I have to admit I have fallen under the spell of Hollywood beauty, as I believe most of us have at some point or another. We as women buy the diet products to slim us down, we have tried all the fad diets, bought the "miracle serum" to vanquish those lines, stretch marks, acne and have endured hours of painful and EXPENSIVE torture via the waxing strip all in the name of beauty. Someone once told me that a common term for all of this is peacocking (mostly this is directed at males). Male peacocks have the brightest plumage and during mating times, they strut around with their tail feathers in full view of the dowdy brown and gray coloured females hoping to entice them to mate. Working in a bar, I cannot tell you how often I see this activity displayed on the dance floor. Girls with their short skirts, coiffed hair and high heels all stand around (or dance seductively) in the hopes that some equally pretty boy will make an advance towards them. It's all about looking good to attract a mate (or attention). Having the right jeans, the right body type and the right brand label in your clothes will determine what social class you end up in (especially in highschool). I even see this behaviour in the bars- boys who come dressed down in jeans and a ball cap will get overlooked for the boy in the dress pants, slicked hair and "bling". It's one of the things I love best about being a bartender, I am an amateur anthropologist with a captive sample to study every weekend.
So a little makeup here, a little perfume there and you have a pretty girl for a night. What happens when make up and perfume don't feel like enough to make that girl pretty? Beauty is one of the scariest concepts in today's society I think. It has so much power over self esteem and personal confidence and there is such an emphasis being placed on looking a certain way that people will do just about anything to achieve perfection. An example of this is examined in Virginia Braun's article, In Search of (Better) Sexual Pleasure: Female Genital "Cosmetic" Surgery. In this article Braun discusses how it is now possible to have your vagina reconstructed to fit the idea of perfection. If you have had some children and want your vaginal walls to be as tight as they were pre-birth, you can have that. Don't like the way your lips hang? You can have those fixed too. Does your lover worship Jenna Jameson? You can have your vagina reconstructed to match hers. But what does this mean? Braun says that the major pull for genital surgery is for heightened sexual pleasure. You can have your G-Spot (which is still under scrutiny as to its actual existence) injected with collagen which is supposed to enhance orgasm. Another draw to genial surgery is to have the ability to fix what you believe is wrong with yourself, and in doing so, self esteem is supposedly increase and you will feel better about your body, thus allowing you more sexual pleasure and freedom. This sounds good to me if you can afford it. If you can afford the incredible medical expenses and healing time (time off work). If you have an extra $30,000 US kicking around, you too could look like Heidi Montag.
But when is enough, enough? Hollywood seems to set the standard for beauty and what we should all aspire to be as women. I believe the problem here is, Hollywood has an arsenal of make up experts, personal trainers, chefs, airbrushes, good lighting and MONEY to create the "natural beauty" in our celebrities. The pressure to be a size 0 or less is the new trend and those bombshells of the 1930s-50s at a size 12-14 would be considered fat by today's standards. Cosmopolitan magazine has published an interesting article online about how sizes are created and why 10 years ago you might have been a size 12 and now you are a size 8 but never shifted any weight. Click here.
There are those in the beauty industry that advocate for natural beauty and for loving who you are, flaws and all. While I really appreciate Dove's campaigns on real beauty, I often wonder if by talking about all the ways we should be natural is putting just as much pressure on us to be the best "natural us". Do I have to buy Dove to be naturally pretty? I have also noticed (and this is only my opinion) that the models they use for their Real Beauty campaign still adhere to a certain level of prettiness. They do not feature the average size 14-18 sized woman with fat roles and stretch marks, nor people with crooked teeth nor bad acne. I wonder if it is because people still believe that fat people are ugly and they would be disgusted to see them on a billboard. I applaud their intentions to build self esteem in women and I hope it spreads acceptance of all bodies all over the world. HOME
So a little makeup here, a little perfume there and you have a pretty girl for a night. What happens when make up and perfume don't feel like enough to make that girl pretty? Beauty is one of the scariest concepts in today's society I think. It has so much power over self esteem and personal confidence and there is such an emphasis being placed on looking a certain way that people will do just about anything to achieve perfection. An example of this is examined in Virginia Braun's article, In Search of (Better) Sexual Pleasure: Female Genital "Cosmetic" Surgery. In this article Braun discusses how it is now possible to have your vagina reconstructed to fit the idea of perfection. If you have had some children and want your vaginal walls to be as tight as they were pre-birth, you can have that. Don't like the way your lips hang? You can have those fixed too. Does your lover worship Jenna Jameson? You can have your vagina reconstructed to match hers. But what does this mean? Braun says that the major pull for genital surgery is for heightened sexual pleasure. You can have your G-Spot (which is still under scrutiny as to its actual existence) injected with collagen which is supposed to enhance orgasm. Another draw to genial surgery is to have the ability to fix what you believe is wrong with yourself, and in doing so, self esteem is supposedly increase and you will feel better about your body, thus allowing you more sexual pleasure and freedom. This sounds good to me if you can afford it. If you can afford the incredible medical expenses and healing time (time off work). If you have an extra $30,000 US kicking around, you too could look like Heidi Montag.
But when is enough, enough? Hollywood seems to set the standard for beauty and what we should all aspire to be as women. I believe the problem here is, Hollywood has an arsenal of make up experts, personal trainers, chefs, airbrushes, good lighting and MONEY to create the "natural beauty" in our celebrities. The pressure to be a size 0 or less is the new trend and those bombshells of the 1930s-50s at a size 12-14 would be considered fat by today's standards. Cosmopolitan magazine has published an interesting article online about how sizes are created and why 10 years ago you might have been a size 12 and now you are a size 8 but never shifted any weight. Click here.
There are those in the beauty industry that advocate for natural beauty and for loving who you are, flaws and all. While I really appreciate Dove's campaigns on real beauty, I often wonder if by talking about all the ways we should be natural is putting just as much pressure on us to be the best "natural us". Do I have to buy Dove to be naturally pretty? I have also noticed (and this is only my opinion) that the models they use for their Real Beauty campaign still adhere to a certain level of prettiness. They do not feature the average size 14-18 sized woman with fat roles and stretch marks, nor people with crooked teeth nor bad acne. I wonder if it is because people still believe that fat people are ugly and they would be disgusted to see them on a billboard. I applaud their intentions to build self esteem in women and I hope it spreads acceptance of all bodies all over the world. HOME
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