Jo-Chi Cavey
WMST
100
Web
Essay
Beauty and Power
Are
your breasts too small or too large? Are your breasts too flabby or too firm?
Is the color of your nipples too dark or too light? Do you want to have a pair
of perfect breasts? Breast implantation will make you a perfect woman. With
breast implants, you will become appealing and gain the attention of every man
around you. These types of advertisements that are often seen in magazines,
newspapers and commercials contribute to the false idea of beauty. The
definition of beauty is distorted by models and superstars in the movies, music
videos and television programs and delivered to women and men by the media.
However, power division is a more critical message that is sent to men and
women underneath the negative body-image and what is thought to be beautiful.
First
of all, most plastic surgeries are performed on women. For example, according
to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2003, more than 250,000 females
received breast augmentation surgery (Jessica Yu, 2005). Despite the false idea
of being beautiful, undergoing plastic surgery suggests that women are
imperfect. Furthermore, imperfection is often taken to be “not as good,”
“something wrong with,” and “incomplete.” As a result, when the idea of seeking
plastic surgery as an option to become more beautiful is strongly implanted in
women and men, both sexes will be conditioned to think that women are
deficient. When women are viewed to
be deficient, they are placed in a subordinate position and are powerless.
Beautiful
women who are viewed in films and music videos are portrayed as sex objects
most of time. In this case, the notion of beauty is defined by men due to the
fact that more than 80% of producers of movies and music videos are men. In
other words, the belief of beauty is driven by a man’s fantasy towards the
image of a woman’s body. However,
being more beautiful contains a message that having surgery to modify a woman’s
physical appearance is a fast and effective way to attract attention from
males. In addition, men in this case hold the power to influence women and to
insinuate the idea that women are vulnerable. Conversely, many people would say
that women do have power over men, but the power women have over men is
understood to be coming from their beauty and sexuality. However, the origin of
this power comes from men because in our culture men define beauty.
In
conclusion, women often have the wrong notion about beauty.
They think that being beautiful is defined as skinny, tall with a flat stomach
and large breasts. We all know that
in our culture, men define and decide beauty for women. In my opinion, gender
inequality will and can be broken when women have the right belief about
body-image. It seems to me that men have a powerful effect on women for
defining the “perfect body.” The idea of being beautiful should be redefined
not by males but by women. When women break the mentality of beauty equals
power, the true power will come to them.
I
truly hope one day that we will see the advertisements saying that: Is your
penis too small or too large? Is your penis to long or too short? IS your penis
too wrinkled? Please call so and so, and we will make you a complete man with a
perfect penis.
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=16945&repository=0001_article