Beauty is a very important aspect for women. A lot of pressure has been place on the female gender to attain a level of beauty that has been set by their culture and society. Due to the desperateness of wanting to be beautiful, women are willing to go to extreme lengths in order to please their family, themselves, and society. Although these measures were much more bizarre in the past than they are now, the present-day traditions of becoming beautiful are still ridiculous. Since women have been given this duty to represent the beauty of their culture, it has become an obligation to fulfill it.
Many people will tell others to not judge a book by its cover, and though that is a wise advice, their subconscious minds will contradict that statement, causing them to judge people on their appearances. M. Farouk Radwan, Msc, explains that there is a theory, the attractive halo effect, in which people relate good traits to good looks before ever even knowing one’s personality; a study found that strangers rate people who are attractive as more socially and financially successful and happier than unattractive people (Radwan, M. Farouk). This happening is done unconsciously and people do not realize that someone physically appealing can lead them to their biased judgements. Due to these judgements, physical appearance has become important, however, the standards of beauty differ from people to people and culture to culture. In many cultures, fashion and styles are used to portray one’s beauty, especially in women.
Fashion, though disregarded as so, is something that humans deal with everyday. It is a non-verbal way of either hiding or showing one’s character and even those who say that they do not care about their fashion will pick out clot...
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What woman doesn't want to be beautiful? Women want to please and will go to extreme measures to achieve the beauty ideal. Over the centuries, women have mauled and manipulated just about everybody part - lips, eyes, ears, waists, skulls, foreheads, stomachs, breasts and feet - that did not fit into the cookie-cutter ideal of a particular era's ideal of beauty and perfection. Women have suffered, sacrificed and punished themselves under the tyranny of beauty.
There is a famous saying that states, “ we should not judge a book by its cover”, but oftentimes the first thing noticed on a person is their looks. One’s “physical beauty” strongly influences people’s first impressions of them. As a whole, we tend to assume that pretty people are more likeable and better people than those who are unattractive. Around the world, we believe that what is beautiful is good. There is a general consensus within a culture about what is considered physically appealing and beautiful. “Physical beauty” is associated with being more sociable, intelligent, and even socially skilled. Society shares this common notion of who has and who does not have “physical beauty”. Thus, “physical beauty”, as seen
Typically, 2 people will form an opinion of others within the first 3 seconds of meeting one another. The way these opinions are formed so quickly is, generally speaking, solely because of physical appearance. All too often, in our society today, people are criticized for what material possessions they have and how much money said people have to spend on things that they do not need, but instead just want. It does not matter where you go; this can be observed almost anywhere. Sometimes, when people notice that someone has cheaper clothes or less objects of purely material value, the people who have more frown upon those who have less. Ev...
Who sets the standards for beauty? What must one do to truly look beautiful? What does feeling beautiful mean? When considering the concept of beauty one must differentiate between the universal and relative perception of beauty. Among the components of universal beauty are harmony, symmetry and utility. However, perception of beauty is also relative, when it is defined by the standards of the time that are subjective to the socio economic values of the era. One of the ways these values are communicated is through images portrayed in art and in modern times through the media. ‘Fashion’ is the carrier of theses values though physical appearance and self-image that define power, rank, acceptability and belonging. Having ‘fashion’ as the medium of these relative values bring advantages and disadvantages. Although there are benefits of matching the fashion of the time, positive self-image and satisfaction with a feeling of acceptance these are temporary because fashion is ever changing. On the other hand not conforming to the contemporary standards can have a detrimental impact on self-image that leads to feeling a sense negative self worth and marginalized. Eating disorders are a powerful manifestation that fashion has on the psyche. The underlying idea of what fashion ‘is’ is value. Amongst all the change of fashion, value remains ever present.
In “The Beguiling Truth about Beauty” by Carlin Flora, she describes how other people influence the way we perceive ourselves by attractiveness. In the world we live, usually the most attractive get special treatment so people see less of themselves. People are always comparing to others on daily basis because that’s the way our brain is program. Most of the time looks are not the way other would see us but by the way we talk or express which changes our appearance. Overall the way people actually feel about themselves is the true meaning of beauty no matter what others think.
The central message of this work is that society is obsessed with appearances. The point the author is trying to make is beauty should not be the most important trait of a person. In today’s society everything is based on looks, people are more concerned about a person’s outward appearance. People strive to attain a certain ideal of beauty currently prevalent in their culture. A beauty ideal is an overall "look" incorporating both physical features (e.g., "pouty" lips vs. thin lips, large breasts vs. small), and a variety of products, services, and activities. These can include clothing, cosmetics, hairstyling, tanning salons, leisure activities (e.g., aerobics, tennis, or weightlifting), and even plastic surgery (e.g., breast or lip implants or liposuction). Ideals of beauty often are summed up in a sort of cultural short-hand; one may talk about a "vamp," a "girl-next-door," or an "ice queen," or one may refer to specific women who have come to embody an ideal, such as Cher, Marilyn Monroe, or Prin-cess Di. ”(Englis 2).
While women have made significant strides in gaining more freedom and rights in the past decade, society and culture at large continue to place a great emphasis on how women look. Certain standards of feminine beauty are presented in many different forms of popular media, bombarding women with images that portray what is considered to be the "ideal body”. Consequently, the importance of physical appearance is emphasized early on which leads to concern over appearance related issues. Such issues often surface in the early stages of a female’s development, and continues on throughout her life. While trying to live up to the specific beauty standards that are proliferated through the media by society and culture, a woman’s life is often impacted drastically both physically and psychologically.
First, women spend huge amounts of money to improve their looks. So here we are unable to escape the reality that we can never be flawless or blemish free; moreover, as long as women have the belief that all greatness de...
The concept of “beauty” is something that everyone feels, thinks, or wants, in order to fit society’s standards. In today’s society, we are often faced with the unrealistic ideals of what beauty is. Due to society’s constant portraying of unrealistic beauty ideals, this reinforces a negative influence upon women’s idea of beauty, resulting in a negative impact in their confidence, and self-esteem, which leads to others, specifically women to be manipulated by society’s corrupted outlook of what beauty is. To add onto this issue, we are constantly surrounded by sources of this negative influence in our everyday lives, including magazines, television, advertisements, and so on. However, women specifically, are more prone to be victims of this negative effect, thus will have more pressure upon themselves to match society’s idea of “beauty,” which includes unrealistic and sometimes unattainable beauty standards. Women especially, can sometimes be so deeply manipulated by society’s unrealistic ideals of what is beautiful, such that it’s possible that they don’t even realize it Furthermore, in order to do so, women often will receive negative impacts rather than positive impacts, such as in their confidence and self-esteem. The negative effects of society’s beauty ideals also lead women to have an overall corrupted idea of what is “beautiful.” Society creates unrealistic ideals of beauty towards women through the media by creating an unrealistic image of what women should look like to be considered beautiful. Men negatively affect women’s idea of beauty by using the unrealistic beauty standards exposed by society which further pressures women to try to fit society’s idea of what is beautiful. Beauty pageants negatively affect women’s ov...
Upon watching the YouTube video on the Halo Effect (The Halo Effect – Science of Attraction, 2010), I realized that my presentation of self is definitely affected by all three factors of body, beauty and fashion. The Halo Effect is defined as a cognitive bias that influences an observer’s overall perception of an individual, product, or company, which in turn affects the observer’s thoughts and feelings about the particular entities’ qualities and character (Long-Crowell). Thus, the impression that a person has a halo surrounding them is created. As seen in the video, when Dan repeats the script with two different tones, the audience reacts differently to what is said, generating assumptions based on their previous experiences encountered with similar individuals. Drawing from my own past experiences, I have subconsciously developed an understanding of what is expected of me during certain social interactions, and how “The Halo Effect” can influence one’s opinion of me. Therefore, this affects how I present myself, especially through the mediums of body beauty and fashion. For example, during my transition into university, the amount of people I knew were
An elevation of beauty is treated as a form of improvement, both for men and for women. Simply put, women emphasize their differences in order to gain a sense of equality and avoid comparison from men. However women are limited in the sense that beauty in itself is very restricting. And the fact that women direct their beauty towards men shows us that men are the basis and the end means of beauty. In which this beautification is not really a form of self-improvement; there is no real flourishing...
Throughout history there have been many claims about what is beautiful and what is not on the face and body. America’s idea of beauty in the past changed many times from the fragileness of the Steel-engraving lady to the voluptuousness of the Greek slave. The ideal beauty in America is not so different from the ideal beauty of cultures around the world and follows many of the traditions practiced throughout history. The widespread of advertisement and technology is something that’s said to be the contributing problem to the ideal women phenomenon, but I believe history and trend plays the bigger role.
Clothing is something that defines a person, and allows society to have an outlook on an individual’s lifestyle and beliefs. Unlike criticizing other material things like a car, a home or even something as simple as a television set, criticism of clothing is very personal. This suggests that there is a high correlation between clothing and personal identity and values. (Breward, pg.1) Clothing in a sense has the ability to communicate thought. However, similarly to art interpretations, this does not mean that any two people will perceive these visual aesthetics similarly.
Fashion is a controversial issue in society nowadays. We live in a consumerism advanced era in which whether following fashion trends or not has become a debatable point. Many people believe that it is important to follow fashion trends. For example, Lord Chesterfield once said, “If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.” The question is why fashion should be an essential matter of concern to all of us. As far as I am concerned, each person should be able to decide if one wants to follow a trend or not.
How many times have we heard or said the clique “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” yet we focus so much of our attention on our physically appearance. Everyday we encounter images in the media that make us believe we have to look a certain way. Physical beauty is portrayed as important and essential in order to find love and acceptance. Although physical beauty is moderately important, it is less than inner beauty for it diminishes with age.