Does technology help shape society’s standard of beauty?
By: Allegra Sudarto
Introduction:
The world we live in today is a world of technology; the advancements in technology has been greatly integrated in our lives, and it is readily available and accessible. Technology has evolved it is not so much of magazines, newspapers, or posters, but technology has made the availability more at ease through smartphones. We are highly dependent on technology as it makes our lives much easier and more convenient. However, technology has raised a social issue – women are much more self-conscious of their bodies due to the influence of the Internet and the advancements of technology. They are bombarded with unrealistic, which are then unattainable standards of beauty as the internet is just at the tip of their fingers – technology such as
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There are no images that feature the real skin, curves, or hair of a woman that has not been significantly altered. This retoucher wants people to realize that the ‘perfect’ models they see on the Internet or on magazine are far from perfect, but the industry has gone so off base that it does not matter anymore. They just redefine look and create images with their own idea of perfection (4) With that being said it makes it clearer as to why the standards of beauty is set at a very high bar as it is not even real. How can women want to compete with a standard of beauty that only came to be because of technology?
The implications of this is that today, a lot of women have eating disorders (such as: bulimia and anorexia) and/or decide to do cosmetic surgeries in order to try and achieve a standard of beauty that has been implanted through being overly exposed to the images on the internet, but who can blame them when they are so easily accessible and they are constantly bombarded with these
Everyone always want or desire for something in this world. And to get their want they must somehow bargain for it; whether it was begging or persuading, they are still considered rhetorical techniques. In the story “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines talks about how society setted a certain standard of what a woman's body should look like, and it practically destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem. Haines further explains that pictures and advertisement on tv and magazines are teaching young girls that they need to look like the models in the picture. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are, right in the beginning.
In the article Beauty Standards by Kate Povey, she tells us how beauty standards have changed and how they have affected more people today. “Beauty standards have always been extremely prevalent throughout human history, and today they drastically affect everyday interaction, the media, and the commercial world.” (Povey) This quote shows how beauty standards are still an issue today, especially because of social media. On social media, anything can be edited to make you look differently.
Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have
As guest editor of Star Telegram newspaper, I did what was asked of me and reviewed the article written by Susan Bordo “Never Just Pictures”. Bordo focuses on body image and our perception of beauty and how we are “supposed” to look according to the media. “Never Just Pictures” should be published because Susan Bordo has factual evidence to back up her reasoning to her claim about body disorders, the role that different types of media have on society, and how it is creating a false image of what true beauty really is. In this article, Bordos central claim is for the readers to get an understanding of today’s obsession with body image, and how we are no longer accepted for just our personality and our good traits but for the physique of the human body.
Anorexia survivor Erin Treloar said “my eating disorder was perpetuated by retouched magazine photos”. Beauty standards has such a giant effect on women emotionally, psychologically and physically. The pressure on women to be thin leads to unhealthy weight loss practices (Battle & Brownell, 1996), eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1998) and low self-esteem (Tiggeman & Stevens,
This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an
The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).
When women are uncomfortable with their body, they get taken advantage of by companies trying to sell their products varying from protein shakes, “magic pills”, to surgical procedures (Lin). But all of this can be prevented with six simple themes to address. First, with family, friends, and other relationships, we can further educate each other and work together to come up with alternatives to these linked issues with body image. Secondly, we can put an end to teasing and bullying. No one has the right to or entitlement to emotionally, mentally, or physically harm another person for the way they look.
These unreal expectations have severe consequences because it leads women to develop eating disorders to be thinner or get cosmetic surgery. One example Kilbourne gave was that Fiji produced higher rates of eating disorders after televisions were introduced. Kilbourne also mentioned that in the United States, 91% of cosmetic surgery is performed on women demonstrating how influential advertisement’s expectations for women are. With that being said, women are more objectified than men in our society and it’s evident in
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.
Countless advertisements feature thin, beautiful women as either over-sexualized objects, or as subordinates to their male counterparts. The mold created by society and advertisers for women to fit into is not entirely attainable. More often than not, models are Photoshopped and altered to the point that they don’t even resemble themselves. W. Charisse Goodman suggests, “The mass media do not
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.
Social media is a powerful source in today’s society, 81% of the population in the United States alone has set up a social media profile. Many use the media for useful things, like educational opportunities and business inquiries. Although there are people who may look at it more in a concerning aspect. Many people today view the social media as a stage where they are judged and told what the real way to look and act is, more specifically, body image. Social Media has a negative impact on body image, through creating a perfect view physically which affects someone mentally, targeting both male and female, and turning away from the real goal of social media.
Society 's Beauty Standards Hawkins (2017) stated that the definition of beauty has been shaped by society 's standards instead of what people actually look like. It signifies that the society sets up expectations of how we define beauty by manipulating beliefs of people to recognize that body shape, skin color, race, ethnicity, or anglicized features are what makes a person distinguish their beauty instead of what people actually look like in reality. This makes people believe that the beauty that they see, especially in films, is something that they need to attain in order to be considered as attractive. Unrealistic beauty standards affects physical and mental health Vitelli (2013) stated that content analysis of female characters
It is clear that there is a loss of individuality when it comes to beauty. This is evident to see through social media and dating apps that are based on appearance, which is turning individuals highly superficial in relation to what is physically beautiful. Famous figures and social media influencers, for example the Kardashians, portray idealistic beauty standards. By these influencers selling products as well as themselves and their brand, consumers believe the gimmick that if they buy a product indorsed by their favourite celebrity, they will be one step closer to achieving what Eco describes as ‘the good and the beautiful’. However, this proves to have negative effects on self confidence, signalling that one has to conform to how a heavily social media influenced society perceives