Essay On African American Beauty Industry

Essentially, industries decrease people self-esteem in order to make money and sell their advertised products. Companies advertise the “perfect” body that even the models do not have because of edited images, all the while contradicting themselves saying “be yourself”, then promoting unrealistic standards. Roberts inductive thesis fell at the end of the film, stating that the promise of being beautiful leading to a better life, is propaganda and that women’s health is not as important as corporate profit. The primary appeal in this documentary is the appeal to authority.

During the 1920s something extraordinary accord, an artistic movement that flourished the African American society and that would impact the world we live in today. Some know this movement to be called The New Negro Movement others The New Negro Movement. We often hear about the men like Alain Locke or Langston Hughes that had a major role in the movement, but what about the women? I will explore legendary women like Maya Angelou, Naomi Sims, Aida Overton Walker, Angelina Grimke, and Zora Neale Hurston. These women had contributed to The Harlem Renaissance, but are not often recognized for them.

Therefore Black beauty is meaningless in America, according to

History helps us learn who we are, but when we don’t know our history, our power and dreams are immediately diminished. In regards to the previous month of February and the present, March, a special celebration of the impact African American women have had on American history is very important. African American women and their accomplishments and bravery are often overlooked in mainstream history. In the months of March and especially February, Black women are often times left out of the conversation of innovation and history. During the civil rights movement many important leaders such as Dr. King and current congressman John Lewis were recognized, but not the women who actually started the bus boycotts in Montgomery and organizations located in the historical West End neighborhood that focused on denouncing the negative African American stigmas in society.

As The old saying goes “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder "and so is vulgarity meaning that any person, any piece of art, anything really can be considered beautiful by someone and should be treated that way by everyone. The definition of beauty is a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially sight; beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular. In order for a person, place or thing to be considered beautiful it must reflect certain criteria developed by the beholder. Vulgar is derived from the Latin adjective vulgaris something that emanates from the masses of common people. Traditionally, vulgar meant commonplace, it now carries negative connotations.

Since the dawn of humanity, women have been trying to achieve their personal idea of what beauty is. In the book “Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women”, one sees the author, Blaine Roberts, show the racial division between white women and black women as their idea of what beauty appeared as was completely opposite. Women of different color, size, attitude, mindset, and dreams all concurred that beauty was an important aspect for the Civil Rights movement. Roberts’ thesis, black and white perceptions of beauty both played a crucial role during the civil rights movement while the road that led them there was life changing, is depicted throughout her book. While things like the Jim Crow laws tried to put a gate on specific groups voicing their

The excerpt I chose to reflect on is called “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” by Claudia Jones (1949). Jones express the concerns that women of color in her time suffer from the neglect and degradation they receive throughout their lives. During this time, the reason many African American women go through the struggles in their community originated from the notion that the “bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman” (108). In my opinion, they have every right to be afraid of African American women. As Jones stated nicely "once Negro women undertake action, the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus of the anti-imperialist coalition, is greatly enhanced" (108).

Wallace Thurman poses the question “What did the color of one’s skin have to do with mentality or native ability” (Thurman 50). For a woman in America, quite a lot! While some have the luxury of living in “one nation, with liberty and justice for all”. For African American women, justice is hard to come by, and liberty is nothing more than a term without any true purpose or meaning. It is true, “to be black is no disgrace, just often very inconvenient”, but to be both African American and female, is nearly unbearable (Johnson,.

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?

Even though the problem of women having to fit into this category is not that big of a problem in this century. However, there is a problem of women having to look like certain way to fit into this idea of what women should look like. There is this idea that a women has to look a certain way in order to be beautiful. I have become very vocal on this matter because I truly believe that every women is beautiful. I relate to Tessie Hutchinson from the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.

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).

In her interviews with Emma, a Ghanaian woman, Pierre found that the main driving force for many women who practice skin-bleaching is the desire to become more beautiful. However, as Pierre notes, the safest treatments are very expensive, and since many of these women are members of the lower socio-economic classes, they choose to use cheaper methods of whitening, such as mercury, that cause significant harm and damage to the skin in their quest to become prettier. Clearly, this raises a significant problem in terms of seemingly-cemented concept of beauty that pressure non-white people, especially women, to do whatever it takes to conform to these

In the year 1998 women would strive to be perceived as the “perfect” woman with flawless skin and a skinny body. In the 1990’s technology changed how we would perceive women forever. With this new technology we now have access to digital editing and other online editing tools that women can use to eliminate all of their imperfections. With these tools our society put a huge pressure on girls to look like the people in the magazines. The problem with this, the girls in the magazines were not real.

Also, cosmetic procedures have increased by 39% over the past five years (from 2011) with surgical procedures up 17% and nonsurgical procedures up 44%(ASPS statistics). It shows that young women are willing to put themselves in danger because they feel the need to meet society's expectations of beauty. When going into cosmetic surgery, there is a risk of death or side effects that people are aware of, but still undergo the procedure. All because we live in a world where first impressions are made by how we look and thanks to magazines advertisements they set the “ideal” look for us and we all try to reach that look no matter how it

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.