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 idea that the personality of an individual is revealed by one’s outward appearance can be traced back to folklore and legends. The princess is always a young, beautiful maiden and the evil witch is always an old, ugly hag. This line of reasoning and deduction is simplified by the statement “What is beautiful is good.” In the words of Schiller, a German philosopher and poet, “Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty (Dion, 1972). This idea has been quantified and researched empirically by social psychologists in numerous ways. Dion ….. The revolutionary works of Dion, Berscheid and Walster illustrates how the “what is beautiful is good” halo effect is salient in perception of individuals. In these studies and many more, social psychologists have empirically demonstrated what laypeople have long been aware of - physical looks matter. Attractive people are liked more; they are assumed to be more sociable, exciting, and independent. On the other hand, less attractive people are assumed to be deviant and are often stigmatized (Englis,
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 idea that the personality of an individual is revealed by one’s outward appearance can be traced back to folklore and legends. The princess is always a young, beautiful maiden and the evil witch is always an old, ugly hag. This line of reasoning and deduction is simplified by the statement “What is beautiful is good.” In the words of Schiller, a German philosopher and poet, “Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty (Dion, 1972). This idea has been quantified and researched empirically by social psychologists in numerous ways. Dion ….. The revolutionary works of Dion, Berscheid and Walster illustrates how the “what is beautiful is good” halo effect is salient in perception of individuals. In these studies and many more, social psychologists have empirically demonstrated what laypeople have long been aware of - physical looks matter. Attractive people are liked more; they are assumed to be more sociable, exciting, and independent. On the other hand, less attractive people are assumed to be deviant and are often stigmatized (Englis,