Women's Obsession With Body Image

It’s because of society that she goes to these lengths to impress other little girls. She buys burnt Barbie’s from water-stained boxes that are cheap and makes a dress when the other outfit gets worn out.

In the essay “A Woman’s Body: Put Down or Power Source” by Susan Sontag and excerpt from the film “America the Beautiful” directed by Darryl Roberts, it emphasizes the “power of beauty” .Women are fascinated with a beauty that is unreal, made-up, and doesn’t exist. Young adults are unhappy with their bodies because of the unachievable standards of beauty portrayed in social media, several aspects of video and print media. This unhappiness causes young adults to obsess with achieving an unrealistic body image which in turn, causes low self -esteem and excessive dieting which can also lead to eating disorders such as anorexia. Young adults feel rejected because of their looks, provoking dissatisfaction and unhappiness with their appearance.

During the romantic period, society judges women on their beauty, something that they have no control over. This idea of beauty was pushed on young girls and this made them feel as if beauty was the only thing that’s important, but the romantic period literature was going to change that. Beauty, shown as the single most important thing for women in Northanger Abbey and A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which is wrong because it’s degrading for women to be judged on something that they can’t control, this then affects how women are depicted in literature, changing the work’s tone to be satirical, making fun of this idea, or rebellious, in going away from these beauty standards. Instead of degrading women based on their beauty, women should instead get compliments on their beauty. But most women had no way to change these standards, the only thing they could do was make them into a joke, which is exactly what Austen did in Northanger Abbey.

For instance, the photoshopped-perfect-thin bodies of women who are being sexually portrayed in cars, liquor, and clothing advertisements, giving women the wrong notion about how their bodies should look to be considered culturally attractive in today’s society. And because a self-objectifying woman see herself as a sex-object, she defines her worth based on her look and sexual appeal to men. Consequently, she will obsessively monitor herself in the mirror, and if she's not happy with what she sees, she may starve herself which could put her health at risk for self-inflicted starvation a.k.a.

This led her to apologize for her body, something no one should ever have to do, as well faking a smile, dieting and exercising. After faking it for so long she was worn out and as Piercy put it she, “...cut off her nose and legs...” (247). This is a very real scenario, especially in this day and age more and more girls are opting for surgery just to fit into what is considered to be “beautiful.” That may be a way of them choosing their identity but, it really shows how much of a societal impact there is on all of

B. Depression is a tough disorder that many fashion models suffer from. 1. If a model is a pant size too large or do not complete the fit, depression can take over causing some to end their life. 2. Depression occurs most often if a model is cut from a photo shoot or replaced with someone else for a fashion show.

Pretty Mean Girls Why are mean girls in movies pretty? After much thought, I came up with the theory that it’s because they were ugly in the past by society’s standards. The makeup that they wear today, all the beautiful brands of Sephora, MAC, and Mary Kay, further fuel their desire to hate and tease the looks of others; this is because they were once teased. Once they lost all that weight, didn’t have a face full of acne, or stopped talking with a lisp, they thought, well, I might as well put lots of makeup on too. They stopped being aware of what it felt like to get hurt or to cry, so they put on mounds of makeup to hide any emotion at all.

“Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, makes me feel some type of way in an uncertain sense. I feel like our society tries to make it seem as if a woman has to be perfect on the outside. Its so much pressure put on women, from weight loss commercials even to what guys post on insta-gram with a caption of “Hot” or heart eyes. Its almost as if society is saying of well if you don’t look like this then you don’t look good. That isn’t the case at all, the bigger problem is the fact that women are starting to be so insecure and so uptight within their selves they cant even see there true beauty at finest.

The original Barbie Doll that was released in 1959 showed a lot of negative things toward the female body. Barbie has set a bad influence to little girls and boys by making anorexia a fashion trend. The doll’s tight fitting clothes and flawless face teaches kids that you have to look a certain way to be good looking. She has stereotypical occupations that fits the criteria of her image. When barbie works at the different occupations her uniform to match the job is feminized.

A girl can be seen as beautiful and attractive, but continued to be shunned - all because they don’t wear the latest trends in fashion (but what if they like wearing solid colors or nerdy shirts from Walmart?). They may have a great personality that would attract many suitors in the nineteenth century, but if it is not up to the status of some people, they’re deemed unworthy. It is honestly one of the saddest things I have witnessed and experienced. Through The Body Project, Brumberg explains how American girls have shifted from judging a girl through her personality and internal character to judging through her appearance.

All of the makeup, hair products, perfumes, etc., are completely hurting women’s overall body image and self-esteem. Trying to live up to such nearly impossible standards is so taxing on women. Tyler is a six-foot tall, beauty, who has posed for Maxim magazine in just her undergarments, yet she found it important to tell young women not to look up to super models and to embrace their curves. I found this so interesting since she has actually been considered to have supermodel stature and looks, yet often jokes about her ‘freakishly tall stature’ or being an ‘amazon’ or ‘giant’. Her tone is definitely one of a sarcastic feminist.

This advertisement was most likely published around the 1950’s. Women was supposed to fulfill certain roles during the 1950’s. The perfect wife was supposed to stay home and have dinner ready and on the table for when her husband arrives home from work. The advertisement says a lot about how some men may view their wives and many women who always had need for a man. Women would more than likely be shown doing the “nonworking roles of the home” then a man would.

"If you ask men about their body image, they will tell you they look better than they do. And if you ask a woman, she'll tell you she looks worse", (Gloria Steinem, 2014). This quote explains the mentality men and women have about body image. Nowadays, there are many impacts on women based on their bodies than there is on men. In the essay "Distorted Images", (Susan McClelland, 2017) social media, environmental pressure and advertising link to the theme of body image.

“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.” This beautiful quote stated by Steve Maraboli is directed towards women, but instead should be directed towards both the male and female audience. Body shaming has been around ever since we can remember. In the early 1900’s was when the perfect body image movement really started.

In the article “Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes” by Mark Snyder, the various researchers help construct evidence of stereotypes in our society. Theses stereotypes affect both men and women as well as various racial stereotypes. For example, Snyder mentions that college students of the opposites sex were to have a phone conversation with one another. Each of the men were given a picture of the women they were supposedly talking to. When some of the men received a photo of an unattractive female, they predicted they would be awkward, unsociable, and boring (Snyder 543).