Woman's Beauty Put Down Or Power Source By Susan Sontag

A beautiful woman has perfect, shiny hair. Her face is inviting and symmetrical. She has sparkling eyes and a dazzling smile. She is in shape and has a great body. This is beauty. Beauty has no concern for what is inside; a woman’s beauty is her body and how she preens and presents herself. Beauty is the first thing that is noticed about a woman and is given a great deal of weight when an opinion of her is formulated. The weight beauty possesses has a lasting effect on how a woman is viewed in society and how she perceives herself.
As Susan Sontag argues in her essay, “Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source,” the words “woman” and “beauty” have become so deeply intertwined in our society that ultimately, woman is beauty. Despite the close relation of the two words in modern times, women were not always so closely associated with the idea of beauty. Across societies, beauty and its strongest associations have changed and evolved into what we know today. Ancient Greece, a society known for its beautiful architecture and

god/goddesses associated beauty with the whole being—if you were beautiful on the outside then you must be the same internally—and to them the most beautiful members of their society were thought to be adolescent boys, not women. Before the rise of the Protestant branches of Christianity, both men and women were referred to as “beautiful” and in many predominantly Catholic countries such as France and Italy this remains true. Yet, in America beauty has evolved to be most strongly connected to—and expected of—women, particularly in regards to their appearance. In ancient times people found it hard to believe someone could be “so intelligent, so brave, so honorable, so seductive—and so ugly”, but in the modern era “we are actually surprised when someone who is beautiful is also intelligent, talented, good” (Sontag 245).
Sontag’s concern is with how this deeply ingrained societal association of women and beauty has affected women. She explains that there is nothing wrong with beauty, until it is forced upon women; she reminds the reader “ it is not the desire to be beautiful that is wrong but the obligation to be” (246). Despite this, women are still expected to be beautiful. In fact, beauty has become “essential to a woman’s character and concerns” (Sontag 246). From the time they are young, girls are taught that they are to be beautiful; little girls are complimented on being “pretty” far more often than they are on their skills leading them to believe looks are superior. They are taught that to be beautiful is a good thing and is what they should aspire to, they are “taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately” and each part must be perfect and if it is not, it must be changed (Sontag 246). But, how is a woman expected to live up to these standards when the images of beauty she is presented with are photo-shopped and perfected further than is realistically possible?
Even the most celebrated beauties do not live up to the ideal standard. A sample of a thousand American adults were asked to “describe the perfect woman” and the result was a compilation of today’s most famous beauties, scrapped for parts to create a combination of all of their best parts. The ideal woman has Scarlett Johansson’s long, shining, flowing blond hair falling in perfect tendrils to frame her face. Large blue eyes stare out from under perfectly shaped dark eyebrows as she pouts her voluptuous lips, lips that belong to actress Megan Fox. Not only does the ideal woman possess the key facial features to be considered “perfect”, she has the body to match. Kim Kardashian’s surgically sculpted breasts sit atop supermodel Michelle Keegan’s professionally toned stomach. To finish off this image of perfection, supermodel Kelly Brook’s size four hips lead the way to Transformers star Rosie Huntington-Whitley’s perfectly toned legs. One looks at this image and sees not perfection but a woman broken down into her most desirable pieces with the rest tossed aside, considered not good enough. Even the most celebrated beauties are not sufficient to fit the mold of perfection society has created (The Perfect Woman).
Despite the impossibility of achieving the beauty ideal, being a woman, or being feminine, continues to be synonymous with beauty and “being concerned with how one looks” while being masculine is far less concerned with looks, if all, and focuses on “caring about what one is and does.” (Sontag 246).

By this definition, women’s worth is inherently below men’s in society and especially in the workplace, where women’s main source of power and her biggest weakness is beauty. Being a man guarantees an individual the right to care about his career without giving great concern to his appearance as he does so; however, being a woman requires an individual to “[work] at being attractive” in order to be taken seriously or gain power. Yet paradoxically, by embracing her beauty, a woman loses “her very capacity to be objective, professional, authoritative, thoughtful” (Sontag 246). Beauty has become a “crude trap” that women have no choice but to fall

into.
This “crude trap” is especially dangerous in the workplace. Behind experience and confidence, attractiveness is ranked third in a list of top ten traits employers look for in potential employees. Attractiveness not only makes a woman more likely to land a job, but attractive employees make nine percent more per hour on average than their equals who are considered “plain” or “ugly” (Huang 33). However, attractiveness in the workplace comes at a cost. Women can legally be fired for being beautiful. In 2012, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled it legal to fire staff members that are viewed as an “irresistible attraction” whether or not they engaged in any sexual or flirtatious activity, when an Iowa dentist fired his married receptionist because she was “too pretty” and he and his wife viewed her as “a threat to their marriage” (Huang 32). Women in the workplace are in danger of this sort of treatment if they appear too attractive, yet being considered “plain” is also a threat to women’s success. “Plain” women make nine-percent less on average than their attractive counterparts and are less likely to be hired.
In her essay “Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source” Susan Sontag focuses on the negative aspects of the beauty ideal. She discusses the difficulties women face in relation to the opportunities men have. Sontag sees men as universally privileged and women as oppressed. Sontag refuses to acknowledge the “crude trap” that men have to endure. While femininity and beauty define the ideal women, masculinity and manliness do the same to men. While women are taught to focus on their looks and strive to be beautiful, men are constantly reminded to “be a man” (Theroux 772). But what does it mean to “be a man?” To Paul Theroux it means to “be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking” (772). To be a man is as limiting as the expectation to be beautiful is. Theroux describes it quite accurately when he asserts that manliness is akin to “having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one’s entire life” and femininity is similar to “an oppressive sense of nakedness” (772) Men are taught to put on airs, to build themselves up to meet the “masculine ideal” while women learn to be “sexually indispensable, socially decorative, and always alert to men’s sense of inadequacy” she is not to do things in vain, but always to the benefit of others, particularly men (Theroux 772). The beauty ideal for women is far more visible in our society, but the masculine ideal rivals it in its detrimental affect on those it seeks to define.
What Sontag does not bring to light about man’s struggle is that it adds to the oppression of women that she emphasizes. Sontag neglects the oppressiveness of the masculine ideal. However, understanding the effects of the masculine ideal is essential to understanding the full oppression of women. The masculine ideal may prove even more harmful overall as it not only advances the oppression of men, but also adds to the oppression of women. Indeed, “it is very hard to imagine any concept of manliness that does not belittle women” (Theroux 772). To be a man is a “privilege” as well as a burden; however, many men attempting to live up to or rebelling against the masculine ideal believe they have it just as bad as women. Because men are preoccupied with their own problems—that society tends to ignore—they become less likely to be sympathetic to women’s issues, including Sontag’s desire to change the beauty standard and “[save] beauty from women—and for them” (246). Because why should they concern themselves with the problems of others when their own problems are being so grossly ignored?
Little popular attention is paid to the masculine ideal. However, the masculine ideal serves to oppress women in its oppression of men, making it important to those who claim to be concerned about women’s oppression. Gender expectations—the masculine and feminine ideals—do not only tell one gender what they must be, but by doing so tell the opposite gender they cannot be that way. A man must be manly, but a woman cannot. She is not allowed to act in ways considered masculine—to be strong or assertive—and still maintain the femininity she is expected to have. While femininity, beauty, and the feminine ideal clearly function to oppress women, it manages to also oppress men. While women cannot act “manly” and still be seen as proper women, men cannot have feminine ways and still “be a man.” For a man to be sensitive, emotional, or nurturing is seen as weak and feminine, something “manly” men should never be. In fact, the most hurtful insult to a “real” man’s ego is to refer to him as feminine “You're such a girl" or "You fight like a girl" or "You throw like a girl.” To be a girl is the worst thing a man can do.
In her essay “Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source” Susan Sontag explores why the pressure to be beautiful is harmful to women. She is right. The feminine ideal is harmful to women and men; as is the masculine ideal. Associating half of the population with certain attributes and the other half with opposite ones and allowing no cross over without consequences cannot be healthy for society. The concept of expecting a person to reflect the perfected image of their gender and punishing them if they do not, or if they do too well, is harmful to women and to men and to society as whole.