Our definition of beauty changes over time for the good and the bad. Society and the media takes our average body shapes and makes us strive for higher expectations, but those expectations often affect our mental well-being. Facing these challenges that comes with body image often forms our perception of life and how we fit in. Beauty, regardless of gender, is forced upon us as our generation is susceptible to these manipulative expectations. Beauty standards have changed drastically in our generation due to many ongoing factors such as media, celebrities and peer pressure. The essay that I’m basing my personal response on is “Chicken Hips” by Catherine Pigott. Pigott wrote this essay to show her own experiences while teaching in Africa then …show more content…
moving to Canada and seeing things through the North American perspective. According to Oxford dictionary, beauty is defined as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, which pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight”. Ideal beauty can be defined in many ways but most importantly some may consider it as what's on the inside that counts. Pigott summarizes in her essay that ideal beauty is thin, broad hips, round bodies, long-legged leanness and ample-bosomed women.
Ideal beauty today is considered to be slender, tall, curve less and ample-bosomed women. Now that our generation has this idea of ideal beauty drilled into our heads, it changes our true perception of beauty and life. “There, it is beautiful--not shameful-- to carry weight on the hips and thighs, to have a round stomach and heavy, swinging breasts. Women do not battle the bulge, they celebrate it. A body is not something to be tamed and moulded” (Pigott, 173). In Gambia, it was considered beautiful to show those characteristics but in our generation as soon as a female person starts gaining weight they panic because they think they will no longer fit into the ideal beauty category. Females need to learn that just because they aren't ideal on the outside doesn’t change who they are on the inside. In Pigotts essay she mentions that “being called thin was something that she longed for” (Pigott, 172). So growing up she was taught the same thing; thinner is better, because she was never called thin and it was something that she always wanted. As a result, these forms of ‘ideal beauty’ makes teenagers especially lack …show more content…
self-confidence. In my own experience I've had some not so nice things said to me because I was 'too thin’ or 'too tall’, I've had people tell me “you're so skinny, you need to put rocks in your pockets or else the wind will blow you away”.
When I was younger people said “she's so skinny, is she anorexic” and “she's flat as a pancake”. After a while these things started getting to me and I started to think that these things were actually true, but as I got older I realized that I didn't care what others have to say about my body because at the end of the day it's my body I'm happy with my body image. According to Pigott thickness was beautiful, in her essay she states “One needed to be round and wide to make the dance beautiful. There was no place for thinness here. It made people sad. It reminded them of things they wanted to forget, such as poverty, drought and starvation. You never knew when the rice was going to run out” (Pigott, 173). As we all know there are terrible stereotypes about Africa the main one being a country of poverty and starvation that's why when people in Gambia see others with a thin figure they get sad. According to the people in Gambia when they saw thinness it was portrayed as a negative aspect of the country and something that shouldn't be ‘normal’. But in this generation the tables have turned; now people think that there is no place for thickness here only a place for thinness because everyone wants that ‘ideal body’ even though it may start to affect
their mental and physical well being because they will always think “I'm not good enough, I need to lose more weight in order to look as beautiful as her, let me stick to black so I won’t look fat”. What I'm trying to say is that everybody's perception on beauty is different and there is no wrong perception of beauty. For instance, I may see someone on Instagram and think that he/she is beautiful/handsome and has the perfect body structure while my best friend could think that, that's not what they consider ideal beauty. The criticism of one's body affects their mental health, in Pigotts essay she mentions “I began hearing old voices inside my head: ‘Plaid makes you look fat. … You’re too short for that style. … Vertical stripes are more slimming. … Wear black”(Pigott, 174). This shows that when she went shopping it was like she had an imaginary person with her that kept putting her down every time she picked up something she liked, these voices kept getting to her head.
Every individual cares about how they appear to others; their shape and in this informal, narrative essay titled Chicken-Hips, Canadian journalist and producer Catherine Pigott tells her story on her trip to Gambia and her body appearance. In this compelling essay the thesis is implicit and the implied thesis is about how women are judged differently on their appearance in different parts of the world, as various cultures and individuals have a different perception on what ideal beauty is. In this essay Pigott writes about her trip to Africa specifically Gambia and how upon arriving there she was judged to be too slim for a woman. She goes to write about how differently she would be judged back home by mentioning “in my county we deny ourselves
Our society is entirely based on looks and how “the perfect women should be”. To be pretty you are expected to have the perfect body with the perfect face and hair. You could never cut your hair short because you would be considered a dyke. If you’re makeup isn’t perfect you are considered ugly and if you don’t have the “hourglass figure” you are considered fat and overweight. “Despite higher global self-esteem, women do not feel good about their appearance. This disconnect can be attributed, at least in part, to concerns about body image.” (@PsychToday, paragraph 4) Our society and social media is so caught up on how every woman should look that our own judgment has been clouded and we always believe we need to look and act that way. “The truth is that women’s insecurity about their appearance is driven by competition with other women.”(@PsychToday, paragraph 16) All we do nowadays is compare ourselves to others and that’s not how it should be. You are considered to be a “whore” such as Eve if you sleep around, so women are afraid to do it. You are considered to be “weak” if you stay at home and can’t support yourself, such as Lori. Our world is so caught up in people thinking that they need to be a certain way in order to impress themselves and others. Why do women shave their legs? Why do woman dye their hair? Why do woman get spray tans? Everything we do has to do with our appearance in order to impress
The ideal female beauty in American culture is predominately white (Bankhead & Johnson, 2014). Throughout U.S history, women’s mainstream beauty ideal has been historically based on white standards such as having blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, a thin ideal body, straight hair, and thin lips (West, 1995; Yamamiya, Cash, Melynk, Posavac, & Posavac, 2005; Leslie, 1995). Therefore, the features of African American women tend to be viewed as undesirable and unattractive compared to the European standards of beauty (Awad, Norwood, Taylor, Martinez, McClain, Jones, Holman, & Hilliard, 2014). According to Ashe (1995), “African beauty, body and hair have been racialized, with slim/”keen” European features being the accepted standard of beauty since enslaved Africans was forcefully brought to the Americas.” The physical characteristics of Black women such as having broad noses, brown skin, full lips, large buttocks and course hair has been looked down upon throughout United States history (Byrd & Tharps, 2001). In effect, the standard of beauty of European features that were forced on slaves are internalized and currently seen in the standard of beauty of African Americans (A.A) (Chapman, 2007). These standards include African Americans perceiving light-skinned as being more favorable than dark-skinned (Maddox & Gray, 2002; Perdue, Young, Balam,
Our society’s unhealthy obsession with being beautiful has led girls at very young ages into very unhealthy decisions. Plastic surgery is the number one thought in my head. I personally like to blame the media for making girls believe that it is not about being healthy and looking healthy but doing things that have developed into very serious and dramatic issues such as eating disorders. Why not encourage diverse body types instead of skinny ones? Thankfully, I feel as if I do have control and a sense of what is realistic beauty, however, as mentioned in my biography, my personal experiences related to beauty insecurities are linked to the more important and broader social forces of the world.
The way a woman was perceived as beautiful has changed so much even over the last 50 years as I have discussed previously. If we look at Marilyn Monroe and compare her to Tyra Banks, who has made it her passion in life to stretch the definition of beauty (Pozner, 2013) the difference is uncanny. Marilyn Monroe is the most acclaimed sex icon of the 1950’s and she was not astonishingly slender. Meanwhile Tyra banks up until a couple years ago had always been immeasurably skinny. Women nowadays are required to be excessively skinny, toned, tall, and have flawless skin if they want to fit into the “most beautiful” column. Although Tyra Banks presumably believes that she is an exceptional advocate for young girls in the media, she is also delivering a skewed image of self-love through her show, America’s Next Top Model (Pozner, 2013). Every woman on that show either fits the media’s standard of an ideal woman, or they are ridiculed/questioned. The media is making it impossible to achieve such high standards. Even for black women, there is the stereotype that they have to have huge behinds and appear to be super ghetto like Nicki Minaj; even she received cosmetic surgery to enhance her bust and rear, as well as slimming her waist. She did all these things to appease her viewers. It is impossible for women to achieve these different standards
While women have made significant advances over the past decades, the culture at large never fails to place a strong emphasis on the way women look. The new standards for beauty are ultimately causing dramatic influences on adolescent females and their body image. Anyone who is familiar with American culture knows that these new standards for beauty is proliferated through the media. No matter the source, we are constantly surrounded by all kinds of media, and we continue to construct ourselves based on the images we see through the media. The more young girls are surrounded by the “thin ideal” kind of media, the more they will continue to be dissatisfied with their bodies and themselves. Thi...
In the beginning Pigott felt unusual. But when time passes, she starts to observe their ideas to believing them herself. She feels open-minded. Pigott begins to see European tourists as “strange and skeletal….devoid of shape and substance.” She started to see the way of beauty and she completely transformed herself into a Gambian women.
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
I can’t help but point the finger towards today’s super-skinny models that set these atrocious trends of ‘size zero’. We’ve all seen it: their flawless, faultless bodies plastered all over magazines. Girls end up looking up to these ‘idols’ and their minds become engrossed with this so-called idea of perfection. What is a ‘perfect’ body in the minds of young girls, I hear you ask? Well, let’s say a bunch of emaciated-looking people would be an understatement. It’s even more saddening to hear that some girls aren’t even aware of the risks and realities...
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
Still to this day media sends girls and women the message that their value lies in their body and not in their mind. Within the first 15 minutes of the film numerous high school students tell their story about the pressure media puts on them to have the perfect body. It’s during adolescence that there is the greatest sex difference in self-esteem(d=+.33). There is so much pressure to conform to men’s ideals and to achieve that perfect body. This pressure contributes to 65% of women and girls having eating disorders.
No one is born with the instinctive sense of what constructs beauty and ideal body shape. Instead we are brought into a world that teaches us how to embody cultural standards of beauty by which we must adhere to. The average teenage girl spends a considerable amount of time watching television shows and advertisements plastered with thin body ideals. Therefore, television presents a considerable amount of information and images to suggest how we need to look, in order to succeed in life and be popular. They are very boisterous when it comes to forcing thin ideals on young women but seem quiet when it comes to the negative effects. This paper was written to explore the relationship between television viewing and young women’s perception of their bodies.
I would like to begin with the fact that women have always been known to dedicate their time to beauty. Those who are devoted to their appearance most often believe that beauty brings power, popularity, and success. Women believe this, because they grow up reading magazines that picture beautiful women in successful environments; not to mention they are popular models and world famous individuals. Beautiful women are no longer just a priority for most advertising, but we have become a walking target for the working class employers. It is documented that better-looking attorneys earn more than others after five years of practice, which was an effect that grew with experience (Biddle, 172). We cannot overlook the fact that it is always the most popular and most beautiful girl who becomes homecoming-queen or prom-queen. While these are possible positive effects of the "beauty myth," the negative results of female devotion to beauty undercut this value. These effects are that it costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time, and in the long run, it costs a lot of pain.
...mselves at the same time. Thus, beauty and morality have become equated. For many women, weight is a quick and concrete barometer by which to measure oneself and one’s worth – how well one is doing as a woman. (Rodin et al., 1985, p.290) In this sense, a “good” girl must remain skinny and be in control of her desires, and this pressure is even worse by prejudice against fatness (Thompson et al., 1999). Though mass media should be responsible for this, individuals should also take part of their responsibility as it is not solely the problem created by the mass media. According to Focault (1977) contemporary women can control their body rationally and wisely in spite of the influence of the mass media. Women have their own choice in controlling their bodies, they slim down can be for the sake of health, not merely blindly follow the trend instilled by the mass media.
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 being a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable perfect physical standards (Gill 2015). The media bombards the youth with gender representations and the types of bodies that are deemed to be attractive. Many teenagers all around the world are desperate to lose weight to be “beautiful”.