Beauty often compared to women in the media
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
The question of ideal beauty has existed as long as people and cultures have existed, even in fairytales. Snow White’s wicked stepmother turned to her mirror for the answer regarding what is beauty, but modern society has to look elsewhere.
Richard Crappo, an anthropology professor at Utah State University, said each society and culture has its own definition of beauty.
“Beauty is dictated by the upper classes in society,” he said.
In the Victorian era, the working class people were the ones outside and tanned by the sun, so the ideal look was to be pale like the upper class, Crappo said. Later, the upper class would travel and get tan, so the ideal changed from wanting to be pale to wanting to be tan like the upper class people who traveled. He said our society now is much the same. We follow or emulate what the upper class dictates.
“Celebrities – that includes music and movies – are the role models for young people while they are growing up,” Crappo said.
He said by emulating celebrities and their looks, we as a society are defining beauty.
“The most common characteristics [of beauty] are youth and health,” Crappo said.
What men regard as beautiful is different from women, he said. Men regard traits or characteristics that suggest youth, vigor and fertility as beautiful, Crappo said. He said it is not conscious; it just fosters survival. He said women become pregnant or nurse children most of their adult life, and men find this attractive.
“Men look for more physical characteristics [in women], while women are attracted to traits and characteristics that measure success in life,” Crappo said.
“Images of women in the media – ads, TV characters, movie roles – bring the message that women must be young, thin, fair-skinned and beautiful in order to be valued by our culture,” said Nancy Williams, assistant professor of journalism and communications.
Crappo said our society likes the twig-like model for women; the young people seek after that. He said whichever sex is considered to be in short demand will compete the most and therefore have to look pretty.
“Most of the ads for the beauty products and cosmetics are marketed to women; they condition us to feel like failures if we don’t live up to the standard of beauty set by the ad,” Williams said. “Men are similarly conditioned to feel incomplete and insecure if they don’t have a beautiful woman hanging on their arm.”
Williams said ads are particularly powerful in defining beauty. She said they sell discontent and anxiety about the way we look in order to market a beauty product.