Today's society is constantly besieged by the media, through advertisements and extolling the importance of female beauty and discrediting other virtues such as
This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an
Every day we are bombarded with ideas of how the human body should look- men need to be muscular and women should be fit and toned. In fact, these norms are taught at a very early age, and through various social institutions. It is especially evident in Disney movies, just take a look a Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, or Ariel in the Little Mermaid, children are constantly being subjected to these masculine and feminine ideals and it will continue throughout their life. Magazines will place photo-shopped models on their front covers, while radio stations promote testosterone boosters for men. Although these ideal body types are impossible to achieve, society still has the expectation that we should strive to be as physically attractive as possible
(Pigott, 2). Likewise, Catherine altered her body size to meet their gender expectations and various cultural beauty standards. By applying the gender lens to this, we can better understand how gender expectations and cultural beauty standards intersect to shape women’s experiences of their body. It emphasizes how cultural beauty standards can have a significant impact on women's body image, self-esteem, and confidence. Women often feel the pressure to comply with the cultural ideal of beauty, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy, and shame if they do not fit the mold.
Doctors in Nazi Germany during the World War II period were some of the most inhumane people of the time. Their human experimentations and testing that was done in concentration camps were some of the most awful acts carried out during World War II. In this short period of time it is estimated that over 30 different experiments were carried out on numerous camp prisoners (Tyson). These experiments were carried out by a number of different doctors such as Dr. Clauberg, Dr. Oberheuser, and Dr. Mengele who all operated out of concentration camps such as Auschwitz (Bülow, “The Nazi Doctors”). Luckily after the war these doctors were all brought to justice and held responsible for their inhumane actions (“Auschwitz-Birkenau”).
Women are raised to prize being beautiful, but, contrary to what pop culture may promote, is never completely effortless. Becoming beautiful in the way that society defines it often requires hair dying, eyebrow plucking, trend following, makeup applying, leg shaving, and hours and hours and hours in the gym. Thus, in the words of Alisa L. Valdes in her "Ruminations of a Feminist Fitness Instructor," beauty standards serve to reinforce power relations in that they "distract us from the real business of our lives. " That is to say that is women were to spend the time and energy they currently devote to beautification on endeavors they considered to be meaningful, whether they be professional, educational, or personal, the men of the world would have one less advantage over their female counterparts. Therefore, one way beauty norms support existing power relationships is demanding valuable time from women in the name of
Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have
Women are often presented as one-dimensional characters whose sole purpose is to fulfill male fantasies. They are usually young, thin, conventionally attractive, and submissive to men's desires. This not only reinforces gender stereotypes but also perpetuates harmful ideas about femininity and beauty standards. Moreover, these representations have real-world consequences for how women are treated. The objectification of women leads to a culture where they are treated as inferior beings who exist solely for men's pleasure or entertainment.
What Girls Should Look Like Stereotypes We all have an image or stereotype of what we should look like. For most girl we should look like the famous Barbie doll from our childhood. The question is does society portray that girls should have a Barbie doll figure? Even though only one out of 100,000 women have her shape we still strive to be like her.
Gay's body does not conform to the societal ideal, and she faces constant ridicule, shaming, and discrimination. Gay notes that “[She has] a presence… [She] take[s] up space” (Gay 13). Society associates thinness with discipline, control, and success, while fatness is seen as a failure, lack of willpower, and lack of self-control. This expectation is not only damaging to women's physical health but also to their mental and emotional well-being.
Culture is defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and the arts. So how can someone's cultural background affect what they perceive to be beautiful? Well, what is perceived to be beautiful in one's society may not be considered to be so in another. Society heavily dictates what is perceived to be attractive from personality, fashion, and physical attractiveness. While there should be a plethora of diversity in a world where every person comes from a different cultural background, there is the lack of diversity in the world of beauty; this lack of diversity causes adolescents and women to create unrealistic images and standards of beauty.
I was born a female. Nobody in my life ever told me that I needed to like the color pink, want to go to dance class, or ask for dolls for my birthday. When I was in second grade, I went through a yearlong phase of only wearing my older brother’s hand-me-down clothes. My parents, teachers, and friends never told me I could not wear men’s clothes every day. Despite the fact that many of my female friends were showing up to school each day dressed in pink, girly, flower patterned dresses and skirts, I never felt out of place or in the wrong.
With this came the fact that beauty standards changed from place to place; in countries like New Delhi find the female body is deemed as shameful and made to be covered, but in the U.S. many women say that their bodies are considered their most valuable asset. This shows how standards have been enforced globally, albeit diversely, and have affected the way that we raise our children. Another article written by Alia E. Dastagir from USA Today described how gender stereotyping can lead to depression and violence in girls who conform to the standards set for them (USA Today “Gender stereotypes are destroying girls, and they’re killing boys, 2017). While these claims can be backed by the many articles on the subject, there is still overwhelming evidence of the unfair standards set for men, like the insensitivity and independence. As women are encouraged to defy the standards that are set for them, men are forced to embrace their standards and live up to them.
The existing asymmetry in terms of social power between men and women was strengthened through these images, as the stereotyping of women in these categories was associated with lower degrees of social and control. In his book ‘Gender Advertisements’ Erving Goffman describes how feminity and masculinity displayed within western media. In his analysis, Goffman addresses several trends and patterns in how feminity (and masculinity) is portrayed as well as the messages this conveys to the viewer. According to him women are portrayed as soft, vulnerable, fragile, powerless, dreamy, childlike and submissive . Goffman described a number of symbolic ways in which indicative behavior displays the subordination of females to males, the ritualization of subordination is accomplished by using social connotation associated with elevation, location positioning, and body posture .
American society has created unhealthy beauty standards that people want to live up to, but they ridicule those same standards when their goals can’t be achieved. Woman criticize how other women look but are offended when others do the same to them. There is “fat-shaming” and “skinny-shaming,” and now, no one's body seems to fit the “ideal” mold that Americans have crafted. It’s a hypocrisy of ideas. Body shaming is certainly not a new phenomenon, but social media outlets have caused it to spiral out of control.
