In the essay What Meets the Eye, Daniel Akst argues that look or beauty does matter in the daily life, that is, people’s life can be largely influenced or even controlled by look. Through reading Akst’s essay, I completely understand how people have different perspectives of others, as many people pay attention to and worry about how they look in the daily life. And people tend to judge others by their beauty or looks to a large extent. Akst’s ideas quite conform to and reinforce Paglia’s points that pursuing and maximizing one’s attractiveness and beauty is a justifiable aim in any society, and that good surgery discovers reveals personality. Both of them hold the idea that beauty plays an important role in people’s life and it is significant to enhance one’s beauty and attractiveness. They both explain interestingly and reasonably what …show more content…
It is known to us that there are many people who are born genetically large, while there are many fat people who choose to be casual to have large-scale meals every day. As for the latter kind of people, it is their choices that make that decision that they prefer to be obese rather than to be in shape, which thus loses their own attractiveness. Therefore, facing the choices of being a model or being obese person, I would choose the model without doubt. Meanwhile, after reading Akst’s essay, I notice one problem that people who always try to make others feel guilty for preferring attractiveness often acquire little fortune in the life. Those who always complain about how to objectify positively are the people who have never been objectified for beauty. So Akst says that to all the girls that think they are not fat because they are not a size zero. Also, in the office, a man wearing a suit might be more professional than a person wearing flip flops, jeans or shorts. The latter person is just the less fortunate person in the
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreBordo explains, “When associations of fat and lower-class status exist, they are usually mediated by moral qualities—fat being perceived as indicative of laziness, lack of discipline, unwillingness to conform” (Bordo 489). The working-class however is pictured as slender and thin and therefore successful. We are surrounded by talk shows, advertisements, and reality television, that tell us how we should look, whether we are able to see it or not. Bordo illustrates this by analyzing a talk show where an obese woman stated she was happy; however the audience was in disbelief and tried to convince her that she was in fact not happy and needed to be slim and beautiful to be content. The audiences’ opinions regarding her body and how she should adjust her lifestyle relays the message that life is worthless, unless she fits the ideal body image.
In Gary Soto’s short story “The Talk” he reveals how society values appearance way too much. The main characters discuss about how their appearance affects their self-esteem, mindset, and their future jobs. The characters start out discussing their appearance and call themselves ugly, “We were twelve, with lean bodies that were beginning to grow in weird ways. First, our heads got large, but our necks wavered, frail as crisp tulips” (par.2). The boys talk about their appearance as if they were really awkward when in reality they probably don’t look like the way their describing themselves.
The author also describes how much appearance is important to us. In what point of time did we allow our society to tell us what is and is not beautiful. People worried about what others would say or losing friends because their teeth are not perfect or they are not skinny enough. Your appearance should not take away from the person you are on the inside. We entrust dentist and plastic surgeons to cause pain to our bodies to meet societies expectations of beauty and spend thousands in the
A majority of the population was ugly even though the idealistic standard of beauty was far above the average person living there. Instead of tall, muscular, light, and carefree people, most ended up being dark, small, and unattractive. This relates largely in the current society because magazines portray thin to be beautiful, and until the last decade has this beauty standard started to change. When things as simple as a beauty standard are different from the current world, it allows readers to think upon the idea of living in a different
People originated from different culture, societies, and ways of life, so there will dependably be a distinction in the way individuals act, dress, and look. The United States has made laws in the previous years to ensure that individuals are treated fairly in light of sex, religion, and race. Yet, there is no official law securing individuals that are being segregated on their looks. So, there should be, as Deborah Rhode states, “stricter anti-discrimination laws…” (248). Deborah Rhode, the person who wrote the essay “Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination”, explains why appearance is the last of the last type of discrimination confronted in the present society.
Does appearance make up who you are? The short story “The Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus tells us a story about a girl named Louise, who struggles to fit into society's standards of the ideal image of a female body. Throughout the story, Dubus displays the mental and physical challenges Louise has to face. In our modern society, being pretty is essential to survive. Having such privileges mirrors who you are and your personality.
In the essays, Carnal Acts, Nancy Mairs, a young writer who deals with MS disease and mental illnesses speaks out about the difficulties of dealing with MS and how her voice as a writer helped her cope with the difficulties of MS. Mairs tells us she sees a very close connection between life and writing, “For me, thinking about literature and thinking about life aren’t separate, or even separable, acts (4)”. The theme of love who you are is distinctly depicted by Mairs in her essays. This theme is very common throughout the book, especially in the essay titled “Carnal Acts” where she clearly states society 's standards for women are too high. Mairs never considered herself beautiful because she never fit the perfect image of a beautiful woman,
As people going out into a world obsessed with appearance, we need to remember to look beyond the exterior. The lessons of Eurycleia and Penelope are lessons that are sorely needed in our culture. We must immerse ourselves in the truth, so that we can recognize it anywhere. We also need to be critical of our eyes. In the words of Paul, we must learn to “test all things, hold fast what is good,” and let the rest fade away.
One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.
If this scenario is viewed in isolation it will be a personal problem but if it is viewed under the microscope of social imagination it will reveal that due to society’s high standards and obsession with beauty has effected number of people in society. In a nutshell Social imagination is being able to distinguish personal problems
From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed
Imagine being told as a female in today’s world you must look or act a ¬¬certain way in order to be accepted. Being what you want to be is not allowed and changes have to be made in order to be included. They say “pain is beauty, and beauty is pain” as they way a woman looks today are completely different from ten or even fifty years ago. In this paper, the reader will understand the mind of a woman in today’s society and the difficulties to be not only accepted but being her own person as well. Not only has the appearance of a woman changed but also role titles and job descriptions as well.
Popular models such as Kendall Jenner and Alexis Ren is known for their ‘perfect’ bodies. They post daily of their ‘fitspo’ images, gaining millions of likes and compliments. These compliments about their appearance support the importance of body image in how you are judged as a person. These images, send a destructive message about their appearance as well. Ms Morgan stated that ‘appearance-based talk and body comparison can be unremitting, with little understanding of how detrimental it is for self-esteem and mental-health’.
However, an individual’s cultural standards have an influence on their perceptions of beauty. For example, an
So when people look and see that they don’t look like they’re favorite super-model it can put a downer on their self-confidence. This causes many girls feeling that they aren’t good enough in society, society won’t accept them because they aren’t perfect and they start to not like their body. When for many females they can’t lose as much weight as their friend can just because of their genes and how they were born. “The lack of connection between the real and ideal perception of their own body and firm willingness to modify their own body and shape so as to standardize them to social concept of thinness…” (Dixit 1), being focused on unrealistic expectations can cause women to lose themselves and change their attitude on how they view their body, and not for the better.