Body Image Blog 3

The recent readings through The Beauty Myth have been very interesting and comparable to real life situations. The general ideas that I have found repeated though out the reading is that women are never going to think they are as beautiful as the world requires. In the work place if women are not "pretty" they could not get the job, but if they are too "pretty" then they could get sexually harassed and would then get in trouble for being so "pretty". In the magazines women are airbrushed to perfection but women see the magazines and say, "Man, she is gorgeous and she's 40 and had three kids. I wish that I looked like that".

In the book The Beauty Myth critic John Berger says: "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves." Women feel beautiful if men look at them. Women feel that the true judge of if a women is beautiful is if a man says that they are. This is how sexual attraction and body image functions as a social construct. I do believe that every man has a different perception of what beautiful is, but women believe that there is set guidelines of what is beautiful and they try to measure their body up everyday.

There was not a lot that was really shocking in the book so far. One thing that did stand out was the court cases that women have pushed for decades but have lost because a man has told his own story, which was probably inaccurate, and the judge ruled in his favor. The one thing that I can relate to is looking at magazines and saying to myself, " I wish I was that skinny" or "I wish I was that pretty". Even though I know that they are airbrushed and dressed up that is what women are "supposed" to look like and that is what men see and we are compared to on a daily basis.

The ideals of female beauty function as a form of social control in every day life. From ads in magazines to commercials on television to the desire to be sexy for a man to notice you. Advertisement prey on women and their low self conscience to sell their product. You can go buy anti-wrinkle cream, weight loss pill, face wash to make your skin clearer, make up to make you look more sexy. This controls women because we all fall into the trap and want to use all those products to make our skin softer or stomach's flatter.

These things limit woman's lives because that is the standard that women are held to. They are supposed to be beautiful or at least try and if they are not then they are criticized. If a women is not beautiful they may not get the job that they always wanted because there might be a more beautiful women applying for the same job. I do believe that women are given the freedom to dress, look and feel whatever they want, but social they are still being criticized just as much as ever.