Draft COP2

Page 1

Sophia Watts COP2 COP2 Draft/Plan Essay Question To what extent do the pressures of a western society influence women to modify their appearance? Introduction This essay aims to question the idea of aesthetic expectations within Western society and the psychological impact of them, particularly on women, to modify their own appearance. Unfortunately, there are many aspects within society that contribute to pressurising women to look a certain way, including the expression of patriarchal views, use of stereotypical gender terminology in advertising, consumerism, media influence and celebrity culture. 1. The Patriarchal views of society pressurise women to be aesthetically beautiful. Gender roles – women seen as inferior Ways of Seeing – John Berger, Men – Power, Women – Aesthetics Gender roles within a patriarchal society clearly portray women as inferior. More of an importance is placed on their physical beauty with little regard for personality, intellect or power, things that make people so dynamic and interesting. In 'Ways of Seeing' (Berger, 2008), John Berger acknowledges the expectations of gender roles and the differences of social presence between a man and a woman. He describes that a man's presence 'is dependent upon the promise of power, which he embodies' whereas a woman's presence 'manifests in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste' as well as being born into 'the keeping of men'. The listing of these factors confirm that a woman is expected to assign her attention to all these things, most of which are superficial, in order to obtain a valid presence within society. This links to a woman's appearance and how she is 'almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself'. Women are so often viewed by their appearance that outward presentation and behaviour becomes ever more important. Another crucial point made within Berger's observations is that 'men act and women appear'. This highlights the roles that are expected from each gender. Women are seen as more physical beings who are judged primarily on their looks whereas a man is judged based mainly on his actions. Due to these differences, women find it more difficult to be taken seriously and as a result, feel a pressure to conform to the aesthetics of the 'norm'. Although, ‘Ways of seeing’ was written in 1972, it is unfortunately still extremely relevant today, especially in regards to image culture. An article in Dazed digital which marked Berger’s recent death, ‘Why we still need John Berger’s Ways of Seeing’ (Allwood and Dazed, 2017), discusses the how it is ‘Berger’s discussion of how we look at women which resonates most strongly in our current image-obsessed society’. Constantly portraying women as sexual objects to be observed by men ‘had an effect on women, on the way they see themselves’, if a person is told something enough it is only a matter of time before they start to believe it, and in this case it was that a woman ‘did not have desires of her own’ and ‘existed to be looked at’. Visual examples of the ‘male gaze’ are evident in ‘female nude in Western Painting’, and eventually, as technology advanced, within media imagery. The nude depictions of women were there to ‘feed an appetite of male sexual desire’, however this poses yet another problem as it is not just men who view these images. At the same time as being ‘desired by men’, they are ‘envied by women’, and more often than not an unattainable goal of what is classed as desirable is represented. As technology advanced, the ‘goddesses of art became the models of contemporary advertising’ making them


Sophia Watts COP2 universally accessible for viewing through the internet. Gaze, desire and envy have become the tools on which the foundations of our ‘current fashion and social media obsession rests’. Male gaze – Laura Mulvey, Film & TV, Porn – Caitlin Moran Laura Mulvey's essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (Mulvey, 1975) examines the presence of a Patriarchal society within film and how this has been the foundation of which the industry was structured. Mulvey argues that the roles of men and women portrayed on screen are at the source of women's 'oppression', women are constantly seen as 'bearer, not maker, of meaning' which puts them inferior to men (the maker). In 'Cultural Theory and Popular Culture' (Storey, 2008) John Storey describes this differentiation as confirmation of an audience's objectification of women, viewing them only 'as sexual objects'. Similarly, Richard Dyer's 'Stars and Audiences' (Dyer and Department of Film Studies Richard Dyer, 1986) looks at the generalisation of how film is made and who for, he argues that 'the moviegoer is positioned accordingly to the pleasures of male heterosexual desire'. By default, the male star is often portrayed to be diverse in nature and interesting to watch, while the female star is often sexualised and has little or no say on what happens within the plot, her character is usually there to support the egos of the men and fulfil their sexual desires. Furthermore, Storey describes the focus or 'hold' of the female body as a 'pure erotic spectacle' for an audience member. Women are constantly displayed as sexual beings while, as Mulvey examines, men have the capacity to 'control' and emerge as the 'representative of power'. In this way, a 'passive' woman becomes the 'active' man's property. Dyer describes film styles as being 'designed as a spectacle for male desire'. With these ideologies being fed in to an audience's psyche through a means of entertainment, and with media becoming more and more poignant within people's everyday lives, there is little question as to why society seems to accept and mimic these on screen roles. Following this, a focal point of Mulvey's essay is the concept of 'Scopophilia', the pleasure in looking or viewing sexual acts. Storey argues that in a 'world structured by 'sexual imbalance'' the evident roles encouraged by this idea are for men to 'look' and women 'exhibit'. Therefore, women are 'crucial to the pleasure of the (male) gaze'. This puts women beneath men, in this instance objectification and exploitation are necessary in order to satisfy male needs, especially when the audience believes the fantasy that they are 'looking in on a private world'. Caitlin Moran’s book ‘How to be a Woman’ (Moran, 2012) looks at the extreme examples of where the notion of Scopophilia is most common, via the internet. Moran discusses the dilemma within the porn industry and how it portrays an unequal view of the sexes. ‘In the 21st century, children and teenagers get the majority of their sex education from the internet’, this means that a large amount of the younger generation is learning about what behaviour is expected in their first sexual encounters/relationships through what they are observing on-line. Therefore, if this online content portrays women in a certain way, then that’s what young girls will aspire to. Moran suggests that the solution to the problem of misrepresentation within porn would be ‘something that shows sex as something that two people do together, rather than a thing that just happens to a woman when she has to make rent’. Terminology used in advertising etc. Putting on a persona – make up 2. The 'perfect body' does not exist, therefore trying to obtain this is impossible and unrealistic. People are constantly striving for something that is simply unattainable.


Sophia Watts COP2 Vicious Cycle - link to Consumerism and Caitlin Moran Women are constantly bombarded with the idea that in order to be happy you must first look acceptable, that beauty and happiness live simultaneously together and a disruption of one leads to the limitation of the other. In Western culture, from an early age young girls are influenced by family members, the media and friends to wear makeup and get rid of body hair. It is abnormal if you are a woman to not wear makeup, in order to be 'normal' you must conform to society by changing the way you look every morning, usually starting as an early teenager. From this young age, women are made to feel unworthy for public view unless they are 'ready', because of this, women and consumerism go hand in hand when it comes to physical appearance. According to research conducted by The Independent, the average British Woman spends a surprising ‘£140,000 on hair and cosmetics in her life time’ (Sharkey, 2014). This comes as no surprise when even body hair is seen as an inconvenience, Caitlin Moran expresses that ‘we’ve got to a point where it’s basically costing us money to have a fanny…they’re making us pay for maintenance and upkeep of our lulus, like they’re a communal garden’ (Moran, 2012). Of course, this type of maintenance is optional but there is certainly a social pressure, which stems from the porn industry, on women to conform to these standards of beauty for the fear of ‘being rejected, or thought abnormal’. Reshaping the female body, the dilemma of cosmetic surgery & Making the cut The constant mission to obtain the ‘perfect body’ is a futile one. In ‘Reshaping the Female Body – The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery’ (Davis, 1995), Kathy Davis observes that on their ‘quest for beauty’ women are willing to go to ‘extreme lengths to improve and transform their bodies to meet the cultural requirements of femininity’. The issue with this is, as explained by Anthony Elliott in ‘Making the cut – How Cosmetic Surgery is transforming our lives’ (Elliott, 2008), that ‘artificial beauty’ become the norm in society. The natural process of ageing becomes the subject of embarrassment for a woman, rather than a cause for celebration, as in order to be beautiful you must also be youthful. Getting older is inevitable but is an issue within popular culture, comedian Amy Poehler points out that 'shooting poison in your face does not keep you from turning fifty' (Poehler, 2014) in her plastic surgery haiku from her book 'Yes Please'. Maybe this quest for youth is indeed what causes this vicious circle amongst women wanting to feel aesthetically accepted. Within the consumer industry ‘women are only beautiful to the extent that the project of anti-ageing and its marketed strategies are adopted and followed’, this creates a pressure on women to strive for ‘perfection’. However, when summarising ‘Reshaping the Female Body – The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery’ in ‘Making the cut – How Cosmetic Surgery is transforming our lives’, Elliott acknowledges Davis’ view that the notions of ‘choice, decision-making and agency become fundamental to the making and remaking of the female body’. In this instance, a woman cannot be judged or seen as lesser because of a conscious decision she has made to change her own appearance, it is a very personal thing and a certain amount of decisiveness comes in to play. This is not a woman giving in to social pressures but an individual who is taking control of their own personal identity through self-reinvention, therefore physically and perhaps psychologically evolving. TED TALK – Denis Dutton 'eye of the beholder' Body Shop Campaign – Ruby


Sophia Watts COP2

In 1998, The Body Shop released a campaign to encourage ‘real’ women to love their bodies, through the use of ‘Ruby’ the doll, who replicated the proportions of a ladies’ size 16, and has since been dubbed the ‘anti-Barbie’. This image (Scott, 2013) was one of a set, which emulated the same message, that the depictions of women represented in the media are unrealistic and impossible goals to obtain. It embodies the idea of female empowerment by portraying aging as an achievement rather than a hindrance on our physical bodies. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Following this, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs diagram (Jamali, 2015) can relate to physical and emotional impact of altering appearance, and aims to separate our life’s requirements in to stages. To feel aesthetically beautiful and/or accepted in society may fall in to a few of these stages, the most obvious being ‘Esteem needs’. The need to fit in links to the relationship between people (‘respect of others’) and the way they see themselves as individuals (‘self-respect’). Aesthetic needs and self-actualisation are arguably also stages that are effected by physical appearance, being able to ‘realise your full potential’ includes looking your absolute best, with the advances of modern cosmetic procedures and products, is there a solution to this ideology or when ‘fantasy’ becomes ‘reality’, as suggested by Davis, is there always a need for more? Public face – norms within society, what is acceptable? 3. Celebrity Idols and role models encourage women to put on a persona, on-line presence – promotes a fake idea of reality through filtering content of a person's life. Edited versions of themselves – what is real?


Sophia Watts COP2 Social media generation – obsession – find a link/quote The generation of today don’t just have to worry about their physical presence and identity, but their on-line persona too. Along with the advances of social media a ‘selfie’ culture was born, where people (the majority of which are women) regularly take photos of themselves with the intention of sharing them with the world. This poses a dilemma within society. Firstly, the pictures that are being publicly shared on the internet are generally not a natural representation of the person, snap chat filters and photo editing apps are generally used a lot, making people believe that they can fit in to the impossible social standards of beauty. Because of these apps, people are very rarely completely authentic when expressing themselves on-line, this constant editing filters into other aspects of a person’s on-line presence, making others believe that they have a ‘perfect’ life and making it difficult to know what is real. Advertising – Photo shopping models

The fashion industry is seen as one of the main culprits for the formation of unrealistic and unattainable standards, transcending into the way people view themselves. This antianorexia campaign (Reporter, 2013) by Star Models, a Brazilian based modeling agency, highlights the grotesque idea of wanting to be a size 0. However, the reality is that high fashion models spend their lives aspiring to look like the figure in this advert, 'normal' people couldn't possibly keep up and frankly, shouldn't have to. In her book, ‘In Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music’ (McRobbie, 1999), Angela McRobbie scrutinizes how ‘fashion is of course a wholly feminized industry’ and has been a ‘sphere of production and consumption’ for the women in our society. Celebrity influence on normal people Celebrity influence has a huge part to play when distinguishing what the impacts of social media are on women. In ‘Celebrity and Power – Fame in Contemporary Culture’ (Marshall, 1997), P. David Marshall describes the media as ‘powerful in their capacity to shape and frame the messages and representations of particular cultures’. There is no doubt that the media is capable of making an entire society think in a certain way. For example, celebrities are seen by many as role models because of the way they are interpreted on screen and in magazines. Because of this, Anthony Elliott clarifies in ‘Making the Cut’ (Elliott, 2008) that ‘personal identity comes under the spotlight’, someone may look at themselves in relation to this ‘perfect’ person, make comparisons and set goals for something that is completely unfeasible, which continues to ‘celebrate a culture of inauthenticity’. In relation to this, Marshall observes that ‘the celebrity sign is entirely image’, much like an on-line persona, a celebrity is solely understood by the way they are presented to an audience and ‘fixed conceptions of their identity can be made’. Paul


Sophia Watts COP2 Bentley’s article for the Daily Mail examines the pit-falls of admiring celebrities in ‘Celebrity culture ‘is making educated women dim-witted’’ (Bentley, 2011). It focuses on Lisa Bloom’s opinion of women’s attitudes and how in our society they would ‘rather win a TV beauty contest than the Nobel Peace Prize’. If Bloom’s quote is accurate, then even today, the ultimate goal for a woman is to be beautiful, while intellect takes a back seat. Furthermore, Marshall implies that the notion of celebrity is not to be under-estimated, it ‘constructs and deconstructs the social world’ therefore, as stated by Catherine Birndorf, the consequence of ‘obsessing over celebrity culture’ ultimately ‘drains meaning from women’s lives’. Hence, women should be focusing on more important things and ‘embrace serious issues’ rather than fall victim to, as described by Elliott, a ‘narcissistic obsession’. On-line persona, personal identity Models and Fashion Illustration - size 4. Modification of a woman's appearance can be a demonstration of female expression, artistry and empowerment. Not in face a persona, but an extension of personality. Artistry – examples of people in the media who use make-up as an expression of their personality/performance Campaigns – HeForShe – Feminism – Changes so far Definitions – appearance shouldn’t define a person Solution – social fluidity, make-up, fashion, etc. Alicia Keys no make-up campaign Equality of the sexes Choice Ultimately, the step towards a more equal future begins with the acceptance of people’s life choices, irrelevant of gender. To many women, the modification of appearance is a form of artistry, a demonstration of female expression and empowerment. It provides them with an outward means of extending their own personality. Conclusion In conclusion, there is evidently a magnitude of social factors that filter in to our society and therefore a woman's subconscious which may cause her to think about her appearance in a negative way. The problem has filtered down through the Media; magazines, film and TV, products and advertising agencies themselves. Although they have certainly encouraged particular ideologies in order to make women strive to look beautiful/young, the real issue is with the result of having acceptable 'norms' within society and putting people, who are complex beings, in to boxes. Therefore, the solution would be not to discourage women from changing/enhancing their appearance but, as Moran suggests, to encourage ‘an expanding of the aesthetic lexicon’ (Moran, 2012), making it acceptable for the whole of society (men included) to decide on the modification of their appearance freely, without judgement. Furthermore, varying the portrayal of gender within entertainment, by increasing the amount of gender irrelevant roles is a step in the right direction. Including more dynamic female characters on-screen, which are less based on appearance and more on intellect/personality traits, would also benefit to change the social bias.


Sophia Watts COP2 Questions for Pete! Any other academic sources I should look at? In particular, for section 4. Do I have to use the referencing citation for every single quote? How many images should I include? Bibliography Allwood, E.H. and Dazed (2017) Why we still need John Berger’s ways of seeing. Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34166/1/why-we-still-need-ways-of-seeingjohn-berger (Accessed: 28 January 2017). (Allwood and Dazed, 2017) Bentley, P. (2011) Celebrity culture ‘is making educated women dim-witted’. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004072/Celebrity-culture-making-educated-women-dimwitted.html (Accessed: 28 January 2017). (Bentley, 2011) Berger, J. (2008) Modern classics ways of seeing. London: Penguin Classics. (Berger, 2008) Davis, K. (1995) Reshaping the female body: The dilemma of cosmetic surgery. New York: Routledge. (Davis, 1995) Dyer, R. and Department of Film Studies Richard Dyer (1986) Heavenly bodies: Film stars and society. 4th edn. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (Dyer and Department of Film Studies Richard Dyer, 1986) Elliott, A. (2008) Making the cut: How cosmetic surgery is transforming our lives. London: Reaktion Books. (Elliott, 2008) Jamali, S. (2015) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Available at: https://samirajamali.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs/ (Accessed: 28 January 2017). (Jamali, 2015) Marshall, D.P. (1997) Celebrity and power: Fame in contemporary culture. 2nd edn. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Marshall, 1997) McRobbie, A. (1999) In the culture society: Art, fashion and popular music. New York: Taylor & Francis. (McRobbie, 1999) Moran, C. (2012) How to be a woman. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. (Moran, 2012) Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, in Braudy, L and Cohen, M. eds (1999) 'Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, NY: Oxford UP. (Mulvey, 1975) Poehler, A. (2014) Yes please. United Kingdom: Pan MacMillan. (Poehler, 2014) Scott, K. (2013) The body shop’s honest ad campaign - print magazine. Available at: http://www.printmag.com/editors-picks/the-body-shops-honest-ad-campaign/ (Accessed: 28 January 2017). (Scott, 2013) Reporter, D.M. (2013) Powerful anti-anorexia ad campaign tells women ‘you are not a sketch’ using models with fashion illustration proportions. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2311770/Powerful-anti-anorexia-ad-campaign-tellswomen-sketch-using-models-fashion-illustration-proportions.html (Accessed: 28 January 2017). (Reporter, 2013)


Sophia Watts COP2 Sharkey, L. (2014) Average British woman spends ÂŁ140, 000 on hair and cosmetics in her lifetime, research reveals. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/the-staggeringaverage-lifetime-spend-on-cosmetics-and-grooming-revealed-9709654.html (Accessed: 26 January 2017). (Sharkey, 2014) Storey, J.W. (2008) Cultural theory and popular culture: A reader (4th edition). 4th edn. Harlow, England: FT Prentice Hall. (Storey, 2008)


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.