The women-centered event I chose to attend for this assignment was a workshop called ‘Look Good, Feel Better’. Doing a little bit of background research I found that this workshop is Canada’s only charitable cancer program that is dedicated to empowering women on how to manage the effects cancer and its treatments can have on their appearance. Using the example of the ‘Look Good Feel Better’ workshop for women undergoing cancer treatment, I will analyze the concept of body image, Third Wave Feminism idea of empowerment along with the difference between men and women’s appearance in society. At this event there were around six women undergoing different stages of chemotherapy who were allowed to bring one guest along with them. Standing at …show more content…
Later on in the century, Second Wave Feminism in the 1950s and 1980s, combatted against the strictly women’s duty of having to perform the “housekeeping, cooking, sex and fulltime care for [the couples] children” (Hamilton pg. 41) in exchange for their husbands to share their salaries with them. Although, Second Wave Feminism is still ongoing today, Third Wave feminism emerged during the 1990s and dealt with the empowerment which “is not simply conferred on an individuals but something that can be shared with everyone” (Bromley pg. 49). This is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the fact or action of acquiring more control over one 's life or circumstances through increased civil rights, independence, self-esteem, etc” (Oxford English Dictionary) of women. The program speaks to the belief that women deserve to feel good about their appearance as they go through something as challenging as cancer. As a result, the program of ‘Look Good Feel Better’ is a practice of empowerment because the goal of the program is created due to the idea that “if a woman with cancer can be helped to look good, [the] chances are she’ll feel better, her spirits will be lifted and [she will] be [able] to face her illness with greater confidence” (Look Good Feel Better p.1). The idea of empowerment that Third Wave Feminism addresses is perpetuated through the ‘Look Good Feel Better’ …show more content…
The ‘Look Good Feel Better’ program points to how a woman deserves to feel empowered even when going through a very challenging disease like cancer. In Western society, outer appearance is strongly enforced and undergoing cancer treatment makes the already unattainable standards of beauty in place difficult to achieve. This sort of program is not available for men because there is not the same pressure on men to upkeep the societal standards of beauty. By analyzing this event, it has opened my eyes to many different elements that I would not have thought of if I had not done this
Beauty is a cruel mistress. Every day, Americans are bombarded by images of flawless women with perfect hair and smooth skin, tiny waists and generous busts. They are presented to us draped in designer clothing, looking sultry or perky or anywhere in between. And although the picture itself is alluring, the reality behind the visage is much more sinister. They are representations of beauty ideals, sirens that silently screech “this is what a woman is supposed to look like!” Through means of media distribution and physical alteration, technology has created unrealistic beauty ideals, resulting in distorted female body images.
We hear sayings everyday such as “Looks don’t matter; beauty is only skin-deep”, yet we live in a decade that contradicts this very notion. If looks don’t matter, then why are so many women harming themselves because they are not satisfied with how they look? If looks don’t matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide any flaws that one has? This is because with the media establishing unattainable standards for body perfection, American Women have taken drastic measures to live up to these impractical societal expectations. “The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability” (Wykes 2). As portrayed throughout all aspects of our media, whether it is through the television, Internet, or social media, we are exploited to a look that we wish we could have; a toned body, long legs, and nicely delineated six-pack abs. Our society promotes a body image that is “beautiful” and a far cry from the average woman’s size 12, not 2. The effects are overwhelming and we need to make more suitable changes as a way to help women not feel the need to live up to these unrealistic standards that have been self-imposed throughout our society.
Almost everyone either has lost someone due to cancer or knows someone who has battled cancer, but you can't appreciate how much suffering cancer patients go through. The Autobiography of a Face gives us the opportunity to relate to someone going through this that many people do not understand. Lucy Grealy does an exceptional job portraying the toll Chemotherapy puts on one's body. Pathos is used in order to make her audience feel the pain that she is going through to connect her to the audience. In this book you can understand Grealyś true feelings which makes you feel apart of her adventure and not want
The reading assigned titled “The Socially Constructed Body” by Judith Lorber and Yancey Martin dives into the sociology of gender with a specific focus on how the male and female body is compromised by social ideals in the Western culture. She introduces the phenomenon of body ideals pressed on men and women by introducing the shift in cosmetic surgery toward body modifications.
In the article “Beating Anorexia and Ganing Feminism,” Marni Grossman shares her experiance of how she overcame her struggle with anorexia through understanding the feminist movement. Marni objectafies the ways in which society’s expectations and ideas of what it means to have “beauty” is having and negitaive impact. I had a very similar experiance to Marni, in fact the first time I hated my apperance was in the seventh grade. I have olive skin and bold brows, features which i was often complamented on, yet hated. Shawn and Lee argue that “there is no fixed idea of beauty”, suggesting how social ideals from society differs depending on the culture (183). I remember A male student was bullying all the females in the class by Inscribing Gender
Women have been facing crisis of body image since the dawn of man, for competition in breeding purposes, however women came under great scrutiny because of this. Often through history, they have been at the same level of livestock, treated poorly. Creating a rise in the early 1900’s to create the movement about pushing for the equality of women in the United States; it was after then when media first started adopting an ideal image of women in American culture, when marketing research found the use of images of ideal women in their campaigns made for higher sales.
Mackler, Carolyn. Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image. Ed. Ophira Edut. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2004. Print.
My mother was taught, as her mother before and so on, that these conversations are to be kept private and talked about quietly. In response to this, the power of men has an increasingly strong hold on the ideal physical beauty and how the changes of the body, such as menstruation, are in private and never spoken of. The Body Project gives a disturbing look at how women in the past few centuries and the present should act, look like, and keep hidden in response to what men think is most desirable. No matter how free women think they are, we are still under the control of men, even if it is not directly. This book opens the conversation on the problems that are still plaguing women and how society needs to change to have a healthier environment for women to be comfortable in their skin.
Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth," discusses the impact of our male-dominated society upon women. Wolf argues that women's most significant problems associated with societal pressures are a "fairly recent invention," dating back to the 1970s (6). She explains that women have "breached the power structure" by acquiring rights equal to men in areas such as, education, professional careers, and voting. As a result, Wolf suggests that the "beauty myth" is the "last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women" (3). Considering that the beauty myth is women's last battle, the struggle is increasingly more difficult. Wolf claims that women are currently experiencing "a violent backlash against feminism," noting the recent rise in eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and objectification of women's bodies (3,2). While Wolf accurately defines the beauty myth, she incorrectly states that eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and pornography are recent issues, resulting from an intentional "backlash" against women's rights.
In this piece, Grealy describes the influence of her experiences of cancer, its treatments, and the resulting deformity of her face on her development as a person. She explores how physical appearance influences one's sexual identity and over all self worth. She also explores how one's own interpretation of one's appearance can be self fulfilling. Only after a year of not looking at herself in the mirror, ironically at a time when she appears more "normal" than ever before, does Grealy learn to embrace her inner self and to see herself as more than one’s looks or physical appearance.
The origins of Third Wave feminism are highly debated, as there is no clear commonality that this wave uses to differentiate between the First and Second waves that occurred prior. Emerging during the 1990’s, Third Wave feminism sought to build upon the achievements and ideas that were accomplished during First and Second wave’s, by increasing the significance and accessibility of its ideas to a greater spectrum of people.
Exact Beauty: Exploring Women's Body Projects and Problems in the 21st Century. Mandell, Nancy (5th ed.). Feminist Issues: Race, Class, and Sexuality (131-160). Toronto: Pearson Canada, Inc. Schulenberg, Jennifer, L. (2006).
As women, those of us who identify as feminists have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at what cost do these advances come with?... ... middle of paper ... ... Retrieved April 12, 2014, from http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/whatisfem.htm Bidgood, J. 2014, April 8 -.
Men and women were not seen as equal human beings; instead it has been obvious that men were more likely to be on the upper hand. In 1987, it has been recorded that 2/3 of the people who were presented in the media were male. However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence, especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable, perfect physical standards (Gill 2015).
Heiss, Sarah N. "Locating The Bodies Of Women And Disability In Definitions Of Beauty: An Analysis Of Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty." Disability Studies Quarterly 31.1 (2011): 8. Supplemental Index. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.