The Beauty Myth
THE BEAUTY MYTH
by Cherry Hitkari, Harshita Kumari
“It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality”
Virginia Woolf
Women’s bodies, since time immemorial has been treated as site of contestation, control and oppression. It is in this regard of continuation of the cycle of male social dominance, one finds feminine beauty as a currency system which is both embodied and commodified. Simply put, the Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf represents the institutional pressures on women to confirm to a beauty ideal that is largely unattainable and a modern form of oppression that undermines equality between sexes. Sadly, Beauty Myth not only is a production of a capitalist – consumerist propaganda, whose audience is the vulnerable women (whose success in advertisement to popular media is linked with looking ‘beautiful’), it is also furthered by ground level discrimination in labour market against ‘obese women’ when compared to women in the ‘recommended’ weight-for-height range. With no escape from a murky world where they are fed with ideal standards of ‘feminine beauty’ on one hand and lack of complicity places them at an economic disadvantage on other hand; This paper attempts an investigation on the question- if the ‘Beauty Myth’ as a hierarchy legitimising myth for the dominant male group continues to act as a tool of subjugation for the educated, urban-middle class woman.
Naomi Wolf in a blog dated May 27, 2011, brings a rather optimistic perspective on question of ‘Age and Youth’ which is a sub clause under the umbrella of ‘Beauty Myth’. She deals with rather progressively on how ‘youth’ does not continue to excite male gaze or invoke envy among older women – individuals are rather oblivious to youth; older women do not engage in Queen B effect and hence ostracise younger women from work avenues. The reality seems a far cry from this, in a world that regrets death of ‘young’ as saddest of all tragedies on one hand, it also contributes a whooping USD 4.7 Billion to ‘Facial Aesthetic Market’, to ensure people look young at 60 and beyond. Beyond figures, popular media too continues to popularise characters (subsequently backed by public acceptance) that personify extravagant efforts at looking ‘flawless’ and ‘young’ by women for validation from significant male members and society in general, despite the fact that these shows are centred on the main aim of economic-political liberation of women; Marvellous Mrs. Maisel (recipient of an Emmy Award) is a case in point. Maybe Ms. Wolf’s interpretation of certain defeat of the ‘age myth’ is true – but it is a rather symbolic victory, if any. The dangerous invisibilization of the ‘Beauty Myth’ in the main course discussion rather advocates the problem – it simply acts as a band-aid effect and hence invisibilises the larger ‘scar’ the issue represents for the society.
An important preliminary remark for the reader – this paper neither does vilify female labour invested in the act of looking beautiful for gaining societal validation, nor does it wish to reaffirm the notions of beauty in status quo – it rather raises an ethical question to its audience; one of comparative understanding. Male beauty has never had a heavy ‘physically rooted’ perspective to it and neither it has abstract divinely notions, it has always carried a rather utilitarian perspective, dictating beauty norms for men by metrics of what is good for human beings. While female beauty is not only raised to abstract standards , but it also has a rather divine connotation, a certain higher purpose , a purpose which on one hand deifies the notion of feminine beauty and pedestalises it as godly, on the other hand it creates a rather slippery narrow definition of beauty for women which manifests itself into ‘labour’ to look beautiful and failure to invest in this labour subjects women to meagre responses ranging from being called ‘ugly’ ( which is also a traumatic experience) to disadvantages in the labour market. This paper hence simply tries to bring to light this underlying disparity that makes equality between sexes improbable in the status quo.
The fact that ‘beauty’ is an intangible abstract notion, that has severe tangible implications makes it a demon that is rather hard to fight – nonetheless an ideology can only be fought on grounds of rationality and we hope the current generation deals with beauty as not an abstract uniform issue but rather with a lens of critique and heterogeneity, a point we try to draw home with interpretations of a recent survey.
Interviews of 31 urban educated women were taken to understand the 'Beauty Myth' in the present times. These women fell within the age group from 18-53 years. They were asked to share their opinions on certain questions related to the issue under probing.
When asked to define a 'flawless, natural beauty', almost all of them opined that a 'flawless beauty' for a woman meant someone with a radiant, spotless and fair skin, silky hair, and a slim body shape. However, interestingly, all of them stated that this notion of a beautiful woman is the one propagated by the society and they stated that according to them a beautiful woman is someone who is healthy, confident, independent in opinion, respects others and is kind hearted ; a definition which was completely in contrast with their previous response focusing on the physical attributes.
55% of the respondents denied that looking beautiful meant looking young and stated that it is a social construct, a concept created by the society and an idea culturally fed to women.
90% of the women interviewed accepted subjection to criticism for their appearance at some point in life. They accepted being asked to lose weight, to adopt a beauty routine to improve their skin, they were often asked to try and 'lighten' their skin tone and conform to the mainstream idea of beauty. The respondents accepted that such an attitude had a very negative impact on them and 'crushed' their confidence. Interestingly, when asked to rank their own beauty on a scale of 1-5, maximum gave themselves a 4 ,which is good enough but also reveals that not many women still after the three waves of feminism, d0n’t feel entirely confident in their skin and deem a certain ‘other’ as representative of perfect beauty or at least believe in comparative evaluation w.r.t perception of self-beauty.
Even after being pressurized to adopt a 'beauty routine', 64.5%of the respondents didn't adopt any such routine. When asked to share opinions on lists like 'Top 100 Most Beautiful Women' of a certain year, 87% of the women opined that such lists do not hold any relevance to them, however, they believed that such lists act as tools to sharpen the societal perspective of feminine beauty and hampers the minds of young girls who grow up desiring a similar appearance and often take harmful actions like cosmetic surgery and some often even develop eating disorders, many may even develop a negative view of themselves and face clinical depression.
Interestingly, despite conscious awareness of problematic structures that compel women to adopt beauty habits, 60% of the respondents stated that applying makeup made them feel confident and 'happy with their appearance' by hiding their ‘physical flaws'. Ironically despite internalization of need to be beautiful for the male gaze, a whooping 42% of the respondents stated that the concept of Beauty is a myth rather than a reality and accepted it to be an idea constructed by the patriarchal society which still after the development of the feminist movement primarily views women as objects to gratify men, whose only essence is to maintain themselves in a way to look desirous to male gaze, taking away any substance from their own self .
Unfortunately, 58% felt Beauty is a real time construct rather than a myth.
Thus, we see how the notion of beauty continues to haunt the women 'empowered' through the powerful three waves of feminism. It can't be ignored that notion of inferiority due to a darker skin complexion and obsession with skinny body has been dulled over time with women embracing their individuality but it is also true that in one way or another a certain 'beauty myth' conforming to the notion of traditional feminine beauty still prevails and haunts women. Though women have been successful in uncovering the consumerist nature of the prevailing beauty myth which develops itself as a way to oppress them, they still continue to be haunted by it and succumb to the cyclic oppression and submission.
References
Wolf, Naomi. “The Beauty Myth : How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women”. Harper Collins Publication (1999)
Craighead, Clare. "(Monstrous) Beauty (Myths): The Commodification of Women's Bodies and the Potential for Tattooed Subversions." Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 25, no. 4 (90) (2011): 42-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23287201.
Averett, Susan, and Sanders Korenman. "The Economic Reality of the Beauty Myth." The Journal of Human Resources 31, no. 2 (1996): 304-30. doi:10.2307/146065.
Farrell, John. "Postmodern Instances: The Rectification of Beauty." Harvard Review, no. 4 (1993): 13-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559731.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/a-wrinkle-in-time-twenty-years-after-the-beauty-myth-naomi-wolf-addresses-the-aging-myth/2011/05/11/AGiEhvCH_story.html?noredirect=on.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/06/the-male-glance-how-we-fail-to-take-womens-stories-seriously
Statistics : Self Conducted Survey Of The Beauty Myth.
by Cherry Hitkari, Harshita Kumari
“It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality”
Virginia Woolf
Women’s bodies, since time immemorial has been treated as site of contestation, control and oppression. It is in this regard of continuation of the cycle of male social dominance, one finds feminine beauty as a currency system which is both embodied and commodified. Simply put, the Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf represents the institutional pressures on women to confirm to a beauty ideal that is largely unattainable and a modern form of oppression that undermines equality between sexes. Sadly, Beauty Myth not only is a production of a capitalist – consumerist propaganda, whose audience is the vulnerable women (whose success in advertisement to popular media is linked with looking ‘beautiful’), it is also furthered by ground level discrimination in labour market against ‘obese women’ when compared to women in the ‘recommended’ weight-for-height range. With no escape from a murky world where they are fed with ideal standards of ‘feminine beauty’ on one hand and lack of complicity places them at an economic disadvantage on other hand; This paper attempts an investigation on the question- if the ‘Beauty Myth’ as a hierarchy legitimising myth for the dominant male group continues to act as a tool of subjugation for the educated, urban-middle class woman.
Naomi Wolf in a blog dated May 27, 2011, brings a rather optimistic perspective on question of ‘Age and Youth’ which is a sub clause under the umbrella of ‘Beauty Myth’. She deals with rather progressively on how ‘youth’ does not continue to excite male gaze or invoke envy among older women – individuals are rather oblivious to youth; older women do not engage in Queen B effect and hence ostracise younger women from work avenues. The reality seems a far cry from this, in a world that regrets death of ‘young’ as saddest of all tragedies on one hand, it also contributes a whooping USD 4.7 Billion to ‘Facial Aesthetic Market’, to ensure people look young at 60 and beyond. Beyond figures, popular media too continues to popularise characters (subsequently backed by public acceptance) that personify extravagant efforts at looking ‘flawless’ and ‘young’ by women for validation from significant male members and society in general, despite the fact that these shows are centred on the main aim of economic-political liberation of women; Marvellous Mrs. Maisel (recipient of an Emmy Award) is a case in point. Maybe Ms. Wolf’s interpretation of certain defeat of the ‘age myth’ is true – but it is a rather symbolic victory, if any. The dangerous invisibilization of the ‘Beauty Myth’ in the main course discussion rather advocates the problem – it simply acts as a band-aid effect and hence invisibilises the larger ‘scar’ the issue represents for the society.
An important preliminary remark for the reader – this paper neither does vilify female labour invested in the act of looking beautiful for gaining societal validation, nor does it wish to reaffirm the notions of beauty in status quo – it rather raises an ethical question to its audience; one of comparative understanding. Male beauty has never had a heavy ‘physically rooted’ perspective to it and neither it has abstract divinely notions, it has always carried a rather utilitarian perspective, dictating beauty norms for men by metrics of what is good for human beings. While female beauty is not only raised to abstract standards , but it also has a rather divine connotation, a certain higher purpose , a purpose which on one hand deifies the notion of feminine beauty and pedestalises it as godly, on the other hand it creates a rather slippery narrow definition of beauty for women which manifests itself into ‘labour’ to look beautiful and failure to invest in this labour subjects women to meagre responses ranging from being called ‘ugly’ ( which is also a traumatic experience) to disadvantages in the labour market. This paper hence simply tries to bring to light this underlying disparity that makes equality between sexes improbable in the status quo.
The fact that ‘beauty’ is an intangible abstract notion, that has severe tangible implications makes it a demon that is rather hard to fight – nonetheless an ideology can only be fought on grounds of rationality and we hope the current generation deals with beauty as not an abstract uniform issue but rather with a lens of critique and heterogeneity, a point we try to draw home with interpretations of a recent survey.
Interviews of 31 urban educated women were taken to understand the 'Beauty Myth' in the present times. These women fell within the age group from 18-53 years. They were asked to share their opinions on certain questions related to the issue under probing.
When asked to define a 'flawless, natural beauty', almost all of them opined that a 'flawless beauty' for a woman meant someone with a radiant, spotless and fair skin, silky hair, and a slim body shape. However, interestingly, all of them stated that this notion of a beautiful woman is the one propagated by the society and they stated that according to them a beautiful woman is someone who is healthy, confident, independent in opinion, respects others and is kind hearted ; a definition which was completely in contrast with their previous response focusing on the physical attributes.
55% of the respondents denied that looking beautiful meant looking young and stated that it is a social construct, a concept created by the society and an idea culturally fed to women.
90% of the women interviewed accepted subjection to criticism for their appearance at some point in life. They accepted being asked to lose weight, to adopt a beauty routine to improve their skin, they were often asked to try and 'lighten' their skin tone and conform to the mainstream idea of beauty. The respondents accepted that such an attitude had a very negative impact on them and 'crushed' their confidence. Interestingly, when asked to rank their own beauty on a scale of 1-5, maximum gave themselves a 4 ,which is good enough but also reveals that not many women still after the three waves of feminism, d0n’t feel entirely confident in their skin and deem a certain ‘other’ as representative of perfect beauty or at least believe in comparative evaluation w.r.t perception of self-beauty.
Even after being pressurized to adopt a 'beauty routine', 64.5%of the respondents didn't adopt any such routine. When asked to share opinions on lists like 'Top 100 Most Beautiful Women' of a certain year, 87% of the women opined that such lists do not hold any relevance to them, however, they believed that such lists act as tools to sharpen the societal perspective of feminine beauty and hampers the minds of young girls who grow up desiring a similar appearance and often take harmful actions like cosmetic surgery and some often even develop eating disorders, many may even develop a negative view of themselves and face clinical depression.
Interestingly, despite conscious awareness of problematic structures that compel women to adopt beauty habits, 60% of the respondents stated that applying makeup made them feel confident and 'happy with their appearance' by hiding their ‘physical flaws'. Ironically despite internalization of need to be beautiful for the male gaze, a whooping 42% of the respondents stated that the concept of Beauty is a myth rather than a reality and accepted it to be an idea constructed by the patriarchal society which still after the development of the feminist movement primarily views women as objects to gratify men, whose only essence is to maintain themselves in a way to look desirous to male gaze, taking away any substance from their own self .
Unfortunately, 58% felt Beauty is a real time construct rather than a myth.
Thus, we see how the notion of beauty continues to haunt the women 'empowered' through the powerful three waves of feminism. It can't be ignored that notion of inferiority due to a darker skin complexion and obsession with skinny body has been dulled over time with women embracing their individuality but it is also true that in one way or another a certain 'beauty myth' conforming to the notion of traditional feminine beauty still prevails and haunts women. Though women have been successful in uncovering the consumerist nature of the prevailing beauty myth which develops itself as a way to oppress them, they still continue to be haunted by it and succumb to the cyclic oppression and submission.
References
Wolf, Naomi. “The Beauty Myth : How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women”. Harper Collins Publication (1999)
Craighead, Clare. "(Monstrous) Beauty (Myths): The Commodification of Women's Bodies and the Potential for Tattooed Subversions." Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 25, no. 4 (90) (2011): 42-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23287201.
Averett, Susan, and Sanders Korenman. "The Economic Reality of the Beauty Myth." The Journal of Human Resources 31, no. 2 (1996): 304-30. doi:10.2307/146065.
Farrell, John. "Postmodern Instances: The Rectification of Beauty." Harvard Review, no. 4 (1993): 13-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559731.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/a-wrinkle-in-time-twenty-years-after-the-beauty-myth-naomi-wolf-addresses-the-aging-myth/2011/05/11/AGiEhvCH_story.html?noredirect=on.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/06/the-male-glance-how-we-fail-to-take-womens-stories-seriously
Statistics : Self Conducted Survey Of The Beauty Myth.
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