Beauty... the indoctrination

[eumelia]

In my Women and Gender studies I'm taking a class called "Disordered Eating", where we've been talking about the way society's beauty standards as they are presented to us in the mainstream and mass media are so distorted they are part of a social pathology which can trigger eating disorders in young girls and women.
To this I said "Well, duh!".
But I sometimes forget that not everyone takes the time to try and remove the social indoctrination we're born and fed into, not everyone takes the time to read "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Woolf (I highly rec this, BTW) and really, not everyone, not even the most intelligent people (mainly my woman ones) in my acquaintance fall into that big ditch that is known as the Standard.

Here are two videos that showcase how distorted our pop-cultural ideal of beauty is;

This one I think went viral about a year ago, everybody saw it, but it didn't really change anything, because ads and photos are still being Photoshopped and "Touched up".
Dove Body Image Advertising:

I think the second one really speaks for itself, it is especially evocative, to me at least and it is called Doll Face:

Comments

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

the second movie is both beautiful and disturbing, but I think that the view that only women are affected by the beauty standard is incomplete at the very least.There *is* pressure on men to conform to their own beauty standard- the male fashion model isn't closer to the average then the female fashion model, he simply overstates in another direction.Rather then overstate thinness and similar, he overstates musculature and macho pose:he isn't less of a sexual object, and rather then anorexia he tends to promote steroid intake and heavy physical workouts, and IMHO the surrounding culture tends to encourage aggressiveness to some extent.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I almost added a paragraph about the male beauty standard and how in the last decade or so the pressure on men has also risen.
But there is a significant difference I think, in the two standards, because man times fashion models, actresses and others in the media are considered the role models which young girls are indoctrinated to follow.
Men may also be objectified but to a much, much lesser extent than women.
The pressure for women to conform to certain standard has always been more self-destructive than men and also far more time consuming.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, but women who don't conform to their beauty standard are socially punished in certain ways (and I know this from personal experience), men who don't conform to the beauty standard are not remarked upon nearly as much.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I never feel better, or like society is less sexist, when people point out that men are now also subjected to some facet of sexism. Oh, so if more people suffer from stupid beauty standards, that's a compensation? Is there some form of discrimination to which I am subject that I would be delighted for someone else to experience, too?

[lifeofresearch.livejournal.com]

I agree with you totally. Look at your experience when you shaved your head and the pressure you faced. For men it is different because we have so many role models. The most influencing are the alpha males not the models found in fashion magazines. IMHO male fashions follow the political climate somewhat. For example, in the 1960's long hair became popular for men and the Vietnam War was unpopular. Short hair on men returned only to find ourselves (Americans) in another unpopular war (Iraq). I am seeing longer hair on young males these days. Not the short military styles that were popular recently. The pressure to conform provides the acceptance and rush desired when one conforms to the standards of the group. Again you see that in the younger group in recent years get into body piercing and body art. Many manipulate it for their financial gain but all in all conformity may be part of what is part of the human condition.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
To my chagrin I did give into the pressure and grew my hair out, it's now pixie-ish, but I really miss the shaved look, which I'll probably do again at some point.

[lotus82.livejournal.com]

The second video won't play, but the first one shocks me every time I watch it.
I agree with what you're saying. I am currently re-reading "Beauty Myth" for my MA thesis - it is just in its preliminary stage of working up a coherent direction and definite thesis statement, and I am only in the first stages of research, but I want to write about social pressure, the place of women in contemporary Western society and how it encourages women to become anorexic as a part of being The Perfect Woman; how society rewards this illness. The texts I'm focusing on [my MA is in English Lit.] are two memoirs: "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher and "Stick Figure" by Lori Gottlieb. They both point out so many things in that aspect - that great American female dream of how everything will be perfect if you only lose 15 pounds, the positive feedback upon [often unhealthy] weight loss, the expectations to not eat, the sayings like "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips" and "you can never be too rich or too thin", and many more. I'm doing a really bad job describing it right now, but hopefully, you get the idea.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

While I applaud Dove for making videos like the first one, but I think it's really fucked up that in the West their campaign focuses so much on 'real beauty' (while of course attempting to sell us cream to make our thighs firmer, shampoo to make our hair soft and shiny, etc), while Unilever (Dove's parent company) pushes "Fair and Lovely" skin whitening cream in India. I've seen it in South Africa and Kenya as well, and the thought of some poor woman attempting to bleach her skin to make herself more beautiful makes me sick. It really shows that while the beauty ideals weigh heavily on all women, they can be particularly difficult for women of colour who are consistently told that white is beautiful.

It also amazes me how many people can't see that our beauty standards are so wrapped up with capitalism! Companies attempting to destroy our self-esteem so that we'll buy their shit...

Personally I think that women with shaved heads are ridiculously hot ;)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I admit to falling into that trap myself, awareness doesn't always save you. I know that I used to think I was over-weight and still have issues with knowing and feeling that I'm, ya know, healthy and have no need to go up or down on my wight, I've been the same pants size for for three years now.
Huh, QED, me obsessing :)

And shucks, I wanna whack my hair just to be eye candy for you ;)

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think no matter how aware you are, it's kind of inevitable that once and a while it'll get to you. It certainly gets to me a lot! These ideas are just so ingrained in our pop culture and just surrounds us constantly... they're nearly impossible to escape. Which is why it's great to be friends with people who don't think that way, to give you an alternate perspective on things.

For the record, you're totally gorgeous no matter what your hair looks like. But hell, I wouldn't turn down that suggestion ;)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

Ditto BTW ;)