When people say beautiful or a beautiful person, we immediately associate these words with women. I recently read an essay by Susan Sontag entitled “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?” She points out that “beauty” is no longer attributed to values or virtues, but to a certain gender.
Why is that?
Media representation of beauty shaped our perceptions of it. I remember growing up watching Disney movies, specifically ones with princesses. It made me think that the perfect description of a woman is blonde, slim, beautiful, and white.
Social media made it impossible to convince a female that it’s OK to be natural-looking. Makeup is a thing, it covers reality. It changes a girl’s face at an instant. Don’t get me wrong, makeup is amazing but nowadays, it’s the only thing we consider as “beautiful." Profile pictures and Instagram photos are no longer genuine but covered with filters to make it look “beautiful."
It becomes deceiving to another person’s eyes. No one will ever post unattractive or ugly photos. "Beauty is an essential," social media basically tells you. All of these dolled up Hollywood celebrities and fashion models influence the minds of the users and audience, urging, encouraging, and swaying them to believe that this is how you should look like.
No longer about personality.
No longer a virtue.
No longer about attitudes.
More on physical attraction.
When you Google beauty, it gives you this definition …
beauty [ˈbyo͞odē] NOUN
a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. ("I was struck by her beauty")
We use “beautiful” in place of breathtaking or immediately associate it with women. Yet, we lost touch of its true and genuine meaning which is meant to be a virtue of something pleasing and good.
Typically even worse, beauty stereotypes are if you're beautiful, you are not smart and if you're smart, you are not beautiful. Nonetheless, why has the definition and representation or perception of beauty evolved overtime?
There's been a divide.
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Even men associate beautiful with hot, sexy, and glamorous. First thing they ask is "How do they look?" not "Is she smart?" This is society.
We see it in our daily lives, media, and society. It became an outrageous outcome of standards for women being set high, not only because of this female beauty misrepresentation but also beauty in itself defined.
When you ask yourself what is beauty defined, think really hard about it. If you're uncertain, it's not difficult to search online or in reality for its true meaning.
