The Beauty Myth

The year was 1848 at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York where hundreds of female delegates gathered to issue a declaration of independence for women. The document demanded full legal equality, educational and commercial opportunity, equal compensation, the right to collect wages and to vote. The movement infused the country and soon extended to Europe. However, it wasn’t until seventy-two years later until women’s suffrage was won, thus creating what we call today first-wave feminism.

Although women won the right to vote, some were still unsatisfied. Second-wave feminist reform occurred from the 1960’s through the 1970’s. The wave was concerned with issues of equality, sexuality, family, the workplace, and reproductive rights. In the 1980s it was largely perceived that women had met their goals and succeeded in changing social attitudes towards gender roles, repealing laws that were based on sex, illegalizing gender discrimination, marital rape, and the legalization of no-fault divorce. Many women felt that they had won the war against gender discrimination; however, there are still thousands of women who think otherwise.

Writer and neo-feminist, Naomi Wolf, explains in her article, “The Beauty Myth” that women of the 21st century are pressured by society to look a certain way. Wolf also explains that there is still a fight for feminism so women can escape what she calls, “The Beauty Myth.” Women have won their rights to vote, own property, and equality in the workforce, therefore, feminism is no longer needed in the 21st century.

Female beauty dates far back to ancient times in Greece and Rome and even farther. Every century and time period has had its own idealistic women. However, 21st Century beauty seems to be more extreme than other time periods:
Reproductive rights gave Western women control over our own bodies; the weight of fashion models plummeted to 23 percent below that of ordinary women, eating disorders rose exponentially, and a mass neurosis was promoted that used food and weight to strip women of that sense of control. Women insisted on politicizing health; new technologies of invasive, potentially deadly ‘cosmetic’ surgeries developed apace to re-exert old forms of medical control of women. (Wolf 371)
Women of this century are taking drastic measures to become the idealistic woman. Due to media technology break throughs and media increases in our everyday lives, we are almost always consuming media and consequently almost every female we see is that “ideal woman”. Women are led to believe that this is how the average woman looks because that is all that we are seeing. On top of that, these women are successful and have good looking men chasing after them. It’s no wonder that a majority of women want to embody this idealistic look. However, if you think back to the 60’s and 70’s when the first waves of feminism were taking place, there was even a beauty myth then. Women are brainwashed with this idealistic beauty, they always have been, and always will be. If female ideal beauty is something that will always be around, then why do women need to spend time trying to fight it?

I do not understand the reasoning behind why women feel that they need to fix their hair and apply makeup no matter where they go or who they are around. A female friend of mine is always running late due to applying makeup and fixing her hair. She is willing to be thirty to forty-five minutes late for the only four hour class she has that day just so she can ‘look good’. Even going somewhere as simple as a two block walk to a Smithfield News Mart cannot be taken without the application of makeup and a quick fix of the hair. She recently began a weight loss routine. When she first mentioned this to me I assumed she would eat a balanced diet with five to six small meals a day. “She never eats Joan and Marjorie said of Louise. They ate lunch with her at school, watched her refusing potatoes, ravioli, and fried fish. Sometimes she got through the cafeteria line with only a salad.” (Dubus 209). Similar to the story of a woman who struggled with eating, appearance and how her friends viewed her, I rarely see my friend eating anything at all and not having the correct intake of foods or calories. I cannot completely grasp why women do these things themselves, maybe it’s because they are not comfortable with whom they are physically or because they feel that because society tells them to they need to look a certain way. Whatever the reason may be it is no concern to me. There is a fine line in dressing appropriately and just not caring at all about your hygiene or self image. Of course, they are things I do not like about myself physically but nobody is perfect and I have come to peace with who I am. I dress appropriate for certain situations, but I don’t mind throwing on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt for a four hour class. I dress to please myself, it’s as simple as that. If I kindly approached my friend and told her she didn’t need to wear makeup or fix her hair, she wouldn’t listen; she would go on as if the conversation had never happened. If a friend cannot reach out to a friend to explain the beauty myth what female can?

I do find it unfortunate that many women are brainwashed with this idealistic beauty idea, but it is not a fight that can be won through women coming together for a cause, it is a personal battle between a women and herself. It is only until a woman can come to terms with herself and her body that a women can overcome the beauty myth. No matter how many other women try to infuse the beauty myth unto 21st century female youth, it will make little affect. The beauty myth is just social problem that feminists grabbed onto because there is no longer anything else to fight for. The 21st century is a post-feminism world. Feminists need to throw in the towel on a myth that has been surviving for centuries and will continue to be for centuries more.