Gender Through The Prism of Difference

1. Gender Through The Prism of Difference Chapter Two Bodies/Beauty, Myths, Realities and their impacts on women

2. A) To look conventionally attractive constitute assaults on diversity which is the essence of who we are! • B) Physical appearance perception affects physical and emotional health status of women • C) Physical appearance perception limits the opportunities opened to individual or group • D) Personal look fostered and promoted at an early age through home (Barbie), schools, media, and other institutions • E) Obsession with beauty is considered a back lash to women’s liberation, sex symbol, and sex exploitation • F) “Cute babies are cuddled more,” which will affect self esteem and achievement of children • G) Women’s self esteem closely affected with appearance while not for men

3. H) Women’s upward social mobility affected by her physical appearance and motivated for political power, otherwise discriminated against • I) A beauty myth and the erosion of self-worth: beauty myth impacts women’s identity, and self esteem • J) Women’s centralized stereotypes leads to internalized oppressive messages and images which will erode their self confidence • K) A standardizing beauty; conventionality what is used to classify individuals oppressively • L) The popular culture is the convergence of homogenizing, normalizing, and blending of individuals into composites and comprised images. This convergence eliminates the individual’s uniqueness and diversity, which is the essence of our identity • M) Lack of conventional beauty associated with race, class, ethnicity, culture, and religion constitute social hegemony, which renders the oppressed invisible

4. Race and Ethnicity: western ideals have permeated global village with images and stereotypes of beauty that approximated western standards of physical requirements of beauty • Age: all must keep young, no one says what a beautiful of woman! • Youthfulness associated with attractiveness and aging for women is considered ugly because old women is powerful represents a threat posed by accumulated experience and wisdom versus considered distinct, powerful, and intelligent • Disability: it is considered not attractive, hence normalization making disability less obvious • Class: must confirm to the class specific conventionality in order to fit in. This is substituting one’s true identity with false image by giving up what once genuine reality • Weight loss: 33 billion dollar annual expenditures on weight loss programs • Fitness: 74 billion dollar annual expenditures on fitness programs

5. Fashion: dressed for success looks (unfeminine images dictated by male designers) • Cosmetic Surgery: 20 billion dollar expenditures on cosmetic programs • Health risks in quest of beauty has impacted mental health of women as well • To look attractive while promising self esteem often result in serious mental and physical health risks; therefore, adolescent boys and girls experience depression due to preoccupation with appearance • Beauty of diversity: it is crucial to allow women to present themselves freely through public legislation to determine inequitable treatment due to appearance discrimination and psychological damage due to social rejection • Commercials that define and promote beauty standards are assaulting individuals and groups who do not fit these standards

6. Big Strong Black Women • American imagine black women strong physically and psychologically, as white women had to fight the perception of weakness and passivity, black women had to fight the image of (strong black woman) • Black women want to define womanhood for themselves according to their own perception of who they are • Black women face multiple oppression, they had to develop a new strategies to deal with this social oppression, as an example; using food to mask their pain • Contemporary black women feminists critique these images and their distortion of black women realities • Images such as Mammy is designed to make the exploitation of black women to appear natural, mammy was central to slavery as an institution of human bondage

7. To Retha Power and her battle with compulsive eating, this is an oppressive societal image of black womanhood • Black super woman now withstand adversity for the sake of her family and her community, single handed she raises her children and works multiple jobs to support her extended family as well • Black women relation with their bodies are based on cultural contexts that send them contradicting messages about their value and function, while their strength is often signify their resignation to the oppressiveness of their social context • Contradiction between personal needs and cultural norms; voicing of pain and denial of its existence projecting control and denying pain by covering up the body with excess weight