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More handpicked essays just for you.
The demand for beauty by society
The impact of the media on self image
Societal standards of beauty
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"The female ideal, and the pressure to achieve it, have become unrelenting. Not only are women encouraged to be thin, they are presented with a physical ideal that is diametrically opposed to the softness and curves more natural to the female body." -Joan Brumberg, author of The Body Project. Walking through life with labels placed on each woman’s body isn't easy. Our culture has put this image of the perfect body upon us. A picture photoshopping in one model’s chest, another’s legs and still another’s face. We don't like that we are supposed to aspire to this impossible image, yet we fall under the assumption that it is the truth.
For most women, the only way to attain this body is plastic surgery. “Women had more than 10.3 million
This painting was created in 1509 and a section from the plaque below the painting reads “This mysterious painting is meant to be an allegory of Poetry, whose symbols – the flute and the pouring water – are shared between two nude women of ideal beauty. These unreal figures exist only in the imaginations of the two men they inspire.” This painting shows that just over 500 years ago the ideal body was one of robust and physically larger women.
In the essay "Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body" by Susan Bordo, she talks about the culture of advertising and the different stereotypes associated with men and women. While men and women 's bodies are viewed differently though media, people are starting to view them in a contrasting demeanor. In Bordo 's section "Men on Display" she presents a quote encompassing the idea of women being seen as sex objects, but the second a male decides to be put on display, suddenly it becomes inappropriate. Not only do we live in a society that is "body-obsessed", women are openly revealed for people to see, while a male doing the same is considered to be "overexposure" (194). This section of Bordo 's piece brings up a controversial aspect of gender equality, and at what point, if ever, will our society and culture reach that point
The world is becoming so fast paced and society is constantly changing in the blink of an eye. There has been quite a bit of controversy over how perfect everything and everyone has to be and with a combined mixture to be perfect from the pressure and media, people will do anything they can to fit right in, even if it means harming themselves in the long run. There is so much pressure from everyone around one another nowadays to be successful, beautiful, above average and just all around the “best.” It isn’t a good thing that people will constantly try to be perfect and will go as far as hurting themselves in order to meet the image that society pressures them to be. People are constantly being pressured to be perfect and the amount of pressure that is put on them is starting to impact their lives in a negative way. With the amount of media in the world, it is affecting the lives of women negatively.
There is a constant battle between being too thin and being too fat. If a woman is seen as being fat, then she is automatically assumed as being lazy and overeats. If she is too thin, then she starves herself and is often seen as number obsessed. For the woman who is not the ideal weight, but over it, she is told she needs to lose weight and that she is just a pig who refuses to exercise. Health issues like Hypothyroidism can affect the hormones that regulate metabolism, causing weight gain. Women that are on the other side of the spectrum are seen having issues with Anorexia and Bulimia. Diseases are often ignored when it comes to weight because all that society sees is the shape of the person, and women are criticized for it harshly. Society is so obsessed with weight that it often blocks out aspects like personality when people address women. A male friend came up to me one day and told me that if I lost some of my waist, men would be more attracted to me. When did numbers come to outweigh personality and overall compatibility? I have come to accept the fact that I will not fit in with the “ideal woman’s” body image, however I do not let it affect how I see myself. Instead, I embrace it as part of being me. The need for a thin body has been fed by the media to make the woman change her ways and give in to society’s demands. Weight loss programs are displayed on television for low prices enticing women that are “overweight” to buy the product so she can become more desirable. The internet is filled with banner ads that tell people to, “click and learn how to lose 5 pounds in 1 week.” Blogs are being dedicated to weight loss and article upon article are being created for the sheer need to be thin and ideally what every woman “wants.” However, amongst the ever growing weight loss powerhouse are a few people who stand up against it. As people flip through channels on their TVs they can
The ideal image that the media has created is to be exceptionally thin and tall. This is what the media considers to be beautiful. This ideal image can be seen on a daily basis just about everywhere on advertisements, which promote this unattainable image constantly. Research has proven that women tend to feel more insecure about themselves when they look at a magazine or television, which makes them feel self conscious(Mackler 25). The irony in this is that not even the women in the advertisements are as flawless as they appear to be. In order for a woman to appear in the mass media her image must be enhanced in several ways. A women is often airbrushed to conceal their actual skin but it does not end there. Through various computerized programs a woman's actual features are distorted until a false unrealistic image is reached.
When we look into the mirror, we are constantly picking at our insecurities; our stomach, thighs, face, and our body figure. Society has hammered into our brains that there is only one right way of looking. Society disregards that there are many different shapes, sizes, and colors. Then society makes us believe that corporations can shove detrimental products to fix our imperfection. As a consequence, we blame media for putting all the negative ideas into women’s brain. It is not wrong to say that they are in part responsible, but we can’t make this issue go away until we talk about patriarchy. In the article Am I Thin Enough Yet? Hesse-Biber argues that women are constantly concerned about their looks and if they are categorized as “beautiful” by society. These ideas are encouraged by corporations that sell things for us to achieve “beautiful” but the idea is a result of patriarchy. Hesse-Biber suggests that if we want to get rid of these ideas we need to tackle patriarchy before placing all the blame on capitalism.
In conclusion, women should be comfortable in their own skin and shouldn’t feel compelled to be as thin as a model. Women need to feel appropriate and content in their own skin, and to not feel inferior to the model on TV or pasted in a magazine advertisement. We are all different and no woman is exactly the same and even the ones that seem to be picture perfect have flaws and love handles, and women need to realize that is the truth. So, by accepting one’s self for who they truly are and what they have accomplished in life is what is going to boost our self-esteem. Once the world understands this, then the media won’t have such a monumental affect on society.
The issue, as mentioned above, is largely due to the fact that the media, and its air brushed models, urge women to change their appearance to become more attractive or healthy while gaining popularity and confidence with their new looks. As absurd as it may seem Celia Milne, the author of Pressures to Conform, upholds this idea and states “90 percent of Canadian women are dissatisfied with some aspect of their body” and that “they will go to frightening lengths to achieve their body ideal” (Milne 4, 9). Where does this dissatisfaction arise, and why should people who already have a normal body mass index (BMI) be intent on loosing weight? The answer lays in the media as it presents young women with idealistic body images that, although they may appear achievable, are entirely unrealistic. Despite this glitch, most women will continue striving towards perfectionism due to peer pressure, or media influx, thus becoming trapped with a goal that they can never reach. Dieting, excessive exercising, and weight loss programs are several of the healthy options that thi...
...th the modern era defining beautiful as having less weight. (WiseGeek, n.d.) Another argument is that thin is a feminist issue and they just use this as a headline grabber because 39.4 million of Americans suffer from obesity and the British NHS survey of Disordered Eating noted 620 hospital treatments for anorexia or bulimia (with some patients registered twice or more) for 2005 to 2006 as opposed to 17,458 for the same period for obesity. They also argue that more material is being saved when models are thinner and clothes look more elegant and drapes effortlessly on skinnier models. Most models and designers argue that models are not supposed to eat and they are meant to be skinny to sell more clothes or make them look more appealing.
Women are bombarded by images of a thin-ideal body form that is extremely hard, if not impossible, to emulate. Comparing themselves to these women can lead to feelings of inadequacy, depression, and an overall low self-esteem. (Expand on, need a good opening paragraph to grab the reader’s attention)
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
Our society has a certain way of thinking how every woman's body shape and image should look. Skinny waist, long hair and a fit body is what our society likes to describe as “normal” or “ideal”. You see it in commercials, movies and T.V. shows; women need to eat a certain type of food or to be on a diet, leaning more toward females than males. It is also shown in movies or in T.V. shows when you see the skinny girls ending up on top or ending up with the boy. The larger girls are normally the comedians of the show or are made fun of. This is just the way our generation has been corrupted to
...y standards, further resulting in negative impacts on their self-esteem and confidence. Furthermore, this limited perspective of beauty causes women to be blinded and not realize that there is not one specific look of beautiful, but many. In a sense, women are taught to think that beautiful is being thin, having silky hair, toned legs, big breast, blemish and acne-free skin, and so on. However, in order to reach these beauty standards set by society, a woman can overwork her body in order to lose weight by dieting, or not eating to be “thin”, which also puts her health at risk and acts as an additional issue. Women who fail to reach these beauty standards set by society, may feel as though it is their fault and end up feeling even more insecure and bad about their body image, when in fact, the beauty standards were unrealistic and unattainable from the beginning.
Through history the image of beauty has changed thousands of times and it wasn’t really until the latter half of the 20th century that thin was in. In the 1960’s Twiggy, an ultra-thin model rose to fame in the fashion world and ultimately changed western view on bodies (Introduction to Anorexia: At Issue). Models were now thinner than ever. Suddenly there was extreme pressure on women to be thin, to look like the models in magazines which is difficult for many people to achieve. This causes people to resort to unhealthy weight loss techniques in a desperate attempt to become accepted in society and to be seen as beautiful.
Throughout history, being skinny was closely linked to poverty and being fat was a way of flaunting wealth. Today, however, the media glamourizes thinness. Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape (National). Is there too much pressure on girls to have ‘perfect’ bodies? What is that pressure doing to the girls most affected by this? While there are many reasons why girls are pressured to have ‘perfect’ bodies like positive or negative comments from family and peers on body image, and personal views of self-worth, the most effective cause is the mass media. According to many theorists, the “thin ideal” portrayed in the media accounts for most females’ need to be thin or skinny (Gross 36). While peer acceptance should not be the reason one changes them self, girls are negatively impacted by the pressure to have perfect bodies because it can lead to reduced self-esteem, increased self-consciousness,