The East and the West have many different views on beauty standards. Fatima Merissa’s article, Size 6: The Western Women's Harem, discusses the positives and negatives about beauty standards. She illustrates how the East and the West dominated by the beauty standards that take place in society, due to many reasons. Fatima Merissa is a Moroccan woman, who had driven away from a society where the woman has to cover their faces' out in public, to another society where being a size 6 or bigger is atrocious. Fatima encounters a saleslady at a store, in America, to help her find a skirt in her size. The saleslady refused to help her because Fatima is not in the normal size in America, so therefore the store does not carry that size. Back when she …show more content…
In the West, ‘' to be beautiful, women have to appear childish and brainless. When a woman looks mature and self- assertive, or allows her hips to expand, she is condemned as ugly.'' Merissa ties this issue back to her experience with the saleslady because Merissa was not in the ideal beauty standard. The saleslady did not want to help her because she did not meet the beauty standard. She begins by uncovering the reality of how ladies are indicated to look younger, putting a perfect image in one's head. ‘' The Weston man uses images and spotlights to freeze female beauty within an idealized childhood and forces women to perceive again, that normal unfolding of years, as a shameful devaluation. The difference between the East and the West is that any Eastern women can escape her predicament since it is evident to society, while in Western culture, men lessen women. The eastern harem does not attack aging as directly as the western civilization does. She sees that the western women are free in wearing what they please but in reality, women receive plenty of stress from trying to meet the ideal beauty standards that were created by
Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, tells the story of a girl named Tally Youngblood who is only several weeks away from having a life-changing surgery completed; the people that undergo the operation have their faces and bodies modified to look conventionally attractive. It’s revealed later in the book--by former members of the “Pretty Committee”--that the surgeons alter the patient’s personality and reasoning as well. At the very beginning of Part, I there read a quote from Yang Yuan, taken from the New York Times; “Is it not good to make society full of beautiful people?” Westerfeld’s story explores the implications of a society where people are socially conditioned and made to think that they are naturally ugly; at the age of 16, they are made “pretty”, as stated earlier.
Her mother’s strength of tolerating unacceptable nonsense from her father makes her a stronger person. Moss’s yearning to appear beautiful misguides her from the true meaning of beauty, but she learns beauty is not defined by physical appearances. Barbara Moss’s memoir inspires people everywhere. This novel displays a sense of escaping poverty and becoming successful in anything yearned
Sally is a very beautiful girl who attracts many boys at school. Her religious father sees her beauty as dangerous, and thinks that “to be this beautiful is trouble”(81). In addition, Esperanza remarks how Sally’s father has formed this strong opinion due to his beliefs: “They are very strict in his religion”(81). Her family’s religion causes Sally to not be able to express herself as she would like because it is very strict and therefore expects that beauty is not to be very openly expressed, and actions such as dancing are forbidden. However, these aspects of Sally’s life are very important to her and are vital in maintaining her uniqueness, as she performs them to gain attention and be seen as attractive.
The story tells the reader about how two girls, each owns a Barbie doll with their one outfit piece and they made a dress out of worn socks for the dolls. One Sunday, they both went to the flea market on Maxwell Street, where the dolls of the other characters in Barbie were sold with lower price as a big toy warehouse was destroyed by fire. They did not mind to buy the dolls at the flea market even though the dolls were flawed, soaked with water and smelled like ashes. Barbie is widely pictured as a successful girl, who is perfect in every way; with her beautiful face, a slim body, nice house, secured job and a handsome boyfriend which is the fancy of every girl. The story tells the reader of the expectancy for women to have this immaculate figure, ignoring the fact that each person has different body fat percentage and body mass index which may affect their sizes and weights.
In the essay by Yusufali, she boldly writes: "[By] reading popular teenage magazines, you can find out what kind of body image is "in" or "out"' (page 52). By this, Yusufali explains how women
Marta’s main concern is reaching the party before too much time passes, but unfortunately as the sun sets she begins to lose her youthful glow. It is important to Marta that she enjoys the party while she is young, but she begins to compare herself to other girls as she falls. “ It was a contest, then. And she only had a shabby little dress while those other girls were dressed smartly like high fashion models,” (Buzzati 3). In the beginning the sun reflects well on Marta and reveals her true beauty, but eventually the sun sets.
This, once more, points towards an attitude that judges women for their sexual output and attractiveness alone. The old woman would be incapable of the two things her sex is desired for; procreation, and the sexual pleasure this would require. She uses the rhetoric of reason to get her young husband to love her, yet her premise rests on her position as someone who has lost beauty and is placed at disadvantage. The old woman begins to ‘selle’ her virtues of faithfulness , and in this she commoditises her identity and establishes once more the hierarchy of husband and wife; and the position of the wife as someone inferior to her
Every individual cares about how they appear to others; their shape and in this informal, narrative essay titled Chicken-Hips, Canadian journalist and producer Catherine Pigott tells her story on her trip to Gambia and her body appearance. In this compelling essay the thesis is implicit and the implied thesis is about how women are judged differently on their appearance in different parts of the world, as various cultures and individuals have a different perception on what ideal beauty is. In this essay Pigott writes about her trip to Africa specifically Gambia and how upon arriving there she was judged to be too slim for a woman. She goes on to write about how she would be judged differently back home by mentioning “in my county we deny ourselves
Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” takes a sarcastic approach to backlash at society and send the reader a message about what beauty really is. In “Barbie Doll”, A Barbie doll is used to show and symbolize what society views as what a female should aspire to become “perfect”. “Barbie's unrealistic body type…busty with a tiny waist, thin thighs and long legs…is reflective of our culture's feminine ideal. Yet less than two percent of American women can ever hope to achieve such dreamy measurements.”
Molding of the Perfect Woman: An Analysis of Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” “…on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming…” (Kincaid, 320). This phrase accurately represents the point that is being made in this passage. In Jamaica Kincaid’s piece, “Girl”, her mother is giving her advice on how to be and act like a proper woman. Her mother describes everything from how to properly do laundry to how to set a table for all occasions (Kincaid, 3-4).
Not Just a Bowl Beauty is one of the main foci in society today where selfies, beauty enhancement or plastic surgery, celebrities, and the media reign over society—constantly defining what people should aim for in terms of appearance. Appearances are everything to many people rather than inner beauty such as character and values. In turn, this beauty-obsessed world has led to people becoming more shallow, superficial, and unaccepting towards anything besides the “norm.” It is quite ironic to have a “norm” considering how each individual is different and live in different cultures and such. People are not meant to be or look the same neither should they adhere to a certain standard in which someone else has established.
According to Britton (2012), last 2008, YWCA USA developed a report Beauty at Any Cost wherein they discuss the consequences of beauty obsession of every woman in America. It shows that beauty obsession results from a decrease in the level of self-esteem. It also gives a problem to the Americans because it’s also putting a dent in their pockets. It states that because of those cosmetics many people have decreased the level of self-esteem because of those cosmetics.
Figure 2 and 3 exemplify women presented in a submissive and docile image. In figure 2, there is a direct eye contact to the camera which conveys a personal address to the reader. It allows the audience to be captivated in the seductive qualities of her body. However, the use of black around her eye helps to accentuate salacious look upon her face. Furthermore, white fur and jewelry in her costuming portrays this ideal of wealth and affluence that women should be aspiring for to attract the ‘right man’.
In face of severe situation, people often feel relief when they think of happier, simpler times in order to alleviate the severity. In the fiction novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, a theocracy government controls every aspect of life in order to produce the best result of its plans. At the beginning of chapter 12, Offred takes a required, but luxurious bath because she can take off the burdensome wings and veils. While she bathes, Offred remembers her daughter from the past and a time with her family. Atwood compares Offred’s past and present through imagery, tone, similes, and symbolism combined with parallel structure to highlight the vulnerability of women to their surroundings.
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