Summary of the Beauty Ideal

“Dominant U.S. culture often reduces women to bodies, valuing us only as sex objects or as bearers of children” (Kirk Okazawa-Rey 208). Many feminists view the culture that our daughters are maturing in as toxic to their “physical, emotional, and spiritual health” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 211). The societal pressure to obtain an exclusive and often unobtainable status of beauty in our society often drives women and young girls into shame at their bodies, compromising their confidence to pursue achievements. This narrow designation that beauty is “defined as think, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair”( Kirk Okazawa-Rey 208), leaves little to no room for women of differing statures, races, ethnicity  or idiosyncrasies that create diversity within our society. It is this pressure for the masses to conform to this impossible beauty archetype that often negatively affects the health of the women in our society, is what has created this body-image epidemic. Media reinforces these ideals in every aspect of our society, bombarding us with advertisements, reality television shows, magazine articles in line at the grocery store, pornography, backing up the “multi-billion dollar beauty industry that sees women’s bodies as a series of problems in need of correction…aim[ing]to promote insecurity, self-hatred, and distorted perceptions” (Kirk Okazawa-Rey 208). Lesbian, older women, and women who are deemed overweight are especially subject to judgment from the beauty industry from deviating from mainstream culture. Large women are often shunned for not conforming to the pressures of the beauty ideal, and have to face America’s obsession with weight loss along with the stereotype “that they are sloppy, irresponsible, undisciplined, depressed, sexless, unwanted, or unhealthy” (Kirk Okazawa Rey-209).  The notion that all large women are unhealthy is one that we must combat, and often orders to lose weight are based more off of societal norms than diagnostics.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.