The Gibson Girl: The Perception Of Beauty

What most people do not realize is that beauty is an opinion. Nobody sat down when the world began and wrote a book on what defines beauty for the future. Beauty has just become something that we care about. We all think someone is more beautiful than us. But for every person you think is prettier than you, there is someone thinking the same thing about you. We all have different perceptions of people, just the same as the people who came before us.

Every decade in America’s history since at least 1900, there has been a change in what society defines as beautiful. For example, in 1900-1910 the Gibson Girl was what everyone wanted to be. She was created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (“Body Image…”). The Gibson Girl was tall and slender

The Post Wartime Era brought back the voluptuous hourglass figure with models such as Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly. Along with being well-composed, they were expected to have flawless skin (“Body Image…”). With the 1960’s, the boyish “Twiggy” look was back. The average American woman’s BMI rose to 25.2, which was quite a distance from celebrities whose BMI was an average of 18.7 (“Body Image…”). The 1970’s continued with the “Twiggy” look and brought crash diet fads and publicized eating disorders such as Anorexia (Brockmeyer). The average woman’s BMI was 24.9 while the average celebrity was 18.9 (“Body Image…”). The 1980’s kept the thin and slender look while also adding that women should be working out to keep their figure. The average woman’s BMI was 25, while celebrities were around 19.1. All of these examples are someone else’s version of what beautiful should be. All of these are examples of what women were “supposed” to look like. 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