The Myth Surroundind Female Beauty

The Myth Surrounding Female Beauty

Research that I have undertaken for this project has led me to literature on Lacan’s mirror stage, the history of the mirror, feminist theories and issues surrounding female beauty. My visual work is focused around the female body and is intended to portray the idea of the self criticism women place upon themselves and their bodies. It also represents the way in which many women are not happy with their bodies in comparison to the perfect body society dictates they should aspire to possess. Therefore for this literary review I have decided to concentrate on The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (1990) and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1993).

In the first chapter of her book Wolf discusses the idea of a beauty myth that has been

created, surrounding women and explains its origin. She describes the beauty Myth as

being:

�….a political weapon against women’s advancement’ (p2)

and suggests that this idea has been in force since the Industrial Revolution when women

first released themselves from domesticity (p2). She talks about the Beauty myth being

something women wish to embody and men wishing to possess a woman who embodies it (p2). Is this the reality? Do we, as women, aspire to be the typified female beauty? Do men desire the woman who is or who aspires to be beautiful? Wolf states that strong men, apparently, strive for beautiful women as beautiful women are seen to be more reproductively successful (p2) which therefore places assumptions on beauty being correlated to a woman’s fertility. This, Wolf says, is based around sexual selection and is inevitably unchangeable (p3).

Wolf suggests that beauty was not a serious issue with regards to becoming a potential wife before the Revolution as women’s work skills, material shrewdness, strength and fertility were of more value to men seeking marriage (p4). However, the beauty myth is not just about the male opinion of women and surely the idea of the beauty myth is not just with reference to potential wives but refers to all women?

In de Beauvoir’s book she refers to magazines that have asked the question; What has become of women? (p38) She then suggests that we should first ask; �What is woman?’ According to one, the answer was �woman is a womb’(p36) Does this imply that women are only regarded as a procreation machine? Is this what Woolf describes as the ideal requirement that men desire in a prospective wife (p4)?

As women became more fairly included in education, the economy, law, and culture and pursued typical male orientated professions a more private reality took over the female conscious according to Wolf (p6). She suggests that these more liberated women are now stronger materially but still do not feel as free as they would like to be as now they can be weakened psychologically (p6).

Wolf states that after the Industrial Revolution technological advances meant that for the first time reproductions could be made and therefore with the invention of photography images of beautiful women began to appear in advertisements, postcards and the like (p5). Here, Wolf insists, began the rise of the Beauty Myth and the beginnings of self criticism among women (p5).

However if we consider art, in particular paintings, we can look back and clearly see that the female image has always been reproduced and has been focused on female beauty in a great deal of early paintings. In particular, the renaissance paintings of Venus and those of the woman and her mirror. Were these not images of women contemplating themselves? Did these women not aspire to be beautiful and desirable?

These images of women and mirrors can be deemed as narcissistic in their representation of the female sex. De Beauvoir focuses on this in chapter twenty two and states that women are seen to be the more narcissistic of the sexes (p661). She talks about women not receiving recognition as individuals through their functions as wives, housekeepers and mothers and therefore being forced to find their individuality from within their person (p661). However, times have changed and women do have many more responsibilities. Yes, many women become wives and mothers and are happy with just that but many more women have careers that they are proud of and receive recognition for the work they do and some women strive for both.

In addition to the pressures of being successful and the responsibilities we, as women, place on ourselves today we are also made to feel insecure about our appearance and feel the need to strive to achieve society’s notion of the perfect body.

Many women are ashamed to admit these feelings of insecurity and feel that as strong, individual and powerful liberated women and according to Wolf (p1) such trivial concerns really should not matter. Wolf states that some women are wondering if these worries are to do with a relationship between female beauty and female liberation (p6). I have to disagree somewhat as I; personally, do not feel guilty at having the similar freedom as our male counterparts. However the idea that all women aspire to be beautiful does have an air of truth. If you ask most women about what they would wish for or change about themselves, if they had the opportunity; they would almost definitely suggest some physical alteration to themselves as to be beautiful is deemed to be worthy and is part of the Beauty Myth.

Wolf