SOC 0851 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Hair Removal, Eyelid, Droopy
3
o When women fail to achieve the goals set up by the beauty
myth, which they inevitably will (because there is no such thing
as real, objective, and universal beauty), it takes a psychic and
emotional toll on women everywhere
o Women are more dissatisfied on the whole with their bodies
than are men and the rates of dissatisfaction with bodies among
both men and women are increasing over time
o Ideals about what exactly a perfect women’s body looks like are
always changing
o Media bombards women with images of beauty on a daily basis
o When the ideal body type held up for women is so far outside
the range of normal women’s bodies, the possibility of ever
attaining that ideal becomes further and further out of reach for
most women
o When we consider the ways in which beauty is not just highly
gendered but also racialized, classed, and sexualized, achieving
beauty becomes forever out of reach for most women in the
United States as well as around the world
o Women with disabilities are rarely ever held up in popular
culture as images of beauty, and the experiences of many
women with disabilities indicate that, with visible disabilities, the
signs of disability often overwhelm any other impression
individuals might have of a disabled person
• The problem with bodies
o 84% of women have dieted to lose weight compared to 58% of
men
o One survey of young women in the US between the ages of 13
and 18 found that 8% of the girls had vomited during the past
year to lose weight, 2% had used diuretics, and 17% had taken
diet pills
