American Beauty Standards

“Beauty is subjective yet American society creates an objective facade of what beauty is and how it looks and that is one does not fit in to it than they are not “attractive,” superficially over substance, Americans simply are uncomfortable being themselves” (Williams). The beauty standards for women are shaped by society’s ideas of beauty. When women try to fit these beauty standards to be accepted into society, men think they have the right to objectify women and their bodies. Of course, it’s never the man’s fault when he gets caught doing just that. Beauty standards for women are getting to a point where they are almost unrealistic, and often leads to someone objectifying a women’s body, which of course, society says it’s not the man’s fault.

All around the world, women are teased because of beauty standards, but these standards differ in different parts of the world. All standards have their similarities, coupled with many differences; an example of this would be American beauty standards compared to Mauritanian beauty standards. American beauty standards and Mauritanian Beauty standards both have three basic components: body physique, the health results when they are taken to an extreme measure, and how society currently views the standards.

The topic that I strongly believe is a significant issue in society today is the feminine beauty standards that are established by society. Who is to blame for today’s insane beauty standards? I believe society has shaped us by making us think that we should look or act a certain way in order to fit in society.

All of this information just shows how people are being told to change to fit what is beautiful now. Everyone is beautiful in their own ways, yet we overlook these because they aren’t at the same level as everyone else. We should not root ourselves in society’s version of beauty because of how often it changes. Society’s current version of beautiful includes being photoshopped, participating in extreme dieting or exercise compulsion, having plastic surgery and other surgeries such as a gastric bypass or bariatric surgery (Afful). They aren’t actually the person we see in the magazines, so why are we basing our entire standard of American beauty around a group of females whose BMI is under the average? Shouldn’t we be focusing it on the American

While classic fairy tales give a solid baseline on morals, it also bases itself in the patriarchal concepts by placing women as passive figures that need to be saved by a man and that a girl’s wildest dreams can be fulfilled with marriage. These tales instruct that marriage is the “happily ever after” women are satisfied with; this may have been satisfactory during those time periods where women typically were not allowed by society to carry much agency, but as women change, so too should their stories.

Beauty industry is bad, does not depict real women, and should stop the fake American dream. Man-made Western beauty ideals have spread to the rest of the world through globalization and are now being upheld as models even in places like India and Japan. With the US exporting to every part of the world, there is no wonder as to why American Beauty ideals surpass anyone else.

In a society where media rules, appearance means everything. Images of supermodels and celebrities promoting the latest fashions and products constantly bombard consumers promising us that if they buy these products, they too will attain the same level of just glamor. We can’t help but envy the gorgeous women we see in magazines with their perfect smiles and airbrushed breasts and thighs especially when expectations of physical perfection have become so high that they are nearly unobtainable. Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” describes how this standard of perfection affects young girls and can carry on throughout their lives causing irreparable damages. Even though this poem was written in 1973, its meaning is more prevalent today than

The American beauty standard revolves around blonde haired and blue eyed women. Genetic modification would make this standard easier for the rich to exploit, and create a gap within society. The wealthy will be able to give their children advantages that they or their children want. There are plenty of people in society who would make their child genetically “beautiful” because they believe that is what makes a successful person. Others want to give their children advances that others can not obtain in genetics. Intelligence for example, intelligence is gained from education, but there is still a gene for concentration and memory. These genes are beneficial to their academic life and if they are genetically modified to have these genes, it

The perfect American woman has blonde hair, blue eyes, clear skin, and a waist size of 2.

In our celebrity obsessed society, women and men often desire to look similar to those such as Megan Fox and Brad Pitt. This is because we, as a media-driven culture, views these people as representing the standard of beauty, which is the socially constructed notion of what physical traits people find most attractive. For example, the ideal woman in the United States is voluptuous, has a small waist, and a youthful face. This is made evident through beauty commercials, where the companies use women that fit this model to promote their product. In fact, 42% of Americans claimed that the person in the advertisement highly impacts if they will consider buying the product or not (Kath). However, this is not the standard in many other countries such as Ghana, where the most beautiful woman are known to be curvaceous, slightly overweight, and filled with obscure piercings and tattoos. Clearly, these standards differ throughout the world. They also have dramatically shifted throughout history, but have always shaped the way males a females view themselves and others. This speaks to the pressures that society puts upon women, both historically and globally. Overall, beauty standards have always been acknowledged in any culture, country, and time period. What is most remarkable is that they drastically change depending where you look in history and in the world. This is made clear when we consider a photo of Marilyn Monroe for instance and a photo of, say a noble African princess.

Monkey see, monkey do is an unfortunate saying that captures the effect of the beauty standard on the average person. Our culture and industry bombard us with images of women with features far from the norm. This has caused many women to look and compare themselves with a very unnatural image. Many have tried to replicate the model body they see, without considering the harm that it could cause. The beauty standard today is not what it should be because the industry is manipulative, it makes women insecure about themselves, and is responsible for potential health effects.

Duffy presents them as women wishing to escape their constricted and limited roles; Goldilocks from menial household work and Rapunzel from her identity as the girl with beautiful hair. Donald Haase’s ideas that "folk narratives in particular delineate women's roles and problems" is clearly rejected by Duffy, who by alluding to these fairy-tale characters, shows how they have broken away from their traditional praxis in which happy-ever-after’s

Piercy’s message of high expectations placed on woman begins with the title of the poem itself, “Barbie Doll”. The Barbie Doll, often viewed as the ideal woman, represents unattainable self-image standards that epitomizes common stereotypes of women. Immediately the reader visualizes society’s perfect woman, one with unrealistic expectations that diminish a woman’s intelligence or intellect and solely focuses on appearance. Throughout the poem, Piercy puts an emphasis on comparing girls to Barbie dolls; however, the word Barbie only appears in the title. Although there is no direct comparison to the Barbie doll, when the girl’s classmate said, “you have a great big nose and fat legs” (Piercy 349) she compared the size of the girl’s nose and legs to what society’s ideal body type. Piercy uses the Barbie as a symbol for these unrealistic characteristics to which society wants all to conform, which also causes lack of uniqueness

American Beauty is an American drama chronicling the everyday life of the typical American family. The mother and father, Carolyn and Lester Burnham, are the parents of teenager Jane, who hates everything including her parents. The movie explores their lives, those that they encounter and how they all intertwine with each other. Along the way of this “living”, the characters and their personalities are explored. It shows the various characters and how they go about their daily lives with the mental disorders that they suffer from. Of course, they do not come right out and state that they have these disorders. Like most patients, they do not realize they are suffering unless actually diagnosed by a psychologist or psychiatrist. However, they are clearly allowing them to control every aspect of their being until it is too late. Lester Burnham, the obvious main character of the film, is at his wit’s end and is experiencing a midlife crisis that has caused him to perform behaviors that he otherwise would not do knowing that he has responsibilities. If a person feels like the reward outweighs the risk, they will risk everything to get to that level of happiness.

As 75% of the world make their own life more interesting on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat also other social media platforms than their real life. Many girls in the world have beauty standards because of all the social media platforms. As women and girls make their life about what other people say behind a screen. Beauty standards for women and girls on social media should stop because they break down girls images and pick out their flaws, this becomes serious when women seek approval on the internet. Also, studies have said 19% thought of killing themselves and 9% did but failed.