The Beauty Myth and the Beauty Standard: How the Media Portrays Beauty

In history, women though out time have always been compared to a certain beauty standard. Wither it be a women who is more voluptuous or thin there has always been come sort of standard. Since Twiggy came out in the mid sixties, she changed how women viewed themselves. But this is not something that just started; women thought history and different cultures have been trying to live up to a certain standard. Some examples of these would be in Japan there were Geisha's. Geishas were held to a certain standard, geishas were thought to be the most beautiful of women during that time. Geishas were in high demand and other women tried very hard to look like on. In the Kayan tribe women who are also known as "long necks", are measured on beauty according the amount of brass rings that are worn around the neck. In India, it is all about the long hair. In Ethiopia, the Karo tribe wears scars on their stomachs meant to attract a husband. I wish that people would just accept people for who they are, not what they look like. I have always been told that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Who decides what is beautiful and what is not.

I feel that the media has a lot to do with how women, in the United States anyway. With all the magazines showing thin, almost anorexic women on magazine covers young women feel that that is what they should look like. So then these young women starve themselves and/or binge and purge themselves. Some even die because of trying to fix a certain mold of what is beautiful. As Jared Plokin states, "The media is currently at war with women's body image" (1). On the cover of magazines there are pictures with celebrities' in bathing suits stating "the best and worst beach bodies", when women are reading these types of magazines and seeing that a celebrity who may be shaped similarly to themselves and are categorized under the "worst bodies" women start to feel bad about the way they look and not empowered for being different. "The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says that one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting"(2). Many people blame Barbie for the need to obtain perfection, she was perfect, blond hair and blue eyed, a California girl to the core. In recent years however, we have found that if a real person were to have her dimensions researchers had found that in a real person the back would be far too weak to support the weight of the upper body, and the body would be far too narrow to hold no more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real person would eventually die if they had the same shape as Barbie. It is stated by the president of Mattel that an estimated that 99% of girls between the ages of 3 through 10 own at least one Barbie doll.

Women will