What is Beauty: Unrealistic and Unobtainable

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What is Beauty: Unrealistic and Unobtainable

For centuries mankind has unsuccessfully attempted to define beauty. Greek philosophers, including Plato, tried to define beauty as if it were as simple as any other law in nature. However this cannot be so because the idea of what is beautiful has varied throughout cultures and the ages. In the 1800s women who were pale and rather plump were considered objects of desire; but in today’s society, desirable women are slender and tan, among other things. The fact is that today, beauty is as unobtainable as it is indefinable. All of today’s supermodels, as seen in millions of advertisements, have been modified, airbrushed, and photoshopped. Women desiring this beauty have turned to various sources of false remedies, spending thousands of dollars, in hope that they too can be beautiful. The media has twisted and warped our ideal definition of beauty into something that does not exist naturally and is simply inaccessible.

Our brain naturally is drawn to certain things that are clean, smooth, symmetrical, things it sees as beautiful. This is one way many have tried to define beauty. Mary Carole McCauley, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, in her article "Beauty and the Brain" (2010) asserts that the human brain is "hard wired" to view certain objects as beautiful based on shape, color, and arrangement. McCauley talks to the John Hopkins University and The Walters Art Museum to discuss their research on the brain's responses to beauty. These organizations are setting up an experiment in order to see how the brain defines things as beautiful. "Gallery guests pick up a clipboard and put on a pair of 3-D glasses. They examine a series of 25 small drawings based on abstract sculptures by renow...

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... she was enhanced, modified, airbrushed, and computerized, creating a false, unobtainable beauty. The "media truly distorts the truth and instills in women this false hope because, in essence, they will live their lives never truly attaining this ideal physical appearance." Though many women are aware that such beauty is unreal, they will still strive to obtain it because it is the object that their peers judge them with. They feel unaccepted until they can feel beautiful.

Because mankind’s perception of beauty is so unobtainable, many women have resorted to cosmetic surgery in order to feel beautiful. Other women, who cannot afford surgery, resort to eating disorders. All of which are extremely unhealthy. Society has twisted our views on what should and shouldn’t be acceptable, beauty no being the only issue. However, beauty is the issue felt most by people today.

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