Feminine Beauty

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Recommended: Societal standards of beauty

Feminine Beauty

When defining Feminine beauty one must decide in which time

to define it. At certain times women have felt repressed

by the term, usually due to the beauty business'

influence; while at other times Women have found it

liberatory: finding it their bonus as females but not their

only power. One will also find that a correlation exists

between the women's movement, or lack there of,

and society's feelings about woman and their aesthetic

appearance.

A woman's beauty during the 1910s and early 1920's was not an

aspect of one's life to be contemplated heavily. Woman pre 19th amendment were

more concerned with gaining recognition of their equality then how they

looked. Woman felt beauty came from with in and was not a product one could

buy. Attractiveness was being strong and powerful: " In the late 1910's and

early 1920's female athletes began to ellipse movie starts as the nations

beauty archetypes" (Faludi 204)

This seems due to the Women's movement's influence at the time. Yet when

the late 1920s are analyzed one sees a different occurrence. After women

achieved the vote in 1920 women, it seems, felt they were equal and were able

to be what ever they chose. If they wanted to make them selves up they could.

if they wanted to work, or stay home, or anything else they could.

"Flapper Jane", the ideal figure of the 1920s, is the object of

constant analysis. "She is, for one thing a very pretty girl. Beauty is the

fashion in 1925" (Flapper Jane, 65). When Reading Flapper Jane one gets a

sense that "Jane" felt that she was equal and her beauty was just something

that she did and not something that did her:" Women still want to be loved,...

But they want it to be on a 50 / 50 basis which i...

... middle of paper ...

...day, woman can look at a beautiful

mannequin in a store and say" I want to look like her" and

they can actually can! They can go to their doctor and

say,' Doc, I want I want these cheek bones.' 'Doc I want

these breasts.' The question to me is do you actually want

to look like a mannequin or yourself.

By this point one should see how Feminine beauty is

subjective to the time to which you are referring. I think

that the '90s are part repressive, due to the need to feel

beautiful and thin at almost any cost,but are also in

terms of beauty. Women not only believe that they can do

and be anything they know it. And the beauty industry has

seen the American women as a group of very different

individuals. We, woman, as a whole are doing our thing and

are in liberation we are sexy smart and in the end the

makers of our ideal and not the subjects of one.

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