From: Coty
Beauty standards are an aspect of
social life that are strongly encouraged from very young ages. Young boys and
girls are each taught their gender’s unequal beauty expectations, and most end
up conforming to them. This picture displays the result of those expectations
in clear view, with a teenage girl’s products on the left, compared to a
teenage boy’s typical products on the right. It is evident that boys are only
expected to maintain a minimal level of acceptable hygiene, which is why,
despite being marketed toward men, the men’s products are mostly gender
neutral. Men and women both shave, use deodorant, and brush their teeth, but
women are held to many additional standards that most men accept, but may not
quite comprehend. On the female side of the sink lie products like pads, nail
polish, eyeliner, eye shadow, hair ties, lipstick, concealer, various face and
skin lotions, makeup brushes, and a plethora of additional “necessities” that,
as a boy, I can neither name nor explain the purpose of.
The primary focus of this image is the imbalance that is
evident when noticing the significant amount of white space on the male side. This
is symbolic of the uneven amount of pressure put on women and girls, from a
very young age, to conform to very particular beauty standards, which requires
girls who fall outside of those standards to go through more effort and pain
than most men will ever appreciate or even comprehend. If our society wants to
level the playing field between men and women, one of the most significant
changes must be to free women of unrealistic and unnecessary physical expectations.
Viewing women as solely as objects of beauty and sexual pleasure must be
replaced with valuing women for their intelligence and achievements in order to
close the equality gap between genders.
4 comments:
From: Jessie
This image shows how beauty is emphasized for women as a requirement for finding a significant other. Makeup is only one of the ways women are encouraged to change themselves to fit into the beauty standards set by society. Physical attractiveness is important for both sexes, but it is particularly emphasized for women as a requisite for attracting a mate. Women the world over are pushed toward impossibly high standards of beauty and receive strong cultural messages that their bodies are unacceptable as they are, thus promoting a variety of body-altering practices” (Rudman and Glick, 240). The picture shows this quote in action, demonstrating the different standards of attractiveness that men and women have to achieve, with the man’s products taking up significantly less space than the woman’s.
From: MG
The white of the sink can symbolize how males and females are pure and unknowing until society changes them and tells them that they have to be separate and different. The fact that there is no human subject in the picture makes the viewer decide which side of the sink belongs to who. It is easy to do so because society has taught us that females are synonymous with pink and beauty (as shown in the abundance of beauty products) and males are synonymous with blue and being manly (shown with the small amount of blue items, among which is a sharp razor). The divide between sides of the sink draws the viewer's eye to cut straight
down the middle, showing how truly different each gender is.
From: Hope
This photo is an interesting set up because on one side of the photo, there is just a few items for a man, but on the other spectrum a woman takes up her whole entire side of the counter. This photo shows how much society pushes women to "conceal" their true identity and cover herself up with makeup and products to make her mimic the "ideal woman". Men on the other hand don't have to hide their features and cover it up with makeup, men are told to work out and be fit and big while women are told to get smaller and smaller.
From: Joseph
I like the way that you portrayed your layout as so neat and tidy, if only that was the case in my house my wife and daughter have the entire sink and I have a small drawer to put my stuff in. I do like how the difference is shown though in the amount of products the women are supposed to have compared to the men it was very interested and puts it into a perspective of the pressure put on women to be beautiful all the time.
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