Personal Narrative: The Changing Perception Of Women

Today women, cannot even go to the corner store without putting on any make up. I would say women need to make sure that they love themselves because not only can they face things the media portrays because of their gender it could also be because of their race, sexuality, and

Someone just decided that this was what beautiful was and everyone followed. All of the women who were considered beautiful or “perfect” during the Gibson Girl era became just another girl when the Flapper Girl became popular. The BMI’s of celebrities

Society’s perception of male beauty isn’t tied as inherently to age as it is for women, in that cosmetic companies continually market products to consumers through the male gaze. Women are constantly defined by their appearance, which is problematic in and of itself, but this problem is exacerbated by society’s rampant ageism which tells women they must maintain youthful, feminine looks as they

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).

These days, advertisements are made with the aid of photoshop which creates an unattainable image of beauty and thus, puts pressure on women to achieve these standards. Photoshop in the beauty industry involves manipulating a picture to make it flawless. Magazines photoshop these images by toning the abdomen, removing every facial blemish, defining the cheekbones, etc. In 2003, actress Kate Winslet criticized GQ magazine for photoshopping her picture saying, “The retouching is excessive, I do not look like that and more importantly, I don’t desire to look like that”. Many women are bothered by the seemingly perfect models they see on the billboards, in television adverts and on magazine covers.

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.

From the 1970’s much has changed in how media would typically portray women as housewives who wanted to please their husbands by catering for them and looking after the children and home. Since then various legislations have been enforced which changed how media could portray women, now in modern media women are represented as beautiful stereotypes who every woman would want to be like. Their body image is still important in how they are viewed by the public and the media are very strong to bring this forward for the given audience. Here is where gender and identity come into account. Women’s magazines formulate images of femininity which are diverse in how women look aesthetically and their lifestyle; once this has been accomplished they

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.

On November 6th, I encountered a cultural disconnect with a friend. My friend is a white, female, and the same age as me. This disconnect happened on the Berkeley campus when we were walking to our next class. We were both walking and talking about what we have been up to that past week. I told her that I was swamped with midterms and projects coming up so I was “studying and dying all week.” She chuckled at my statement and she said she had two midterms coming up too and has not begun to study. I asked her why she did not start studying yet. I assumed she was too consumed with her part-time job or preoccupied with other important obligations, but she simply replied, “I didn’t feel like it.”

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.

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.

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

In Cindy Pierce’s article, “How Objectifying Social Media Affects Girl’s Body Image More Than You Think,” she argues that society controls how girls and women see themselves, and this will not be solved until they stop caring what other people think. Things celebrities and people we know post online make girls feel inadequate to the standards of others and in effect makes them unhappy with what they look like. Pressure is starting to build on girls at an early age and into adult hood to reach this standard of beauty set by social media. The only way to escape this feeling of being unworthy or less than the ladies in magazines is to become numb to the idea that women are not good enough. Women in magazines are photoshopped to sell products to help women reach the standard the internet has set.

Statistics show that more than 90 percent of girls, aged 15-17, want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, and nearly a quarter of these girls would consider undergoing plastic surgery. According to a report by the child advocacy group “Common Sense Media”, they revealed that more than half of girls as young as 6 to 8 think their ideal weight is thinner than their current size. In a study done by black activist Kenneth Clark, he put two identical dolls in front of black children, one dark-skinned and the other white-skinned and when asked which they preferred, almost all chose the white doll. These results capture the negative effects society’s narrowly defined beauty ideals are having on women and girls. Along with body

It was January 29th, 2012, and I felt as though I was just thrown under a bus. My life as I knew it, was changed forever. This metaphorical bus taught me a lesson... that being loyal, and doing the right thing, aren’t always the same. People try to live up to a standard, but most of the time, this is just the societal norm. Being faithful in a friendship, can conventionally be necessary, but it's never worth lying over, and that's where I went wrong.