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More handpicked essays just for you.
Society's focus on body image
Body image issues in society
Is body image a social problem
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Recommended: Society's focus on body image
After reading “Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination” by Deborah L. Rhode and “The Makeup Tax” by Olga Khazan, both readings focus on the concerns of appearance discrimination. Appearance discrimination can be validated, yet it cannot. For instance, it is valid to appearance discriminate an individual when an employer is interviewing him or her because it is the first quality employers examine. An employer is often likely to not hire an individual if he or she comes into the interview wearing informal attire, in contrast to an individual showing up to the interview with formal clothing. Nonetheless, it is not okay to validate appearance discrimination when it comes to an individual’s weight.
In Gary Soto’s short story “The Talk” he reveals how society values appearance way too much. The main characters discuss about how their appearance affects their self-esteem, mindset, and their future jobs. The characters start out discussing their appearance and call themselves ugly, “We were twelve, with lean bodies that were beginning to grow in weird ways. First, our heads got large, but our necks wavered, frail as crisp tulips” (par.2). The boys talk about their appearance as if they were really awkward when in reality they probably don’t look like the way their describing themselves.
The author also describes how much appearance is important to us. In what point of time did we allow our society to tell us what is and is not beautiful. People worried about what others would say or losing friends because their teeth are not perfect or they are not skinny enough. Your appearance should not take away from the person you are on the inside. We entrust dentist and plastic surgeons to cause pain to our bodies to meet societies expectations of beauty and spend thousands in the
In the article Beauty Standards by Kate Povey, she tells us how beauty standards have changed and how they have affected more people today. “Beauty standards have always been extremely prevalent throughout human history, and today they drastically affect everyday interaction, the media, and the commercial world.” (Povey) This quote shows how beauty standards are still an issue today, especially because of social media. On social media, anything can be edited to make you look differently.
In the essay What Meets the Eye, Daniel Akst argues that look or beauty does matter in the daily life, that is, people’s life can be largely influenced or even controlled by look. Through reading Akst’s essay, I completely understand how people have different perspectives of others, as many people pay attention to and worry about how they look in the daily life. And people tend to judge others by their beauty or looks to a large extent. Akst’s ideas quite conform to and reinforce Paglia’s points that pursuing and maximizing one’s attractiveness and beauty is a justifiable aim in any society, and that good surgery discovers reveals personality. Both of them hold the idea that beauty plays an important role in people’s life and it is significant to enhance one’s beauty and attractiveness.
We can all say that we’ve judged people at first glance. Your appearance can say a lot about who you are. There are many situations in which people are being judged wrongfully. In the Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mr. Hooper was being unfairly judged by the black veil he was wearing. I, as well, have judged people unfairly by what they were wearing, but for good reasons.
Does Appearance Say Anything About the Type of Person You Are? We can all say that we’ve judged people at first glance. Your appearance can say a lot about who you are. There are many situations in which people are being judged wrongfully.
Due to the fast pace of mass media, and how fast trends change, no one is given the chance to be themselves. People aren’t given a single moment to question if they are contributing anything meaningful to the world. Society is so caught up in being just like celebrities and influencers, that they completely lose themselves in it. This generation suffers from the want to be like everyone else, and we are left with nothing unique and nothing different. The change in fashion, music, and even language, leads to an even greater desire to be the same.
In the modern day, it has almost become a crime if you do not follow the “normal” social situation and everything included. The decisions on what food we eat and even what clothes we wear are greatly influenced by standards set in place by larger companies. Human beings have the urge to fit in and be accepted by the majority. People are so afraid of being judged and so concerned with fitting in that they would do anything to make themselves look good. It is impossible that the human race be so unique that everyone is completely different.
Many people in today's society are deciding not to be themselves, but rather conforming to the norm. People are living their lives using a counterfeit identity instead of being the original person that God made them out to be. God made everyone different and unique for a reason; He did not intend for everyone to be the same. The problem that is prevalent across the world is that nobody wants to be seen has weird or different from everybody else, so they do whatever it takes to be seen as normal. When people make that decision to fall into the pressures of fitting in, they tend to lose sight of who they really are.
Marshall Cohen, in the article, “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination,” claims that hiring attractive college students will attract more clients. Cohen supports his claim by stating consumers will want to shop just to see the attractive employees. Cohen’s purpose is to convince the reader why hiring attractive employees is a good idea because it can make the retailer marketing increases. Cohen writes in a formal tone consumers. I disagree with Cohen because hiring only “good looking” people is discriminative, unfair, and unjustifiable.
If you look at what influences us, most celebrities have a standard look. Their bodies are proportionate; their facial features are symmetrical, makeup to cover any imperfections, etc. This is the ideal beauty. The way we dress also contributes to how we’re judged by other people. The biggest fault to how other people see is that eventually, once you’ve heard something enough times, you start believing them.
People originated from different culture, societies, and ways of life, so there will dependably be a distinction in the way individuals act, dress, and look. The United States has made laws in the previous years to ensure that individuals are treated fairly in light of sex, religion, and race. Yet, there is no official law securing individuals that are being segregated on their looks. So, there should be, as Deborah Rhode states, “stricter anti-discrimination laws…” (248). Deborah Rhode, the person who wrote the essay “Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination”, explains why appearance is the last of the last type of discrimination confronted in the present society.
Society 's Beauty Standards Hawkins (2017) stated that the definition of beauty has been shaped by society 's standards instead of what people actually look like. It signifies that the society sets up expectations of how we define beauty by manipulating beliefs of people to recognize that body shape, skin color, race, ethnicity, or anglicized features are what makes a person distinguish their beauty instead of what people actually look like in reality. This makes people believe that the beauty that they see, especially in films, is something that they need to attain in order to be considered as attractive. Unrealistic beauty standards affects physical and mental health Vitelli (2013) stated that content analysis of female characters
Body shaming is one of the biggest problems in today’s generation. It is the practice of making critical, potentially humiliating comments about a person’s body, size or weight. It is obvious that all of us come in different shapes and sizes but society and the media puts a lot of pressure on us with beauty stereotypes and standards to deem some as healthy and some not. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy recently about body image and body shaming, especially among teenagers. Body shaming is an extremely personal concept and can take a negative toll on a person.