Beauty Sadomasochism In Wolf's Sxuality And Women

If you turn on the television or flip through a fashion magazine, it is very likely you will presented with many displays of hypersexualization of girls and women in advertising images and in media. There are many components to sexualization. It occurs, according to the American Psychological Association, when “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics.” This person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy. “Sexualization” happens when a person is sexually objectified- that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than being seen as a person with their own independent actions and abilities to make decisions. Oftentimes, sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person without their knowing it or consent. Sometimes, researchers use the word “hypersexualization” to describe roughly the same idea. In the article, “Media’s Growing Sexualization of Women”, hypersexualization is defined as, “The act of making something extremely sexual and erotic.”

Tropp, Sandra Fehl., and Ann Pierson. D'Angelo. "Pornography (1983)." Essays in Context. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 543-47. Print.

The Beauty Myth’s central argument is the growing standards of physical beauty of women as they grow stronger. This standard has affected women in many ways, such as in the workplace, culture, and religion. The standard has taken over the work of social harassment. The beauty myth expands the belief an unbiased measurement of beauty exists and that women want to express it and men would want that women. The author, Naomi Wolf, states that the beauty myth is not about women themselves, it is about the power of men and their society. The myth supplies power to multibillion dollar cosmetics industries and it keeps women from rising too high in the workplace. Within this book, Wolf shows how the beauty myth functions and affects women in the workplace, media, sex, religion, culture, violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the configuration of cosmetic surgery and eating disorders.

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

These differences aren’t biological as some researchers lead us to believe, claiming that men are more sexually stimulated by images, making it natural for women to be gazed at. Bordo argues that our culture determines what if acceptable for “women learn to anticipate, even play to the sexualizing gaze…in the process we learn how sexy being gazed at can feel-perhaps precisely because it walks the fine edge of shame” (135). Yet, with the use of erotic male images and her clearly sexually reaction to them, Bordo pushes readers to question why there are differences in how men and women are viewed and view each other. Who decides what is acceptable?

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. At least, that’s what is taught to believe at an early age. Elline Lipkin, however, holds fast to the understanding that as true as that saying may be, there are outside forces that are intent on readjusting our vision to “true beauty”: the kind that can be bought off the shelves. In her article, “Girls’ Bodies, Girls’ Selves: Body Image, Identity, and Sexuality”, Lipkin employs several different external resources to help demonstrate her belief that young girls’ (“Before they even abandon their teddy bears…“ (Para 2)) definition of their own appearance is polluted and distorted by the vastly massive world that is the American media. Besides pulling from other articles and fact sheets, she also effectively utilizes a clearly logical train of thought, an operative tone, and countless examples of emotional appeal.

“The Beauty Myth” written by Naomi Wolf is an essay written to present how the advancements of women in social power lead to a societal backlash that lead to a woman’s value being equated to her appearance by both sexes. This devaluation of women has led to a harmful relationship with food and women subjecting themselves to mental and physical torture to be thin. Wolf describes in the 1920s was the first time that women became “preoccupied with dieting and thinness” after receiving the right to vote. In the 1950s, women’s curves were celebrated again because “their minds were occupied in domestic seclusion.” According to Wolf, when women were in male spheres, “that pleasure had to be overridden by an urgent social

Media influence has caused beauty to evolve into ideals that can’t actually be attained. In addition to this, women are objectified and seen as sex objects, being sexualized by men without consequence due to the normalcy the media has created for genders. In fact, men are even encouraged to sexualize women. During her TEDTalk, Kilbourne presented a photo of an adolescent boy wearing a shirt that stated “pimp squad,” showing how our society is comfortable with men sexualizing women from a very young age. In contrast, women are labeled as sluts or whores without even engaging in sexual activity. I, for example, have been called a slut for wearing leggings, merely talking to a guy, and even wearing shorts— in the summer.

In a 1992 study of female students at Stanford University, “70% of women reported feeling worse about themselves and their bodies after looking at magazines” (What’s the Problem?). By looking at this evidence, it can be concluded that stricter regulations need to be implemented as far as how sexuality is depicted in advertising in order to protect the young minds of women. Without the use of regulations, the small problem of objectification multiplies into many different disorders that are harder to fix than to simply stop the cause.

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

This text is centered on discussing how the choice of objects in men is primarily dominated by fetish. However, the choice of analyzing men is not caused by men’s account on fetish. Even though a fetish is often is deemed to have a close connection to abnormality, men rarely feel that it is a symptom of an ailment which eventually comes with a lot of suffering. For most men, they find themselves satisfied with fetishes to the extent of praising how they make their sexual and erotic life easier. Therefore, Freud’s text is centered on analyzing a fetish as a subsidiary finding in men.

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

In her transformation of the well-known fable "Little Red Riding Hood," Angela Carter plays upon the reader's familiarity. By echoing elements of the allegory intended to scare and thus caution young girls, she evokes preconceptions and stereotypes about gender roles. In the traditional tale, Red sticks to "the path," but needs to be rescued from the threatening wolf by a hunter or "woodsman." Carter retells the story with a modern perspective on women. By using fantasy metaphorically and hyperbolically, she can poignantly convey her unorthodox and underlying messages.

Advertising uses a lot of different techniques to show the public the perfect female image. Body doubles and computer retouching are two examples of how advertisers are able to “doctor” images. The majority of women we see in magazines, music videos. and movies do not appear in reality, as we perceive them in the media. We may actually believe we are looking at one woman’s body when we are actually looking at sections of three or four women’s bodies, which, when spliced together, shows us the best parts of each women’s body as the final product. Women cannot attain these impossible standards of attractiveness. Young girls learn very quickly that they must spend much time, energy, and money on achieving these standards.

We are constantly surrounded by images of the “perfect” woman. She is tall, thin and beautiful. She rarely looks older than 25, has a flawless body, and her hair and clothes are always perfect. She is not human. She is often shown in pieces – a stomach, a pair of legs, a beautifully made up eye or mouth. Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. It is forgotten that “beauty pornography”, as Wolf says, focuses on underweight models that are usually 15 to 20 years old. Flaws, wrinkles and other problems are airbrushed out of the picture.