Society’s perspective of beauty customarily causes men and women to attempt to conform to a standard sought suitable through the eyes of their peers. Jennifer Morgan, the author of “Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology”, was biracial, however, identified as being African American. Morgan never felt beautiful in comparison to society’s standards and wrote this article in order to determine why the images of African American women were hypersexualized as well as when society began viewing these women this way. She also wanted to know how the male gaze contributed to slavery and why black women can’t be the standard of beauty even in today’s world.…
This inferiority complex is still present in today’s society and still has a negative effect on the self esteem and self perceptions of Black people. This is why I wasn’t surprised nor shocked at the representations of beauty because I experienced it firsthand which was detrimental to my personal self esteem and self…
In America, beauty dominantly follows white standards consisting of the typical straight blonde hair and the striking blue eyes. Hamm states, “Despite the racial progress that proceeded Lupita’s swift rise…
Studies by the journal of Qualitative Sociology found that racial beliefs and stereotypes of mainstream media shape how people think about identities and ethnicities that fall outside of the American hegemonic norm. Hegemony is a word that describes mainstream ideologies that have been normalized. In the United States, for example, the hegemonic beauty standard is a Eurocentric one, one that values thinness, White, straight hair, and thin noses (Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper 16). People’s perception about what is pretty or beautiful does not exist in a vacuum. It has been informed by the time period they are born in and by the culture around. By transmitting selective images and ideas of female beauty, television not only teaches women to accept certain beliefs or values, but that they have to fit into a certain hegemonic body type to be seen as beautiful (Pyke and Dang…
Discrimination can take many forms and exist every aspect of society. After many years the fight against discrimination is still an ongoing process and for many it’s a daily struggle for many. The short documentary “The Color of beauty” examines the “blatant racism”(00:20) and discrimination that occurs within the fashion industry. The film revolves around Renee Thompson, an ethnic model trying to overcome the racism that exists in the fashion industry in order to make it on top. In today’s modernizing fashion has become a powerful driving force. The film, argues issue that Caucasian models are preferred over colored models, which is evident with the ratio of colored model to Caucasian models in most fashion choice. The film also points out that the difficulty colored models face due to a biased standard that the fashion industry has on beauty. It argues that more often or not, if a colored model is chosen, it’s due to his/her “unique” future. These so called “unique”(02:33) feature is common feature that many Caucasians. Elizabeth St. Philip, the director of the film, utilized a combination of logic, credibility, and emotional devices, in arguing and persuading an audience on the issue presented.…
In the article “Betrayal Feminism”, the author stated, “Another major obstacle among feminists of my generation is how black women are still expected to fit white women standards to beauty and how little white women acknowledge or understand this. while white women are also held to unreasonable beauty standards, it is frustrating how often many women try to skirt around the reality that racism adds another potent strain to the standards of beauty that black women are held to”( Findlen, page 258). The authors talks about how black women do not fit in when it comes to the beauty of white women. It is frustrating how there is division between how all women should look like. Black women do not need to be in the same category as white women. Black…
Individuals are sometimes secretly ashamed of the physical characteristics common to their ethnicity and strive to look like something deemed beautiful by everyone else. In the article “Beautiful?” by Kiri Davis, the author describes how children in America are collectively influenced into following the dominant culture. “As children growing up in America we are acculturated by mainstream society to believe as the dominant culture believes. Sometimes even our schools keep us ignorant of who we are and distort or omit versions of our history”. In other words, the very school system we enrolled in is very well capable, and willing, to leave out certain information to better conform us to their set standards and ideas. Many are able to recognize the importance of being prideful of one’s race and seeing the characteristics associated with it as beautiful. They essentially “wake up” and realize the importance of their culture and heritage, in terms of Harro’s article “The Cycle of Liberation”. However, society’s is not just based appearance, it is often based on status, actions, and even the way you carry yourself. Many characteristics are taken into account within a society if not all of them are met by someone; they can either become an outcast, or a…
Although, some black women alter the texture of their hair it's because of fearfulness of the economic compulsion, and the unknown, it’s due the heavy influence America's Eurocentric society has. But, taking charge and deciding for themselves on what hairstyle fits them best, whether it's cornrows or big afro, black women are resisting against the white beauty standard. Challenging America's image of beauty and black women worth, I've decided to go natural to challenge the view, and I couldn't be more proud. Nowadays, a daily motto I go by is: "Relaxer? If my fro makes you feel uncomfortable then you are the one who needs to relax" –…
When Ginika first arrives in America, she finds out that most of the white girls are skinny, so she starts to lose weight. When Ifemelu goes to a job interview, Aunt Uju suggests her to relax her hair so that she and white person will look more alike . All these details illustrate that people, no matter they are white or not, consider not looking like white as not being beautiful. Servility is the eager to look like…
As if being the offspring of the city’s Black power couple was not enough of an edge for me, I also was granted by God my mother’s pale complexion. It is not hyperbole when I tell you every day of my life I have been asked about the origins of my unique skin color. One of my most prominent memories attached to my complexion was when an older White gentleman stopped me on my way out of a restaurant to tell me I was, “The prettiest little coon he had ever seen.” When I looked into his eyes, I saw no trace of malice, he genuinely thought I was beautiful and that that was the way to express his shock at how glorious of an anomaly I was. As if Black, woman and beautiful simply cannot coexist in human form.…
From the dieting tricks that promise to shave off weight within weeks, to the constant gossiping of the fashion trends of a femme fatale, the message is clear: the appearances of women matter. Especially prevalent for the past few decades, the pressure for young women to meet a certain physical standard has been growing ever since. Through the influence of the media and the scrutiny of others, women face the stress of carefully choosing each change they add to their appearance, going so far as to permanently change their genetic features in order to conform to what society has defined as beautiful, and such an issue calls for change.…
This, according to Malcolm’s criticism, was how white imprisoned the Blacks mentally, and that this was even worse than the physical nature of slavery itself (47-48). In order to combat this, Blacks have to learn to love their own appearance. For the African-Americans today, they still struggle with the same concept of beauty, body image, and hair of the past. Although some of them straighten their hair, it does not necessarily mean they are mimicking features of European hair styles. As Jones and Shorter-Gooden argued, “Not every woman who decides to straighten her hair or change the color of her eyes by wearing contacts believes that beauty is synonymous with whiteness” (178). Basically, black women are experimenting, even with hairs that are associated with European styles, to spark an expression of creativity or for employment reasons (Tracey, Owens Patton,…
The college student’s “doll test” did not have surprising results to me. We only have to look at our mothers, sisters, wives, and significant others to see the low self-esteem which I believe most black women do not see it that way. Wigs, hair extensions and hair relaxing ‘is what everyone is doing’; do not leave out the ‘tons’ and ‘tons’ of makeup that is sold annually in this country. We, blacks, are using a white standard of ‘beauty’ to define ourselves.…
Every time we turn on the television, open a magazine, or scroll through Instagram we are bombarded with images of what the media has deemed beautiful. It is not surprising to see a tall, fit, blonde wearing Guess jeans. Now, there are more diverse people that represent the media. We no longer have a one sided view of beauty. Standing next to Candice Swanepoel are models with curves, short models, and models of color. For example, Winnie Harlow is a high fashion model. She is black, which is one way in which she breaks the standard beauty stereotype, but she also has a condition called Vitiligo. This condition affects one’s skin. It creates patches of skin with the absence of color – the skin looks very white. Another notable person that had…
References: Banks, I. (2000). Hair matters: Beauty, power, and Black women’s consciousness. New York, NY: New York University Press.…