What does it mean to be a beautiful woman in todays society? If you let the media define the idea for you, you are in for an unrealistic definition. Society defines a woman’s beauty as the number she sees on the scale, the amount of suitors knocking at her door, the length of her hair, the color/shade of her skin etc. Notice a pattern? All physical and most are in some way an act to attract the attention of a man. In society, physical beauty is held to a higher standard than mental beauty. Why? Because as the saying goes, “Women are meant to be seen and not heard.”
In the photo, seventeen-year-old Maya McCollum is seen gazing at her reflection in the mirror wearing an item known as a waist trainer, which is a modern day version of a corset. The draw towards these contraptions is the promise of a more “womanly, hour glass” figure. This is done by cinching in the person’s core, hips, and back. The idea is to wear it for a certain amount of time every day, and eventually, your body "molds" itself into a slimmer figure. Countless celebrities such as Amber Rose, The Kardashian family, and Jessica Alba have all endorsed waist trainers. Their social media followers account for more than 30 million people, most being young and impressionable females aspiring to be just like them. This can be related to the self-sustaining prophecy concept that was discussed in class. Young girls feel the need to agree with gender norms because they “feel right.” However, what these celebrities do not make apparent, are the dangers of wearing waist trainers, which can lead to crushed organs such as lungs and ribs which will make it hard to breathe.
In comparison, if you take a closer look in the background, you will notice a dresser that’s littered with endless cosmetic products, a pile of press on French manicure nails and hot tools for hair. Why is natural beauty such a bad thing in society? Undeveloped teenagers are pressured into trying to attain this unnatural standard of beauty. They are told by TV commercials that a pimple is an imperfection that needs to be covered with pounds of makeup. That their natural fingernail shape and length is not enough either. Polished and manicured nails are what’s best. The natural state of their hair is also picked at by commercials. It’s simply not okay to wake up, shake out their hair and go. They have to spend hundreds of dollars on products and tools that do nothing but damage their hair, just so that they can fit into the cookie cutter image, which is society’s standard of beauty.
Personally I am both saddened and disgusted by what it means to be a beautiful woman in American culture. I think that society should adopt an entirely new way of thinking, so that a completely different message is sent to gullible adolescents. Less teaching girls/women to center their existence on boys/men, and more teaching them that they’re whole and beautiful without them; less encouraging girls to center their lives on a man and more encouraging them to create and reach their own personal goals. If these few simple changes were put into place, things would be a littler better in this misogynistic world.
1 comment:
From Brianna Campbell...
This picture stood out to me because of how the whole "waist training" trend that is becoming more and more popular and girls are going through these major extremes to have these unnaturally small waist to be considered "beautiful" or "sexy". I liked how in the background there is a vanity with tons of make up which is another extreme that woman go to, to make them selves beautiful in society's image. There are thousands of makeup videos on all social media, which make woman feel like that have to cover their natural beauty that they were born with to try and make themselves look like the woman doing their makeup tutorials. Making women feel like their natural looks are not enough to be what it takes to be a woman.
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