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Societys Influence on the Perception of Beauty

Nicole James

Introduction

We live in a world where we are constantly under scrutiny about our appearance. Women and

girls are persistently striving to become beautiful and will use a variety of different mediums to

achieve this. Beauty can be defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or

form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). Beauty

can be interpreted in many different ways across time and culture but this subjective concept

has been adjusted so women feel like beauty is objective. For example, the media has influence

on society's perception of beauty through magazines, tabloid newspapers and television;

resulting in women feeling insecure about their appearance:

Every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button

nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish

legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy,

the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this

look is Kim Kardashian everyone else is struggling (Fey, 2011: 23).

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Charles Wright Mills concept of the sociological imagination can be related to many topics in

sociology. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the

relations between the two within society (Mills, 1959: 3). Mills suggested that there is a

connection between macro-sociology and micro-sociology, society helps us to shape our

individual lives whilst individuals contribute to society (Macionis and Plummer, 2012). In relation

to beauty, a woman reading a magazine and then comparing herself to the beauty ideals would

be considered as a private trouble as it is personal problem. However, this private trouble can

expand into a public issue when many women in society start to feel this way. Beauty plays a

significant role in womens lives but through the use of ideals, womens perceptions can be

easily altered resulting in high levels of insecurities.

Beauty can be divided into two parts when explaining it. Inner beauty refers to how the person

is on the inside, for example, their personality and

external beauty relates to the physical features a person

has. I have chosen the topic of beauty, solely focusing

on external beauty, as I believe that even though it is a

subjective concept, women and girls in society still feel

the need to conform to certain ideals. When I look at

girls in society today, it seems like the need to be

beautiful is their top priority. I have a sixteen-year-old

sister who discovered make-up about three years ago

and now incorporates foundation, bronzer, blusher,

mascara, eyeliner, lip liner and lipstick all into her daily

routine. It is clear that, for most females to feel

beautiful, they have to put on make up but this is not the

case for all females, such as myself. When I was my sisters age, the idea of beauty and make-up

were not of importance to me, even today, the most I will wear is mascara and that is only on

a good day.

In this journal, I hope to explore the motivations behind women and beauty and furthermore,

discuss the main aspects of society which I feel influences and distorts womens perception of

beauty by using my own personal account and theorists such as Erving Goffman and Charles

Cooley.

(Everyone Is Trying To Change Your View, n.d.)

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The Influence of Media

Blood (2005) would argue that the cause of body dissatisfaction is located in the minds of

women. However, society can influence a woman's body image through media representations.

In the last decade, the development of technology has significantly increased. Smartphones,

tablets and other portable devices enhance the media as they enable constant mass

communication amongst members of society. The incorporation of applications onto

smartphones and tablets has made the access to media effortless but this has consequently

strengthened societys dependence on technology. Women can read fashion magazines and

tabloid newspapers on the go and these almost always contain images and articles that influence

the way women perceive beauty.

I am an owner of a smartphone, MacBook and Kindle Fire and I can undoubtedly say that I am

very reliant on them. I definitely would not be able to function properly without them as these

technologies play an important role in my daily routine. These devices also have applications

installed that allow me to keep in touch with the world around me. For example, I can use

social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter to contact friends and family and talk to

them on a daily basis.

Additionally, Instagram and Tumblr are two other types of social media that are widely used

today and both are concerned with posting

pictures. People will post pictures of anything

from the outfits that they are wearing to

photographs of their meals. With

approximately 90 million blogs and 89 million

new posts every day (Savitz, 2013), Tumblr

users are exposed to a vast amount of pictures.

Users can reblog the pictures and posts they

like and agree with onto their own blogs.

Instagram is a very similar concept but is only available for iPhone and Android users. Both

Instagram and Tumblr have a popularity feature, for example, if you are user who has lots of

followers, you would be considered Tumblr famous. On Instagram, there is a popular page

for people who get a large amount of likes very quickly. The idea of popularity can be

(Warning: Reflections, n.d.)

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interpreted negatively, especially for people who post personal pictures. When people compare

the pictures they post of themselves with others who have more likes, insecurities occur.

Similar to Wright Mills, Charles Cooley believed that the individual and society could only be

explained together, as individuals contribute to society and society influences the individual

simultaneously (Scott and Marshall, 2009). Cooley defined the looking glass self as the image

people have of themselves based on how they believe others to perceive them (cited in

Macionis and Plummer, 2012: 214). The reflection women see in the mirror is based on the

societal standards of beauty set by the media. If a woman feels like she cannot compare herself

to the ideals shown in magazines and advertisements, she will identify herself as undesirable and

believe she is not beautiful and therefore develop insecurities.

The media creates ideals, in the form of celebrities and models, for women to admire. These

ideals are on the front covers of magazines and advertisements. However, the creation of ideals

can have a negative impact on women as their perception of beauty is altered to complement

the media. The mass media has been influential and pervasive mirrors for societal standards.

(Bull and Rumsey, 1988: 227). This can result in women feeling insecure about their own

appearance and then conforming to the media's perception of beauty by buying beauty products

such as make-up, creams, and hair dyes.

In contrast to this, there have been recent attempts to disregard the underlying concept that

you must be skinny in order to be considered beautiful.

Robyn Lawley was named Ralph Laurens first plus-size

model and featured on the cover of magazines such as

Vogue Italia and French Elle (Fleming, 2012). It is clear that

promoting a UK size 16 model on magazine covers will have

a positive impact on society because it shows that women

with curves are beautiful. Size should not be a factor that

decides whether a woman is beautiful or not as a woman

who is UK size 16 could be healthier than a woman who is

a UK size 6.

Despite this endeavour for social change, women are still continuing to conform to the

unattainably high beauty standards set by the media and will even risk their health. For example,

(No Girls On The Runway If They Havent Eaten Before, n.d.)

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models in the fashion industry will jeopardise their health in order to maintain a slim figure.

There has been speculation that modelling agencies prompt their clients to smoke packs of

cigarettes, take laxatives and diet pills and even digest cotton balls. Models have also been

encouraged to take amphetamines and cocaine to speed up their metabolism (Sowray, 2012).

Evidently, as well as the fact that these means of remaining slim are extremely dangerous for

these models health, it misleads women and girls who want to adjust their appearance in

accordance to the regulations of society. These unhealthy, slim figures cannot be acquired

easily, which is not advertised in the media, resulting in the increased sales in the beauty and

cosmetic surgery industries.

Consumerism

Naomi Wolf argued that beauty is a currency system (1991: 12) and it assigns hierarchal value

to women. The beauty industry thrives off of this through consumerism. Consumerism is a

negative outcome of the capitalist society; the pursuit of profit has led industries to convince

women that if they do not look like the ideals advertised in the media, then their appearance is

flawed. Therefore, it could be argued that the media assists the beauty industry as

advertisements promote a wide range of beauty products and treatments. The beauty industry

makes the majority of its money by selling a fantasy an ideal look of what all women should

look like which results in women feeling insecure. As a result, these insecurities make women

want to buy cosmetic products or treatments such as make-up, creams and even the extreme

plastic surgery, in the hope that they will fixed these perceived flaws.

Men commonly joke about the amount of time it takes for women to get ready before going on

a night out and this is often the case. There is a vast array of processes women go through

before leaving their home, especially on a night out. In addition to choosing an outfit to wear,

styling hair and applying make-up can be very time-consuming, women go through a numerous

amount of stages before going out such as straightening or curling their hair, fake tan, false

eyelashes and mascara, foundation, blusher, nails and lipstick.

The Dove Evolution video shows the process a model goes through before and during a

photo-shoot and then how the pictures are edited afterwards. The video starts off with a

woman sitting down while several different people such as make up artists and hairdressers

transform her appearance. After the photographs are taken, editing software is used to change

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the size of her lips, increase the length of her neck, intensify her eyes and make her look

thinner. Once the picture looks perfect, it is then put on a billboard for advertisement (Piper,

2006).

The models picture had been modified so much that the end result did not even look like her

anymore. Despite this, women will notice these adverts and then want to aspire to look the

same by buying the product advertised. The amount of make-up women in todays society hide

behind has a very negative impact on both men and women. It is clear that applying many

different types of beauty products allows women to become more like the ideals in the media.

However, it can create an unnatural look as well as completely altering their own appearance in

the process because in reality, even the ideals do not always look like their pictures. Once

more and more women define this as beauty, conformity increases and normalisation occurs.

Furthermore, men will believe that this is the way women look and therefore have increased

expectations of beauty, thus changing the norms of society.

Womens make-up plays an important role in the beauty industry. Through advertisements on

television and in fashion magazines, the media has embedded ideal Western appearances on

women. There are a variety of products that are widely available in the cosmetic market that

allow women to achieve these specific looks such as, foundation, hair dye and mascara.

The obsession with appearance takes a drastic turn when conformity increases so much that

women want to change their physical appearance to fix these perceived flaws. The surgeon's

market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social

change won't cure (Wolf, 1991: 232). Breast augmentations, chemical peels, rhinoplasty and

liposuction are just a few examples of surgeries women get to change their features.

(Piper, 2006)

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The promotion of cosmetic surgery in womens magazines resulted in the increased popularity

of different surgeries such as breast augmentation, which is currently the most favoured. The

silicone breast implant scandal in 2011 exposed the dangers of certain surgeries. Naomi Wolf

discusses her research into her book, The Beauty Myth, where she found that up to 70% of

implants would eventually harden and rupture, leaking the dangerous silicone into the body

(Wolf, 2012). If cosmetic surgeries are promoted in the media, more often than not, a woman

is likely to want to get the surgery without doing intensive prior research.

Impressionable Children

The perception of beauty is forced upon people in society from an early age. Firstly in

childrens literature, Adams (1985) argued that children

have become accustomed to hearing fairy tales, whether

they are in books read before bedtime or in films. These

stories continuously associate ugliness with bad and

beauty with good (cited in Bull and Rumsey, 1988). This

can be applied to the well-known story of Cinderella

(1950), a beautiful girl living with her stepmother and two

ugly stepsisters. The stepmother and stepsisters mistreat Cinderella and make her do all the

chores so they are instantly portrayed as bad people and their appearance is associated with

this. Then towards the end, Cinderella finds her prince at the ball and lives happily ever after,

implying that good things happen to beautiful people.

In addition to this, another popular fairy tale is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which is

about a young girl who is poisoned by her jealous

stepmother, the evil queen. Weitz (1998) argued

that when the evil queen says Mirror mirror on

the wall, who is the fairest of them all? she is not

asking a simple question; it has a much deeper

meaning. The evil queen is battling with her loss of

beauty and the thought of someone else being

more beautiful than her. It shows that beauty is not

just a physical entity but also a symbol for power and position. Not only is the evil queen

getting older and losing the features that made her look young and attractive, she feels that on

(Evil Stepsisters, Cinderella, n.d.)

(Evil Queen Gives Snow White Poisonous Apple, n.d.)

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top of this, she is losing her power as queen to her stepdaughter. Therefore, this sense of

jealousy causes the queen to poison Snow White so she can continue to be the ruler of the

land. This childrens fairy tale conveys the impression that you should do whatever it takes to

be beautiful even if it means hurting someone else.

However, the famous novelist, Roald Dahl had contrasting ideas of beauty. In his book The Twits

(2007), he put a lot of emphasis on inner beauty,

as opposed to external beauty. This book is very

positive for children as it suggests that people

who have good thoughts are beautiful. External

features such as the length of hair, the size of

eyes and the shape of nose are not important

when considering who is beautiful. In my opinion,

this is a very key issue for children to be

educated about rather than external beauty and consumer products such as make up.

Secondly, the societal standards of beauty are enforced on children through toys. The Barbie

doll has dominated the consumer market for toys for over fifty

years: Barbie is so pervasive in contemporary popular culture that

she hardly requires description (Toffoletti, 2007: 57). As one of the

best-selling fashion dolls, the Barbie doll can be very influential on

impressionable children. According to Dittmar, Halliwell and Ive

(2006), girls exposed to images of Barbie dolls reported lower body

esteem and a greater desire for a thinner body shape in comparison

to girls exposed to Emme dolls, a US size 16, and no dolls.

The Barbie doll covertly enforces the expectations of society in relation to beauty onto

children. The Barbie doll has a large variety of clothes, shoes and other commercial goods along

with an endless list of different careers. One example of how the Barbie doll negatively affects

children is the creation of the Slumber Party Barbie in 1965. Her accessories were a set of

bathroom scales permanently set on to 110lbs and a book titled How to Lose Weight, which

only contained one instruction Dont eat (De Lacey, 2012).

(Roald Dahl, The Twits, n.d.)

(Barbie, n.d.)

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The weight set on the scales 110lbs (approximately 7 stone) could

be considered as severely underweight for a lot of women. As an

eighteen year old who is fairly petite, a UK dress size 8 and

weighs around 9 stone, I think the weight set on the bathroom

scales is highly unattainable. Furthermore, the book that contains

the phrase dont eat is very unrealistic, as it is widely known that

forcing yourself to miss meals can be very dangerous, as the body

needs fuel to function. The Barbie doll is targeted at children and

if they are able to identify with their dolls, they are more likely to

be influenced by them or even consider them as role models. Most of the children who have

these dolls do not already know that her figure is unachievable and would therefore; want to

conform in order to have a similar appearance to Barbies. The only way they could try and

attempt this is by using the means Barbie uses: not eating.

As a doll, Barbies figure looks like something we all wish to aspire to, however, it is very

disproportionate. Barbie is six feet tall with a 39 bust, 18 waist and 33 hips (Slayen, 2011).

It is said that if the doll were a real woman, she would have to walk on all fours due to this

disproportionality. Furthermore, she would fit the weight criteria for anorexia and would not

be able to menstruate. Children are impressionable so by playing with this doll, they

unconsciously become aware of what is expected of them, in regards to beauty, from society.

In my opinion, just as the pretend baby dolls that little girls play with condition them for their

future role as a mother, the Barbie doll conditions young girls for what is expected of their

future appearance. It is sending the message that beauty is the main priority and girls should use

any means to achieve it, even if it leads to being unhealthy.

Our Westernised Society

Being of black ethnicity, I feel that the media and beauty industry do not do enough to

accommodate women and girls of darker complexions. When I look at the front covers of

many popular fashion magazines, there is rarely a model or celebrity on it that I can identify

with. Or when I look inside the magazine and turn to the beauty pages, the majority of the

beauty tips given are for people with lighter complexions and long straight hair so I skip the

pages and this leaves me feeling unsatisfied.

(Slayen, 2011)

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Moreover, adverts for beauty products run throughout

these magazines. The advert for Perfectil (2011) caught

my attention with its caption the science of beauty.

Perfectil is a multivitamin that can be purchased at most

health stores such as Boots and Superdrug and it is

supposed to advance healthy skin, hair and nails. The

advert shows a picture of a woman with flawless skin

and her hair tied back modelling a natural look but if

you look at the picture in more detail, you can see that

she is wearing foundation, mascara, lip-gloss and has

manicured nails. This advert shows what the standard

of beauty should be like and even the name, Perfectil,

implies that this look is perfect. If you do not look similar to this, you can take these vitamins to

correct your flaws.

It could be argued that neo-colonialism occurs in our society today, in the media and the

beauty industry. Neo-colonialism refers to a new form of global power relationship that

involves not direct political control but economic exploitation by multinational corporations

(Macionis and Plummer, 2012: 293-294). Society is exposed to Westernised ideals of beauty,

which include long hair, straight, and small noses and a slim figure. Women who dont fit into

this category, usually women of darker complexions, are left feeling underrepresented and

therefore, believe that the only other choice they have is to conform.

Most shops that sell beauty-products mainly accommodate for the Western society. For

example, there is not a large variety of make-up, specifically foundation, for women with darker

complexions. This results in women buying their products from specialised Afro-Caribbean

stores, which sell the specific products. Additionally, women might just decide to wear a lighter

shade of foundation or use bleaching cream to lighten their skin colour and thus fit in with

societys standard of beauty. Also, a lot of the hairstyles portrayed in fashion magazines cannot

be achieved if you have afro-textured hair. Straighteners, hair relaxing creams and hair

extensions are all used so women can achieve more westernised hairstyles.

Furthermore, conformity can be observed in celebrities as well, in the form of what some

people would call whitewashing, which is excluding anyone who is non-white (Beauty

(Perfectil, 2011)

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Redefined, 2011). Whether it was due to lighting in the photo-

shoot or digital editing afterwards, there is a noticeable

difference between Beyoncs skin tones in her Dangerously in

Love album from 2003 and her album 4 from 2011. Beyonc is a

beautiful and very talented woman. As a role model for many

females, her opinions are widely valued. Her album cover shows

her with blonde hair and a paler skin tone, which is very

worrying as it makes me question whether this iconic black

music artist feels insecure about her appearance or more

specifically, her complexion and believes that the only other

choice is to conform to the set societal standards of beauty.

The Westernised standard of beauty has already been

embedded into black women, especially young girls, through the

media. For that reason, to see a very famous celebrity adhering

to these set standards confirms that this is the best way to deal with the problem of inferiority

rather than striving for social change. The dominance of westernised ideals shown in the media

and the beauty industry can be recognised as neo-colonial enterprise. The oppressive ideals

make women with darker complexions feel insecure and alienated so as a result, they feel the

need to conform to the societal standards of beauty in order to feel beautiful and accepted.

The Self

Erving Goffman, a micro-sociologist conceptualised the idea of the dramaturgical self. He

considered the theatre as a metaphor for social life (Scott and Marshall, 2009). The individuals

are actors and they create performances through social interaction. An individuals

performance includes costume, which is what I will be focusing on, as in todays society, beauty

could be considered as a costume. Women go through a variety of procedures to perfect the

way they look in the eyes of others and Goffman described this presentation of self.

Typically, the first word that comes to my mind when I think about costumes, in a

dramaturgical perspective, is clothes but I feel that costume can also be associated with beauty.

The majority of women in society today will wear make-up on a regular basis, apply an

extensive amount of beauty products or even undergo plastic surgery in order to create certain

impressions in the minds of others (Macionis and Plummer, 2012). The procedure a woman

(Beyonc, Dangerously In Love, n.d.)

(Beyonc, 4, n.d.)

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goes through to change her appearance could be regarded as putting on a mask as these beauty

products can easily hide her true identity.

The media stigmatise excess hair even though it is innate. Society says women should not have

hairy legs or arms so the beauty industry has created a number of different ways to get rid of

the problem such as waxing, shaving and hair removal creams. I follow a few beauty regimes

such as eyebrow threading. Although it is always a particularly painful experience, I still get my

eyebrows threaded monthly.

Personally, I prefer not to wear a lot of make up because I feel that women and girls have

become too dependent on it. I have friends that will not even go to the local corner shop

without wearing a full face of make up. I feel that the standards of beauty have increased so

much that women no longer feel comfortable in their own skin.

Furthermore, I believe that the normalisation of cosmetic surgery is indicative of a post-modern

society where the technology of appearance is at the forefront. Prest and Thompson (2000)

argue that, the body is now remouldable, bionic and even theoretically clonable (cited in

Nasser et al, 2007). Through cosmetic surgery, perfection is made possible and natural beauty

is becoming extinct. This can make it very difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

In her book, One Whole Woman, Germaine Greer, a very influential modern feminist argued

that "women are illusionists (1999: 27). Even if women do not go as far as cosmetic surgery,

many still are extremely reliant on make up. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell what a woman

really looks because in a dramaturgical perspective, she is wearing a mask.

Cultural and Time Differences

The westernised standard of beauty is not enforced everywhere in the world. There are some

cultures that would regard long hair and slim figures as unusual. In Ghana, it is very rare to see

a woman with a slim figure. When the models arrived to the fashion and design week, one

woman compared them to aliens. Women in Ghana have no desire to be skinny as a lack of

weight is associated with AIDS and poverty and body fat is associated with wealth (Hirsch,

2012).

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The Wodaabe tribe in Niger, Africa has an

extraordinarily different perspective on beauty. In

this tribe, it is the men who have to wear the

make-up, the special outfits and have to compete

in beauty pageants known as Gerewol to impress

potential lovers. The Wodaabe women have to

judge the beauty pageants and then can choose

the man they are most impressed by to be a

husband or lover. The men use many different techniques and resources to attract the

attention of the women such as black, yellow and white patterns to enhance facial symmetry,

long braids to symbolise wealth and fertility and black lipstick because it will make their teeth

look whiter (Lane, 2011).

Furthermore, the opinions about use of cosmetics have changed over time. For example, it is

common for women in society today wear make-up and women who do not wear make-up are

identified as deviant. However, in the 19th century, the application of make-up was associated

with prostitution. Single women who wore make-up would find looking for their future

husband very difficult, as no respectable man would marry a woman like that (Hansen et al,

1993).

Also, in the Victorian era, a pale complexion was a symbol of fortune because it meant that the

woman was able to afford not to spend hours working outdoors. Some women used a white

mineral powder on their faces to achieve this look or use parasols to protect themselves from

the sun (Beautywithbrains, 2010). The standards set in society today contrast with this, as a lot

of women prefer tanned complexions as this is relates to wealth. If you are tanned, it means

you can afford to go on holiday to a hot country. Women simulate this tanned complexion buy

using fake-tanning creams and using sunbeds even though there are obvious health risks.

These examples of differences in beauty standards across the world and time show that the

definition of beauty is interchangeable. What one culture might define as beautiful and desirable,

another would define as undesirable. In addition to this, Social change occurs as society

develops over time and the opinions of those in society develop as well.

(Allen, 2009)

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Conclusion

In my opinion, society will always have high standards for beauty and, from the perspectives of

both Goffman and Cooley, the opinions of others will always be relevant when perceiving our

own self but if women exhaustively compare themselves to other women such as the ideals in

the media, women will never be satisfied with their own appearance and this results in

increased conformity.

Once the majority of the women in society agree on and conform to the current beauty

standards, individuality decreases and women will eventually start to look the same. Then, the

standards of beauty will increase again, making it more and more difficult for women to achieve.

The media and the beauty industry work hand in hand and thrive off of the socially constructed

insecurities and perceived flaws of women. Women buy magazines to read about the latest

celebrity styles and other beauty tips and subsequently go to the shops to buy the products

advertised so they can recreate these appearances. Moreover, women will undergo cosmetic

surgeries to fix the flaws they do not actually have. Society has conditioned women to think

that any imperfection is a major flaw that needs to be altered and if it is not altered, they are

not beautiful.

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19

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