A Feminine Double-Bind By Anoushka Benbow-Buitenhuis: Critical Analysis

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In "A Feminine Double-Bind? Towards understanding the commercialisation of beauty through examining anti-aging culture", Anoushka Benbow-Buitenhuis examines the conflicting messages women face when confronted with conforming to cultural standards of beauty, or being labeled as deviant for disregarding social norms. In the view of gender conflict perspective, Benbow-Buitenhuis assesses the role of mass media and the effects on women 's rationality, and irrationality, of consumerism in the beauty market, concurrently with Herbert Marcuse 's theories of magical ritual language, and false needs. Additionally, the author supports her research via numerous authoritative references, empirical findings, theoretical contexts and quantitative findings. This research provides further evidence on the effect of advertisements, corporations, and society manufacturing false needs, thus creating a false consciousness within …show more content…

The advancement of technology, and thus advertising, have taught and coerced women over time into thinking that upward class mobility can be reached through consumption and consumerism. Today, women of all ages are encouraged to participate in the standardized beauty culture produced and proliferated by multinational corporations. Correlations between Benbow-Buitenhuis ' female double bind and theoretical contexts of Marcuse 's false needs theory (2014, p. 47) and false consciousness theory (2014, p. 44) prove that beauty culture is "rationalized as social requirements for public participation" and are "socially reproduced to the extent that the individual may believe that the needs are their own" (2014, p. 44). Thus, women are willing to give up rational thought processes in their desire to obtain status and upward class mobility through purchasing and consuming anti-aging

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