What comes to mind when you picture a beautiful woman? The first thoughts I have are of a woman who is thin, blonde, has perfect hair, perfect skin, and is well dressed. I can’t say that I often see anyone who matches this description in my daily life though. The reason why I think of this image first, is because that is the image that I see of beauty in the media on a daily basis. The standard of beauty set for women that is portrayed in the media is outrageous and unattainable. It affects girl’s and women’s self-esteem, as well as men’s expectations of women. On the surface, the presentation of what is beautiful in the media does not seem like a hard hitting issue, but in reality it is.
The women we see in advertising aren’t real women. They are airbrushed beyond recognition, and sometimes they are even a mixture of different women photo-shopped together. The standard of beauty portrayed in the media is something women strive for, but is truly unattainable.
“Evolution of Beauty” by Dove is part of their Campaign for Real Beauty. The video shows a model getting her photo taken and the process that occurs to get the finished product.
The women we see in advertising aren’t real women. They are airbrushed beyond recognition, and sometimes they are even a mixture of different women photo-shopped together. The standard of beauty portrayed in the media is something women strive for, but is truly unattainable.
“Evolution of Beauty” by Dove is part of their Campaign for Real Beauty. The video shows a model getting her photo taken and the process that occurs to get the finished product.
This video shows how the standard of beauty represented in the media is literally unattainable in real life.
Intersectionality and Beauty
The unreasonable standards of beauty for women intersect majorly with race. Women shown in the media are often white, or are given white features. Skin lightening is often used. One famous example of that is in a Loreal ad that Beyonce did, where her skin was drastically lightened. Loreal denies the claim that they lightened her skin, but the photo shows a definite difference. Often, if a woman of color with very dark skin is shown, she is portrayed to be “wild” or overly sexual. Latino and Asian women are also often presented in ways that make them appear to be white and not their true ethnicity.
The ideas of gender intersect with standard of beauty because femininity is valued, portrayed, and expected of women by the media. The female body is represented to be very thin, but also have curves. Breasts are turned into objects by the media, and made into a sign of femininity. It is rare for a real woman to be as thin as is represented and have large breasts as well. Long hair, feminine colors, and feminine clothing are also prevalent. These ideas are socially constructed and acted out by women in society.
As Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins state in "Systems of Power and Inequality", "neither race, nor class, nor gender operate alone. They do so within a system of simultaneous, interrelated social relationships" (Andersen and Collins 2009 ,61). One piece of media will contain more than one power structure.
The ideas of gender intersect with standard of beauty because femininity is valued, portrayed, and expected of women by the media. The female body is represented to be very thin, but also have curves. Breasts are turned into objects by the media, and made into a sign of femininity. It is rare for a real woman to be as thin as is represented and have large breasts as well. Long hair, feminine colors, and feminine clothing are also prevalent. These ideas are socially constructed and acted out by women in society.
As Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins state in "Systems of Power and Inequality", "neither race, nor class, nor gender operate alone. They do so within a system of simultaneous, interrelated social relationships" (Andersen and Collins 2009 ,61). One piece of media will contain more than one power structure.
Barbie
From a young age girls are presented with ideas of beauty. Barbie dolls are an example of this. Galia Slayen did a project to bring attention to the unattainable body image Barbie represents. If a real woman had the body measurements of a Barbie, she would be almost six feet tall and weigh 110 lbs. She would fit the criteria for anorexia. Slayen wanted to do this project to " as a tool to reveal the negative body image that she promotes"(Slayen 2011).This is one of the first examples of “beauty” that girls see. Also, as described in the article “Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference” by Ann Ducille, Barbie doesn’t truly represent any sort of multiculturalism in a realistic way. Ducille points out that “all of these [multicultural] dolls look like the stereotypical white Barbie, modified only by a dash of colour and change of clothes” (Ducille 2000). Barbies of color are merely white Barbies made with a different color of plastic. They still have stereotypical white features and white textured hair.