The Ugly Truth About Beauty By Dave Barry

Difference in Perception Between Men and Women
Do you ever wonder if men and women have any differences in the way they think about themselves? In the essay, “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” Dave Barry provides a few examples on how men and women think about themselves. Men and women have different perception of themselves. They look at themselves in the mirror and they have different reactions. Men tend to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “I look okay,” and will move on. Women tend to look at themselves in the mirror and would always say something like “I look horrible.” Women tend to find little flaws and be irritated about the imperfections. Men and women have different perception about their looks; some men don’t even care about their looks, while most women always think they look awful. Is the difference because women want to look like someone they admire, or the pressure

of society.
Women always want to look like someone they admire. Dave Barry wrote an article called the “Ugly Truth about Beauty” in which he writes that girls at young age want to be like their dolls that they played with.

He writes, “There are many complex psychological and societal reasons, by which I mean "Barbie. Girls grow up playing with a doll proportioned such that, if it were human, it would be seven feet tall and weigh 81 pounds, of which 53 pounds would be bosoms.” Dolls such as a Barbie made for little girls tend to be skinny and beautiful. Therefore, girls at the young age think that they need to look like dolls they played with. As they grow, they have the Barbie dolls in mind and tend to do everything they can to look like Barbie. The article “Why Do Women Think They are Fat When They Are Not, ”also provides couple of examples in which women want to look like someone they admire the article says, “People talk about how beautiful Angelina Jolie is, but when women look at her, the first thing they notice is thin. Therefore, the association of thin and beautiful is made.” Women think they should look like tall, thin models they see on popular TV shows, magazines, movies. Most women have low self-esteem

due to the pressure of the society. While boys do not have dolls, they play with action figures, but the action figures have no effect on boy’s self-esteem. Dave Barry says, “Most of the action figures that my son played with when he was little were hideous looking.” Which means that boy play with their figures and forget about them as the age. Furthermore, he says, “You’re not going to get a group of middle- aged men to sit in a room and apply cosmetics to themselves under the instruction of Brad Pitt, in hopes of looking more like him. Men would realize that this task was pointless and demeaning. They would find some way to bolster their self-esteem that did not require looking like Brad Pitt.” Men will not try to look like some popular men. They are okay with being like an average man. The differences in the perception between men and women could also depend on the pressure from today’s society.