Monday, October 31, 2016

Beauty is Pain & A Money Stealer


From: Morgan
            I’ve decided to portray the power of impossible beauty standards that women throughout many cultures try to display. Since I was a young girl every morning before my day started I would watch my mom curl her hair and apply makeup to her face. Sometimes I would see her plucking her face with these metal objects, I now know as tweezers, to pull hair off of her face. I never knew why she used to do that to herself until I hit the age when it was “appropriate” to start to remove hair from my body. At that time, I was also shaving my legs which my mom was against but I went behind her back because no boy wanted to see a girl with “hairy legs” or “bushy eyebrows”.
            I have developed a daily routine of how to take care of my skin because an unsmooth face is apparently unattractive. Every night before I go to bed, I set alarms at a certain time to make sure I am up in time to apply a mask of makeup before I go out in public. Why do I do this? I am personally embarrassed if I go out looking unattractive even if I am married. I’m not looking for anybody else to date but I feel as if I need to apply makeup to feel this way. I even get in fights with my husband about it because he doesn’t understand the pain I go through to meet these beauty standards.
            Every month I have to get my hair dyed which is not at any cost cheap, on top of that I buy beauty products just for my hair. Keeping your hair long, beautiful, and healthy is another beauty standard for women. If you buy the makeup that is advertised, it is not cheap at all. I can spend a whole paycheck on makeup, even if I don’t wear it just knowing I have it and how gorgeous it looks if I do need it one day. Buying shoes for every outfit to make sure everything matches, you don’t want your outfit to look unpleasant. From push-up bras, to thongs, and all the way down those “sexy” legs to your heels women alter their bodies to appeal to men’s desires.
            I angled the camera as low as I could to the objects to show how much power beauty standards have over women. The objects are all placed on a white sink to show purity in young girls. I chose to put most of the makeup I own in this picture to show how much time, effort, and money women put into making just their face smooth and acceptable in society. Not only is the makeup present it is distant and blurry to show that men don’t see the way women do. I chose to make the tweezers and razor a main focus to portray how much pain women go through to meet these beauty standards. I placed a curling iron towards the camera to show that not only do women painfully remove hair from their body they also burn their hair to make it look beautiful.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From: Katelyn
From this photograph you can tell that women think that aren’t pretty enough if they don’t cover up all their flaws. Women are often scared to go out in public without a makeup scared they will be judged for not being attractive enough. Women put in their heads a negative image that they must cover up all flaws before they go out in public. Women believe society will judge them if they aren’t wearing makeup. This photo also shows that women will go through the most to make sure they are up to the norm. Often getting up early to do their hair and makeup, going to get things waxed, making sure their nails are done, or even their hair. They don’t want to be looked at badly for not being all “dolled up.” This photograph portrays that women go through pain or even debt spending money on product to make sure they are “pretty.”