Yesterday I found a really great website and this particular article discusses the effects of media on women. For those of you who have been with us for a little while, you know that one of our main goals is to de-construct the thin ideal as it is seen in the media and other areas of our culture.
I think most of us can agree that a major part of the mainstream’s definition of beauty is a thin body. And a thin body has come to represent all that is beautiful to the modern, western woman. But I have often wondered what our world would be like if thinness didn’t equate to beauty? If media didn’t exist, what would beautiful look like to you? And taking it a step further, what would life be like without beauty ideals in general?
In the trailer for the upcoming documentary, America the Beautiful , the filmmaker asks a young man about what he likes (physically) in a woman. He admits that he looks for a slender girl and when the filmmaker asks why, he responds “I couldn’t even tell you why.”
This young man’s honest answer raises some compelling questions. I mean, have you ever stopped to think about how you came up with your idea of beauty? If you were to describe what beauty means to you, would your mind fill with media-imposed images of women with thin waists and large breasts?
As Jean Kilbourne, a well-known media activist, points out, the media defines standards of beauty on a daily basis and we, as women, internalize these standards and make them our own.
“The real tragedy,” Kilbourne concludes, “is that many women internalize these stereotypes, and judge themselves by the beauty industry’s standards. Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete with them for male attention.”
I remember when I first started challenging the notion that thinner is better. I started asking myself, “Why is thinner better anyway?” “What’s so great about being thin(ner) and what does it have anything to do with beauty?” I think it’s past time for us to figure out what beautiful means to each one of us individually. I know it will be hard, since the media’s images of beauty are imprinted on most of our minds, but in time, we can all find out what beautiful means to us personally. And maybe we will come to find that it actually has very little to do with outward appearance.
We like cheeseburgers
We’ll gladly pay you tuesday, for a cheeseburger today.
Please?
~The Tubbo Twins
I used to work with a very nasty man who was always talking smack. My best friend and I were at a convention and ran into him at a sticker booth. He picked up a sticker of a fat sexy witch on a broomstick and says “Hey, this looks like you, she’s a witch and she’s-” and my best friend cut in here with a marveling tone “-freaking HAWT!” It was beautiful watching this man who is so secure in his male gaze power and using body size to judge and shame get rocked onto his heels by that.
Being “thinner” both connotes and denotes health and a healthy lifestyle. Part of what beauty is, is how healthy you are (eg full lips, lustrous hair). Interesting concepts of beauty are seen throughout the world but they all are usually based on health and such. Interesting htough, to think about what my idea of beauty would be without the medias omnipresence, although i do consider myself to have quite an unconventional sense of beauty as is.
Watch an Asian man wrestle an octopus! http://suburbanconnoisseurs.wordpress.com/
cstair: it’s funny, though, because I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. Sure, they have women with glossy hair and full, pink lips, and sparkling eyes, but all the women in the ads are at a level of thinness that is unhealthy for nearly everyone. I don’t see a lot of women in a ‘normal’ BMI (ignoring the failures of the BMI) paraded around as beautiful.
To me, beautiful has always meant someone with a unique flair, with a kind of light in their eyes and a way of carrying themselves that shows a true enjoyment of life.
right, I’m not attracted to the extremely skinny models either but I like that slenderness with some “hippage” because thats just what men are initially programmed to want in a partner, I also like “thicker” women. Of course everyone has their little offshoots that deviate from the generic beaten path and I’m one of those people. I like the quirks and personality, and physically, usually all that matters to me is like how comely their facial features are, everything else is secondary.
I totally agree with you , My Mother keeps on telling me for instance that 40 yrs back the FAT /Chubby was a model of beauty at my country..and that men were never atracted to thin girls back then ! mreover every girl was on diet to get fatter !!! extremely the opposite now ! haa..wish if i luved in that time ..would hv made life easier for me..sigh
ok cstair, “..Being “thinner” both connotes and denotes health and a healthy lifestyle. ..”
I beg to differ. Please ask anyone in Malawi, Africa.
Nice to know that you also value “comely” facial features.
I, persoanlly, have a thing for guys with slightly messed-up teeth. I’m not talking about poor oral hygeine (ew!!) but crooked teeth, overbites, buck-teeth, gaps…rawr. *hahaha!* I had a boyf. for about 4 years who was ‘conventionally hot’ = GQ style, slammin’ bod, beautiful thick shiny hair…and a gap like the grand canyon between his 2 front teeth. *heh* It made him more ‘real’ to me.
* ; )
And the bioprogrammed criteria for attraction that y’all are talking about: Science has revealed that subconsciously (and sometimes NOT so subconsciously) there are biological “cues” for what is attractive to the opposite sex, so we’ll make sure to keep procreating. For women, childlike facial features to indicate youth, clear skin, large eyes, and the ever important hip-to-waist ratio are all factors that indicate our attractiveness to males.
I think its good to remember that even without our modern media technologies our society/culture would still dictate what beauty is. Specifically I think of how in Europe in the early centuries, someone who was a “English Rose” was valued (waif like, ivory skin, thick dark hair). Or at various times how a woman with large hips was considered beautiful. We can see those images in old Roman art or statues.
My point is that regardless of the technology there will always be some type of media that defines what beauty is as a collective and will therefore influence what beauty is individually.
“..My point is that regardless of the technology there will always be some type of media that defines what beauty is as a collective and will therefore influence what beauty is individually…”
We, as Individuals, make up the collective we know as “society”…so if we as Individuals learn to change our specific ideas of what is “beautiful”, then Society will change as a collective.
Media will not “always” define what beauty is…in fact, media does not define beauty right now, rather, the media only reports on and USES the collective popular idea of “beauty” for promotion of products and services.
Jean Kilbourne wrote Can’t Buy My Love, didn’t she? I freakin’ love that book, and used it as a resource when I did my speech on the media impact on what women are supposed to look like when I was an undergrad. It was a great speech, if I do say so myself, and it made a lot of people think and ask questions. I was afraid of doing it, as the “fat girl,” but then I was really glad I did.
My idealized sense of female beauty isn’t as bad as most… it’s the plus-sized models you see on Zaftique or Torrid or even SizeAppeal and Avenue. I think curves are sexy, but not unrealistic or fake curves.
I also can look at a slender person, though, and if she looks healthy, I can think she’s beautiful. I find beauty where many don’t, both in people and in nature.
Yes, she did write “Can’t Buy My Love.” She is awesome!
Thanks for sharing that America the Beautiful quotation.. that’s so interesting. I’ll have to make sure and check out the documentary now.
YAA Adding this to my bookmarks. Thank You