“Gender norms is a set of societal norms dictating the types of behaviors which are considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or sexuality. The ideal body image has changed during the years. Women today are expected to be curvaceous and have an hourglass figure. All over social media and magazines, being curvaceous has been highly praised, women go so far as to doing surgery to enlarge their breast and butt. Apps have been made to create the effect of larger breasts and wider hips, all in hopes of fitting into society’s gender norms. Most of us spend a good portion of our everyday lives looking in the mirror, critiquing ourselves, pointing out problem areas, and wanting to fix what we don’t like, to fit in to society’s beauty norms. We compare ourselves to celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, and Nicki Minaj, all of whom in our eyes exemplify the ultimate in beauty, sensuality, and airbrushing. Airbrushing, is a technique that magazines worldwide use to make attractive people look perfect. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian look perfect after the use of airbrushing. Every time I see her Kim Kardashians picture on magazine, her stomach is flat her waist is wide and her breast are huge. This make woman all over the country go under the knife to enlarge their breast or get butt implants in order to conform to what they perceive as society's concept of beauty. Our appearance, this thing we call beauty, where does it come from? I believe it comes from social media, magazines and ads which all depict beautiful, and curvaceous women who are an ideal shape and size of "the perfect hourglass figure". Ironically even these women have had their pictures altered and adjusted to be more perfect, making them look lighter, adding color and taking away blemishes, etc. America is the land of a 2.1 billion cosmetic industry and 8 billion on plastic surgery. “While only 10.4% of the 17.2 million total cosmetic procedures in 2016 were surgical, those invasive operations added up to a cost of $8.05 billion, which is nearly half of all money spent that year in the industry”(Mosher 1). On other parts of the world people are starving to lose weight because their beauty standards are slim, yet here we are spending ridiculous amounts of money on surgery and cosmetics. Some people even die under the knife. For the picture I chose my sister, she is standing seductively flaunting her assets yet still looking uncomfortable. On one side of the picture, the color of the lighting is dark. Her armpits are darker and her breast and butt is smaller. I used an app to Photoshop the picture to what society would find appealing, I brightened the photo and enlarged her breasts and butt, I also lightened her armpits. As she’s standing seductively, you can tell she is doing it to fit in to society’s idea of beauty, based on the way her arm guards her body symbolizing her discomfort. This picture shows how extremely different the two pictures look before and after due to airbrushing the photo to make it look perfect. Overall, I believe women, trying to live up to the standards of beauty in North America can be an extremely dangerous feat and is nowhere near an accurate depiction of a female's true beauty. If you examine the norm of women's beauty in today's society, the dangers involved in achieving it and how false these standards actually are, will help you understand just how unrealistic North American perfection has become. Perfection is a word that has taken many lives of countless women in North America. The most dominant attribute tied to a women's perfection is her beauty. And yet no matter how beautiful you are, it is still not perfect.
Citation
Gould, Skye, and Dave Mosher. “Americans
spent $8 billion on plastic surgery in 2016 – here’s the work they got done”.
Business Insider, 22 May 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/plastic-surgery-growth-statistics-facts-2016-2017-5/#americans-spent-nearly-11-billion-on-nose-reshaping-rhinoplasty-in-2016-1
2 comments:
From: Angela W.
In the photo, L uses Photoshop to alter the appearance of reality into standard ideals of women’s beauty. The dark skin is turned lighter, the breasts and butt larger, however the position she is standing in is just the same showing how uncomfortable she is in her body. It enraptures societies view of woman of color that having a darker complexion is not beautiful enough in the eyes of society and measures to lighten the skin is “preferred”. The altered photo also shows the immense difference that surgical procedures create as she enlarges the breasts and butt as well as making the waist line skinnier. She also compares this notion to A-list celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, who have gone under the knife in redefining their beauty to fit the norm; it dangerous that young girls look up to people like her as they now get the idea in their head that going to the extreme of going under the knife is necessary to fit into the norms of society. She compares other societal norms around the globe, those who are starving themselves to become skinny, to Americans spending millions of dollars to reconstruct their bodies, showing just how shocking the wide difference of set norms is. The meaning taken from observing the photo is just how drastic Americans means are to conform into the expectations of women’s beauty. The photo not only conveys this aspect, but it also shows just how uncomfortable women are through the process of their bodies before and after conforming.
From Alice:
Of all the photos on the blog, this one truly resonated with me the most. As one of the many women who struggles with my appearance on a daily basis, this picture truly helped put things into perspective for me. I know many people always say that models are photoshopped, but I never actually realized just how photoshopped they are. The most striking concept about this photo is truly just how real the edited version looks. I had to look very hard to see any indications of edits, and even the small discrepancies were hard to see. Aside from lightening of skin tone, everything you altered in this photo is something I feel needs to be altered about my own body; and as you said, it definitely has something to do with media, social media, and pop culture. These unattainable beauty standards don't just hurt young girls, the hurt women of every age and I think this photo and how this photo made me personally feel really demonstrates just how toxic media influence can be. All the stylistic elements of this photo are tied together flawlessly. With changes to the breasts, waist line, and butt, you give a position for all women to relate to this photo. However, by adding the lightening of the skin, you add an entire new layer on to this problem, showing how media affects people of color and their view point about themselves. Overall, I think this photo is able to show this discomfort of women in this position, with the body language adopted by the model and with how this photo makes you feel. Being able to relate this photo to myself and the sometimes drastic things I do to myself for little or no physical affect shows just how much power this unattainable beauty norm culture has on women and girls of all societies.
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