This chapter was about how our society sees beauty and how companies try to capitalize on our insecurities. Through the media and advertising, we are all told to look a certain way depending on who you are. Makeup ads are filled with young women who would definitely be considered gorgeous by our society and this is because these advertisements tell us this is how women should look. Women think to themselves that we should look more like these people so they buy their products.
the chapter told me too look up beauty on google images so I did that and it was exactly as it said it would be, young looking skinny white women with long hair. There were very few black women or men and nobody that was plus size. In our society we see that being skinny and young is what is most attractive but this chapter proves that it is a social construct that we created. In other society’s like the pacific islands, being more fat was seen as something to be socially prized rather than a stigma. Our idea of what’s beautiful changes throughout time, for example in the Middle Ages it was considered more attractive if men or women had some fat on them because they were seen as more wealthy.
In our society, we demand that women wear makeup. If they don’t they will be seen as less attractive or even in the corporate world as “unprofessional”. However men also are demanded to look a certain way to be considered attractive, women typically like their men to be more athletic, have bigger muscles and be at least 6 feet tall. Race also plays a factor. I personally see all of the tall men have girlfriends and a lot of women I have talked to also like their men to be over 6 feet tall. We all have preferences on what we’re attracted too. Not everyone can ever be attracted to everybody.
The Sociology Blog with Joseph Dahl 