Cultural Stereotypes Of The Societal Standards Of Female Beauty
762 Words
4 Pages
Societal Standards of Female Beauty Society has set certain standards of beauty for women for ages. Moreover, such standards, though varying by culture and time period, are rooted in the same motives and have the same control over females. Women are valued for their looks, for females should strive to achieve and maintain the socially constructed notion of physical attractiveness, or the feminine beauty ideal. Common with the Victorian Era, women are still expected to have feminine traits of larger hips and breasts with a small waist but everything has been slenderized as compared to the past This ideal is advocated in every form of media and social interaction, whether it is the fashion industry, television, magazines, and so on. However,
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Moreover, these ideals are represented in mass media as vehicles of popular culture for a number of reasons. First, there is a long history of using female beauty to sell products to women, as well as men. Additionally, whether right or wrong, mass media consistently reinforces the assumed linkages between a woman’s appearance and their worth. Advertisers often strive to communicate a “look,” impression, or feeling by associating a visual gestalt to their product. Thus, cultural representations of beauty often result from the stereotypes held by media gatekeepers, as demonstrated by casting directors intuitively selecting a certain model for a champagne ad or a different one from a new teen hair product (Englis, 1994). Women then may wish to emulate such a culture icon and use this information as input to an idealized self image, how they would like to look, be, act. These idealized media images of attractive women can be regarded as prototypes that are used by female audience to evaluate their own looks and to guide their consumption …show more content…
The media - including television, movies, magazines, music video, and other forms of advertisement - emphasize that a woman’s value is based on her appearance. Furthermore, the media also presents a powerful cultural ideal of feminine beauty that has become increasingly less attainable. For example, an analysis of television shows from 2000 found that over seventy-five percent of the female characters were below average weight. A similar evaluation regarding media portrayal of women concluded that the body size of females is often more than twenty percent underweight (Clay, 2004). This exceeds the DSM-V criterion for anorexia nervosa which is being fifteen percent underweight (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The unrealistic nature of media images of women and such standards for self-evaluation are exacerbated through current trends of airbrushing, photoshopping, and cosmetic
Moreover, these ideals are represented in mass media as vehicles of popular culture for a number of reasons. First, there is a long history of using female beauty to sell products to women, as well as men. Additionally, whether right or wrong, mass media consistently reinforces the assumed linkages between a woman’s appearance and their worth. Advertisers often strive to communicate a “look,” impression, or feeling by associating a visual gestalt to their product. Thus, cultural representations of beauty often result from the stereotypes held by media gatekeepers, as demonstrated by casting directors intuitively selecting a certain model for a champagne ad or a different one from a new teen hair product (Englis, 1994). Women then may wish to emulate such a culture icon and use this information as input to an idealized self image, how they would like to look, be, act. These idealized media images of attractive women can be regarded as prototypes that are used by female audience to evaluate their own looks and to guide their consumption …show more content…
The media - including television, movies, magazines, music video, and other forms of advertisement - emphasize that a woman’s value is based on her appearance. Furthermore, the media also presents a powerful cultural ideal of feminine beauty that has become increasingly less attainable. For example, an analysis of television shows from 2000 found that over seventy-five percent of the female characters were below average weight. A similar evaluation regarding media portrayal of women concluded that the body size of females is often more than twenty percent underweight (Clay, 2004). This exceeds the DSM-V criterion for anorexia nervosa which is being fifteen percent underweight (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The unrealistic nature of media images of women and such standards for self-evaluation are exacerbated through current trends of airbrushing, photoshopping, and cosmetic