African Americans Look For Beauty

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SA may be shifting as seen from a statement made by Thandi Ntshihoeoe’s in an article “Africans look for Beauty in Western Mirror”: “It’s embarrassing to be a fat African mama now…. We are more aware of our bodies since we got democracy; we want to be healthy, independent women, who look good.” According to Schuler (1999:1) costly cosmetic surgery has also become fashionable among the up-and-coming black professionals especially since SA’s beloved talk-show host Felicia Mabuza-Suttle, boasted having surgery to downsize her “African Trademark” buttocks.

When a society such as SA, where certain race groups were previously disadvantaged, shifts from a rural environment where there were basically no media, to an urban environment where there …show more content…

Additionally, these upward comparisons usually create a negative self-perception of the woman regarding her attractiveness (Morrison et al., 2004:573) and comparison to those such as media images create even more pressure to conform to idealised standards (Irving, 1990:103; Morrison et al., 2004:574). Women often believe that if only they had the perfect looks, consistently portrayed by the media, they would be perfectly happy (Featherstone, 2010:196). These findings concurred that it is of the utter-most importance to teach women not to compare themselves to the unrealistic standards of body image the media portray, but to realise that these standards are unrealistic. It is even more important that women should avoid pursuing these unrealistic …show more content…

Holstrom (2004:196) concludes that dissatisfaction arises when these media viewers begin to see the “above average” body image ideal as realistic, and also physically attainable. Usually women will not accept these new “above average” body image ideals as the norm if the media showed these images less frequently. For the media to affect women, these body images have to be increased over time through frequent and repetitive viewing. Excessive viewing of media imagery may promote the internalisation of the ”above average” body image ideal (Hendriks & Burgoon,

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