Unrealistic Expectations Of The Beauty Industry

Bordo explains, “When associations of fat and lower-class status exist, they are usually mediated by moral qualities—fat being perceived as indicative of laziness, lack of discipline, unwillingness to conform” (Bordo 489). The working-class however is pictured as slender and thin and therefore successful. We are surrounded by talk shows, advertisements, and reality television, that tell us how we should look, whether we are able to see it or not. Bordo illustrates this by analyzing a talk show where an obese woman stated she was happy; however the audience was in disbelief and tried to convince her that she was in fact not happy and needed to be slim and beautiful to be content. The audiences’ opinions regarding her body and how she should adjust her lifestyle relays the message that life is worthless, unless she fits the ideal body image.

Some people don’t realize that and try to live up to the unrealistic standards that we have created in our heads of what is really pretty. In that same article it describes beauty standards as features that are considered “pretty” in today's society. “They determine what is “beautiful”, from body shape, to facial proportions, to height and weight.” (Povey) This shows that the issue of beauty standards is a problem we face today because we can’t change the way we look.

True Beauty For the past decade, Dove has been making an effort to redefine the meaning of beauty. One of Dove’s campaign for real beauty is a picture that consists of regular females of all race with only their underwear on and are very proud and happy about how they physically look. Their target audience are regular women, especially individuals that hold insecurities of how they look. A great amount of people perceive beauty base on how smooth their skin, how sexy their figure, and how perfect their face is.

Although many years have passed, some aspects of the sense of womanhood have still maintained to be the same. Since there are a lot of aspects of beauty that still play a role within the twentieth century, many women are still struggling to find a way to stand up for what they believe is right within the beauty industry alone. By having cosmetic surgeries constantly available to women of any economic status, there are a lot of women spending thousands of dollars in order to make themselves more “acceptable” towards today’s society. Another economic problem occurs within the cosmetic industry is that they are constantly receiving more money and allowing for women to live with their insecurities and transfer them into something fake. From the perspective of many individuals, there have been a lot of inspiring role models within the African American society that have had the opportunity to attempt to influence other women to love who they are and for them to embrace their hair, skin, and who they are.

Make-up, trendy clothes, hair dyes, and cosmetic surgery can be utilized in order to obtain a warm sense of belonging. Seeing forms of artificial beauty as one of the main keys in being included exerts that people tend to value artificial beauty over natural beauty, as they overlook inner beauty characteristics such as loyalty, friendliness, and confidence. However, some members of today’s society believe that natural beauty is regarded more highly than artificial beauty. Many new models have gained popularity for embracing the physical effects

According to Britton (2012), last 2008, YWCA USA developed a report Beauty at Any Cost wherein they discuss the consequences of beauty obsession of every woman in America. It shows that beauty obsession results from a decrease in the level of self-esteem. It also gives a problem to the Americans because it’s also putting a dent in their pockets. It states that because of those cosmetics many people have decreased the level of self-esteem because of those cosmetics.

Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.

Emotions and insecurities of women are played with in cosmetic commercials. By the end of the commercial, many women’s only hope is to look as perfect as the beautiful women in the

From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed

One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.

Your decisions to comply with society’s view of “beauty” are no longer subconscious, but rather are more conscious-driven decisions. Barbie’s slender figure remains idolized; however, it has evolved from a plastic doll to a self-starving model that is photo-shopped on the pages of glossy magazines. You spend hours in front of a mirror adjusting and perfecting your robotic look while demanding your parents to spend an endless amount of money on cosmetics and harmful skin products to acquire a temporary version of beauty. Consider companies such as Maybelline, which have throughout the ages created problematic and infantilizing campaigns and products for women. More specifically consider the “Baby Lips” product as well as the company slogan, “maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline,” that reiterates the male notions of beauty to which women are subjected.

The idolization of slim figures are blinding teenagers to believe it is a necessity to practice these methods. As Blaid describes society’s perspective, “If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story,”(26-27) this is to point out how society has manipulated the point of view on health conditions to be viewed as a

Cosmetic surgery allows an individual to transcend age, ethnicity and ever sex itself. Cosmetic surgery has increasingly become a mass phenomenon, with the media playing a pivotal role in making it acceptable for an ever increasing population. Intitially, it was

So when people look and see that they don’t look like they’re favorite super-model it can put a downer on their self-confidence. This causes many girls feeling that they aren’t good enough in society, society won’t accept them because they aren’t perfect and they start to not like their body. When for many females they can’t lose as much weight as their friend can just because of their genes and how they were born. “The lack of connection between the real and ideal perception of their own body and firm willingness to modify their own body and shape so as to standardize them to social concept of thinness…” (Dixit 1), being focused on unrealistic expectations can cause women to lose themselves and change their attitude on how they view their body, and not for the better.

Is the media’s perception of beauty harmful to women? Millions of women have tucked, pulled, filled, and stretched every inch of themselves to fit this mold of being a “perfect woman.” In the end it just damages their confidence and self-esteem. Even though the standard of beauty is unattainable, it helps uplift women as well.