Women, Beauty And Beauty

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

The feminine beauty ideal, as defined by Louis-Baker Sperry and Liz Grauerholz in The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales, is “the socially constructed notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s most important assets, and something all women should strive to achieve and maintain.” (Sperry and Grauerholz, 2003). Under the feminine beauty ideal, beauty is seen as a central part of womanhood; doing femininity or womanhood necessitates doing beauty. In accordance with this, a 2001 study found that women’s bodies must, in order to successfully reach an idealized state of femininity, be actively maintained and regulated through beauty rituals in a way that men’s are not. Thus, through

A common aphorism is ,“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Beauty is a combination of qualities - such as shape, color, or form - that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Individuals believe that through personal relationship experience, they create an idea of what aesthetic characteristics they are searching for; women are usually seen as the objective of this appeal. Through generations, one can see the power beauty has over civilizations or societies; such as the fact that ancient Greeks worshipped the goddess Aphrodite - a woman - because she represented true beauty, even though, Greek women were thought of as inferior to males. Beauty is so powerful that external influences take advantage of the significant beauty has on people, to exploit it for their own self benefit. Vivian Diller, a psychologist in New York City, renders to the fact that, “even the words we use to describe it [beauty] reflect its power — like stunning, knockout and bombshell — all of which connote the violent impact it has on others”. People believe they choose whom they find attractive yet there are external influences that play a force in the human mind such as the media, public figures, cosmetic industries, and culture influence people’s inner perception of whom one finds beautiful.

“In the 1840s, the first nude photographs of prostitutes were taken; advertisements using images of “beautiful” women first appeared in mid-century” (Wolf 215). This is an example of how media can show what is considered “beautiful.” We can now see something similar in contemporary time in which beauty magazines show young woman on the cover who are considered beautiful by the standards of society. The issue of the beauty magazine is it talks about how to get the perfect body with help of a certain brand of makeup. These images of photo shop perfection begins to affect the way woman see themselves and deem themselves as

Advertisements set the standard of beauty because an audience perceives what is being distributed as an “ideal woman.” If she was not the “ideal woman” then why is she on the cover of all the magazines? In Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences, David R. Croteau and William D. Hoynes write, “The most visible ad is the cover of the magazine. The standard image of the ideal woman on the cover suggests that purchase of the magazine will provide clues to how and what to buy in order to become the ideal woman.” This woman on this magazine, they claim, is simply being used as a form of covert advertising to sell products (182). The mindset is that if a woman purchases all of the products as the one on the cover then she will then be the “ideal” woman and will be in a comfortable position in that aspect of her life. She will not have to worry further of beauty. However, that is unrealistic as humans cannot reach perfection and even if they were exactly similar to the ideal woman the media would simply move on to the next interpretation of

Images used of women in the media usually present women as sex objects to be viewed by males. The media representation of women suggests women should have the appearance of mannequins, tall and thin, with very long beautiful flowing hair to compliment their glowing blemish free skin, with long perfect legs. It can be argued that the media encourage women to view their bodies as an ongoing project that is in constant need of improving. The content of magazines aimed at women mainly contains information and images based on beauty and fashion, with

”To all the girls that think they're are ugly because they're not a size zero, you're the beautiful ones. It's society who's ugly.”these are remarkable words of Marilyn Monroe that emphasize the what to her is true beauty. On the other hand magazines have become a big influence in a woman's life and how they feel about themselves.The concept of beauty is something that can be interpreted in different ways. For example, some people interpret beauty as a more physical prototype while other people see it as an internal concept that can go from the way you act and how your personality is. Therefore, beautyness will depend on people's different perspectives of how or what true beauty should be labeled. Weather it's true that magazines can have

When researchers asked one hundred eighteen female, college-aged students to look at twenty pictures in ads from women's magazines, they felt a sudden change in mood after the pictures were observed. There was notable depression in the women, a depression that has seemed to hit many women after leafing through women's magazines (Key and Lindgren 11). This depression is due to the fact there are so many negative messages being conveyed in advertisements that are published in women's magazines. But who can blame the women for their depression anyway? When the majority of the ads in women's magazines show super-skinny models advertising nice clothes, makeup, jewelry, etc., one might find themselves to be a little down. Skinny models portray their figures to be the cultural norm in Western society today. How often does one find a model in a woman's magazine that is over a size six that is not shown advertising plus size merchandise? The answer is not very often, or sometimes never at all. If women do not see their body type being depicted in

A magazine is not a mirror. Have you ever seen anyone in a magazine that looked even vaguely like you looking back? Most magazines are made to sell a fantasy of what we are expected to be. They reflect what society deems to be standard, however how unattainable that standard is, women need to remember that it’s just ink on paper. Whatever standards you set for yourself: how much you weigh, how hard you work out or how many times you make it to the gym should be your standards, not someone else’s. Magazines portray unrealistic images and women need to learn to accept themselves.

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.

We are constantly surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman. She is tall, thin and beautiful. She rarely looks older than 25, has a flawless body, and her hair and clothes are always perfect. She is not human. She is often shown in pieces – a stomach, a pair of legs, a beautifully made up eye or mouth. Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. It is forgotten that “beauty pornography”, as Wolf says, focuses on underweight models that are usually 15 to 20 years old. Flaws, wrinkles and other problems are airbrushed out of the picture.

It is impossible to flip through a magazine without seeing advertisements or articles with slender models trying to manipulate readers into bettering their body. Due to the consistent viewing of articles and advertisements covered with half-naked, bony models, the idea that being thin is the typical body image of women today is set into the minds of the readers. The images of thinness are used to symbolize such things as happiness, success, and beauty.

Women have let the idea of looking beautiful take over their self-confidence and life. Healthy Place, an online magazine teaching women about living a healthy life, says that, “today's fashion models weigh twenty-three percent less than the average female, and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a seven percent chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a one percent chance of being as thin as a supermodel.” So why do women push themselves to be excessively thin when these models are anomalies? They do it because the media tells them that this look is the only look that can attract men. Even if a woman is “beautiful” according to the media’s standards, she will always find something about her body that she hates, whether it is her hair or her belly button, no women is completely satisfied. Our society is very accepting of different religions and lifestyles, so why can we not accept different types of beauty as well?

Contrary to popular belief, beauty is not skin deep. Beauty is a combination of qualities that one possesses such as: kindness, strength, confidence, and intelligence. A person having these traits may not be considered aesthetically pleasing, but, it is important to realize that a person does not need to possess physical beauty to be truly beautiful.

Think about what you consider to be beautiful. The majority of people will say something along the lines of a good personality is attractive. Every person that says this is lying to some degree. Our primordial nature as a species causes us to be predisposed to judge others based on their appearance. This was developed as a survival tactic in order to choose the best mate who would be most likely to ensure the survival of the species. Today being beautiful means being thin, feminine, and curvy. To be beautiful means to wear makeup, but not too much, and to have high cheekbones and sparkling eyes. To be beautiful means to have straight, white teeth and a proud smile. But how can our society expect to find a smile on the face of someone who is constantly bombarded with images of photoshopped, unrealistic beauty? The amount of compiled research on women who are found to have low self-esteem is massive, and yet we still continue to wonder “why?”. As a culture we turn a blind eye to the fact that the expectations of beauty and feminism that are enforced on the female mind daily are mentally harmful. The constant pressure to think, act, and look a certain way is reason enough to know why women struggle with self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders, among many other things as a result. The constant bombardment of society’s standards of beauty on women is negatively affecting the mental well being of the female population in the United States.