Across the United States and the westernized world, young women fall victim to the societal pressures of being the picture of sophistication, intelligence, and above all, beauty. The ideal young woman is supposed to be a perfect balance of ambition and carefulness, strength and submission, glamor and restraint, all wrapped in one shiny package. A woman who has achieved even a high level of success, such as Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton, are often as scrutinized on visual appeal as much as they are political policy. The airbrushed standards of the media and the standards put upon young girls as they develop into women have severely impacted the lives of women everywhere to strive for acceptance of their peers, superiors, and above all themselves
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To begin, ad campaigns are full of beautiful air-brushed women with perfect, airbrushed features no matter what product is being sold. The most detrimental are not the women plastered on magazines that sell issues based on sex-appeal like Playboy or Cosmopolitan; rather, companies that cater towards the average woman are most to blame. For instance, makeup companies such as Covergirl and Sephora give women the hope that if they buy the correct products and enough of them a particular kind of waterproof mascara and long-lasting lipstick will magically transform them into the models in the advertisements. Maybelline, a popular beauty company’s popular slogan is, “Maybe she’s born with it; Maybe it’s Maybelline;” as if use of a Maybelline product could so dramatically alter a woman’s look that she could come away looking like a runway model. According to research done in an article sponsored by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), an organization dedicated to providing adolescent girls and women the communal support they need, titled “Beauty at All Costs: The Consequences of America’s Beauty Obsession on Women & Girls,” in the United States alone, a whopping seven billion dollars each year is spent on cosmetic beauty products. Young women are wrongly flocking to the shelves to find a remedy for their disenchantment with their looks, because in the end, not …show more content…
An article written by Alanna Nunez, a writer for Shape magazine, credits a study conducted for the Renfrew Center Foundation, who are diligently working to spread awareness of various eating disorders. The study discovered that 44 percent of women feel unhappy when they are not wearing makeup and 16 percent of those 44 felt ugly when wearing no makeup (Nunez, “Almost Half of Women…”). Second, music portrays a similar message. Countless radio songs comment on how long and tan a woman’s legs are, how she looks when she shakes her behind, and how her tight clothes make her body look. Popular music today talks about the physical aspect of woman much more often than how kind her heart is or how friendly she is. Next, actresses who star in television programs are almost always young and beautiful. The ones who are not as visually striking are often cast off as gawky, awkward, or nerdy. Often these characters are made to look ‘unappealing’ by often bonning heavy orthodontic devices, unflattering clothing, strange hairstyles, or odd quirks. Even then, the so-called unattractive girls, such as Jenna Hamilton from MTV’s Awkward and Rachel Berry from FOX’s Glee, both protagonists in widely popular teenage
To begin, ad campaigns are full of beautiful air-brushed women with perfect, airbrushed features no matter what product is being sold. The most detrimental are not the women plastered on magazines that sell issues based on sex-appeal like Playboy or Cosmopolitan; rather, companies that cater towards the average woman are most to blame. For instance, makeup companies such as Covergirl and Sephora give women the hope that if they buy the correct products and enough of them a particular kind of waterproof mascara and long-lasting lipstick will magically transform them into the models in the advertisements. Maybelline, a popular beauty company’s popular slogan is, “Maybe she’s born with it; Maybe it’s Maybelline;” as if use of a Maybelline product could so dramatically alter a woman’s look that she could come away looking like a runway model. According to research done in an article sponsored by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), an organization dedicated to providing adolescent girls and women the communal support they need, titled “Beauty at All Costs: The Consequences of America’s Beauty Obsession on Women & Girls,” in the United States alone, a whopping seven billion dollars each year is spent on cosmetic beauty products. Young women are wrongly flocking to the shelves to find a remedy for their disenchantment with their looks, because in the end, not …show more content…
An article written by Alanna Nunez, a writer for Shape magazine, credits a study conducted for the Renfrew Center Foundation, who are diligently working to spread awareness of various eating disorders. The study discovered that 44 percent of women feel unhappy when they are not wearing makeup and 16 percent of those 44 felt ugly when wearing no makeup (Nunez, “Almost Half of Women…”). Second, music portrays a similar message. Countless radio songs comment on how long and tan a woman’s legs are, how she looks when she shakes her behind, and how her tight clothes make her body look. Popular music today talks about the physical aspect of woman much more often than how kind her heart is or how friendly she is. Next, actresses who star in television programs are almost always young and beautiful. The ones who are not as visually striking are often cast off as gawky, awkward, or nerdy. Often these characters are made to look ‘unappealing’ by often bonning heavy orthodontic devices, unflattering clothing, strange hairstyles, or odd quirks. Even then, the so-called unattractive girls, such as Jenna Hamilton from MTV’s Awkward and Rachel Berry from FOX’s Glee, both protagonists in widely popular teenage