as purging and starving themselves to look like an ultra thin model because it’s still not widely accepted to be a normal size. Even the fight to stop body-shaming has restrictions. In the fashion industry, one can be big and curvy, or ultra thin. Hollywood creates characters with relatively offensive names, for comedies. (Suhay 1). People don’t seem to notice how upsetting it really is. On the internet end of the spectrum, fitspo and thinspo are taking over the web. Many blogs show that society glamorizes being ultra thin. “100 years of” videos are taking over the internet and are always featured with picture perfect male and female body images. Even toys influence children’s views on size. Barbie’s body shape was made for pop culture. (Suhay

A person’s identity is shaped by many different aspects. Family, culture, friends, personal interests and surrounding environments are all factors that tend to help shape a person’s identity. Some factors may have more of an influence than others and some may not have any influence at all. As a person grows up in a family, they are influenced by many aspects of their life. Family and culture may influence a person’s sense of responsibilities, ethics and morals, tastes in music, humor and sports, and many other aspects of life. Friends and surrounding environments may influence a person’s taste in clothing, music, speech, and social activities. Personal interests are what truly set individuals apart. An individual is not a puppet

A major issue in society that has been lasting for years are the issue of body stereotypes and people’s perceptions of them. Throughout the ages women have been body shamed because of any type of figure they held. If a woman is skinny is she is automatically frowned upon. She is considered a “bad” influence to young girls everywhere, ungrateful for her body, weak, or some would even has an eating disorder. However, if a woman is thicker, fat, curvy, or has gone through a healthy weight loss she is considered strong, empowering, an ideal, and a representation of true beauty. These two contrast create an unequal dynamic and doesn’t shed light on to the real issue on hand where eating disorders and other health problems are the concerns hidden behind this

The evolution of our society’s opinion of feminine beauty has changed over the last hundreds of years. Historically, women have always been more prone to stereotyping than men. Women who were very voluptuous and curvy were once thought to be the most attractive than the thin, however the trend nowadays has gone in the opposite direction where being skinny is everything a girl should be. Women back in the day were viewed by men/everybody as the caretakers of the children, of the

“Why are so many people discriminative against other people’s bodies?” (Kelli Jean Drinkwater) Why is it anyone’s business how others choose to live their lives and how they look? One of the most pervasive and yet ignored discriminations in our society is due to weight, size and body image. As a society, we should be respecting one another as individuals instead of judging each other superficially. Keyboard Commandos on social media sites are constantly criticizing others for being too big, too thin, too lazy, and too everything. The internet trolls will say it is because they are “concerned” for them. They sometimes act like they are medical professionals who know the medical history of the

Society is a finicky critic. Around every corner there is an advertisement or magazine cover offering a basis for beauty. This beauty is skinny. It is flawless skin, slender thighs, and flat stomachs. Most of all it is

Closer in the early 2000’s if someone’s body wasn’t super thin and little, they would be made fun of and be told to go on a diet, or to put their food down because “they don’t need it”. Now a full circle has come as the ideal body is back to Monroe. Thicker women are admired and praised while skinny and toned women are told to go put more meat on their bones. Songs like “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj and “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor both talk about how men would rather have a thicker girl than a slim girl --or a “silicone barbie doll,” according to Meghan. While this is uplifting to the women on the thicker end of the scale, it’s definitely demeaning to those on the other side. It seems as if one can’t be praised without the other being knocked down.

Even artists write songs about how “thick” they are and how proud they are to distinguish themselves from all those evil, skinny girls. If the media says so, one has to agree. Has the media ever been wrong about anything it portrays? Besides, skinny women are always known for their mischievousness, and maliciousness towards people, especially fat women. The cause of this atrocity is very rocket-science simple to explain: obese, or curvy women have what skinny women do not have. Skinny women are envious of the beautiful bulging layer of fat at the stomach, the flapping fat under arms, the gorgeous look of the two thighs touching, and the marvelous stack of fat under the chin. Even if being obese means risking one’s life to have heart failure, fatty liver disease, gallbladder. Eighteenth century women risked their lives getting lead poisoning by putting white powder on their face; therefore, sacrificing for beauty by binge eating is no big deal. In addition, women resembles to cakes. Would one rather choose a thin slice of cake or a whole ample, meticulously decorated cake?

People tend to not think too much of the way they dress when they are having bad days or great days; but what they do not realize is that clothes reflect the way they feel about themselves. We do not realize that our clothes have the power to give a statement of our self-esteem. Making a statement is what many women try to seek out when they are getting dressed, but what the statement they are really giving, is about their self-esteem and their self-worth. Many factor of our clothing give away our personality and make people think of you a certain way.