Beauty is collection of ideas around physical appearance that each generation and culture comes up with and we enforce it. It is entirely socially and culturally constructed. Advertisement tells us that most important is how we look, although women in advertising are not the representation of the general population size standards. We’re bombarded with pictures of skinny models, it gives us the message that this is typical, although it is not, we’re losing the sense of what’s real. Visual diet is what we eat with our eyes and how our preferences changes depending on our exposure to images. We make decisions about how appearance is related to success based on how we see people represented in society.
Women are more likely to hate their bodies, they spend money on cosmetics, spend more time on beauty, they’re more likely to get commentary about their physical appearance. They are told that beauty is the essential part their being, and being beautiful is the most important, most powerful thing a girl or woman can be. Objectification theory says that women live in the world where they’re thought that their primary currency is their appearance and they can’t escape it. Current idea of beauty is unrealistic and superficial, nobody looks like models – even the models themselves. All around the world men and women are getting fatter, but the body ideal for women is getting thinner.
How did we get to a point when so much of women’s time and energy is being taken by the concerns that used to belong only to professional models and actresses? Women have the notion that their body is always on display for the other people and is continually observed by them. Instead of looking out to the world women spend time thinking how they look to the world. You cannot monitor the appearance all the time and be fully engaged with the world.
You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not your boyfriend, partner, not your co workers, especially not to random men on the street. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupation space marked female.
Erin Mckean
54% of women would rather be hit by a truck than be fat
ola knopek 