Female Beauty Systems

Female beauty systems everywhere are complex, integrating markers of class, status, power, and sexuality to perform the fundamental function of sorting individuals into categories of “more” or “less” desirable. Heirs to the tradition of courtly love, modern western female beauty systems tend to share the norm of man as pursuer, woman as pursued, having developed around the trope of the madly-desiring poet or knight supplicating his aloof and lovely lady for her favor. The apparent longevity of the courtly love tradition raises the question of whether the way in which it structures male desire in reaction to female beauty is part of a “universal” tendency, an evolutionary adaptation, despite clear evidence that female beauty systems are also, in fact, socially constructed, and reflect enormous ambivalence about the power and performance of beauty. Although modern western female beauty systems are routinely demystified and contested today, the purveyors of culture that support them—institutional, intellectual, artistic, commercial, and popular—continue as they always have to construe women as objects of male desire. Still, within this basic structure, the systems have varied greatly across time and space, with women using beauty as a form of social capital in widely differing ways. Moreover, as individuals have begun to experience their bodies as malleable and endlessly transformable, rather than unruly and unyielding, many have begun to experience beauty less as a given and more as a project. The nine essays collected here examine a number of different Western female beauty systems over the centuries, considering how women have complied with, contributed to, profited or suffered from, and resisted them.

The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."

"Beauty Secrets" explores the links between appearance, gender and sexuality; it empowers women to share the secrets of their relationship to imposed standards of beauty showing how women are constantly required to 'pass' by wrapping their 'unacceptable' and 'undisguised' selves in layers of conformity to acceptable beauty standards. -- back cover.

Should western beauty practices, ranging from lipstick to labiaplasty, be included within the United Nations understandings of harmful traditional/cultural practices? By examining the role of common beauty practices in damaging the health of women, creating sexual difference, and enforcing female deference, this book argues that they should. In the 1970s feminists criticized pervasive beauty regimes such as dieting and depilation, but some ‘new’ feminists argue that beauty practices are no longer oppressive now that women can ‘choose’ them. However, in the last two decades the brutality of western beauty practices seems to have become much more severe, requiring the breaking of skin, spilling of blood and rearrangement or amputation of body parts. Beauty and Misogyny seeks to make sense of why beauty practices are not only just as persistent, but in many ways more extreme. It examines the pervasive use of makeup, the misogyny of fashion and high-heeled shoes, and looks at the role of pornography in the creation of increasingly popular beauty practices such as breast implants, genital waxing and surgical alteration of the labia. It looks at the cosmetic surgery and body piercing/cutting industries as being forms of self-mutilation by proxy, in which the surgeons and piercers serve as proxies to harm women’s bodies, and concludes by considering how a culture of resistance to these practices can be created. This essential work will appeal to students and teachers of feminist psychology, gender studies, cultural studies, and feminist sociology at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and to anyone with an interest in feminism, women and beauty, and women’s health.

This book offers a unique perspective on the subject of female beauty, exploring the scientific principles that underlie it. It provides insights into the cultural and societal factors that contribute to the perception of beauty. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

All Women Are Beautiful is the most comprehensive book ever written on how to improve female attractiveness, with over 1,000 scientific studies referenced. No woman should ever feel inferior because of the way she looks; every single woman is beautiful. A plain woman is like a diamond in the rough that just needs polishing, and with cosmetic surgery, makeup, styling, and training, any woman can be a perfect 10. False statements: 1. You can't make a plain person attractive 2. You can't change bone structure 3. You can't take more than 10 years off a face "I broke all three rules and set a new world record." - Cindy Jackson The book explains how every woman can improve her outer beauty and inner beauty. Although some individuals deem certain women to be unappealing and unapproachable, the book confirms that there are no ugly women; there are only women who do not know how to look pretty. BOOK OUTLINE Introduction: The many advantages of being beautiful and why beauty matters. Chapter 1: Perfect 10 Face Increase the attractiveness of your face with cosmetic procedures, makeup, and other techniques. Chapter 2: Perfect 10 Skin Achieve perfect, flawless, and youthful skin with scientifically proven skin care products, supplements, and other techniques. Chapter 3: Perfect 10 Hair How to get the right color and style, grow your hair faster, and make your hair shiny, and thick. Chapter 4: Perfect 10 Body Achieve a perfect WHR and BMI. How to get a 24 inch waist or smaller, how to naturally increase the projection of your buttocks, how to get thin. Chapter 5: Perfect 10 Breasts How to increase the size and firmness of your breasts naturally without surgery. Chapter 6: Perfect 10 Health How to achieve perfect health, disease resistance, high energy, and a strong immune system with scientifically proven methods. Chapter 7: Perfect 10 Style How to select stylish clothing, accessories, and scent. Chapter 8: Perfect 10 Elegance Achieve elegance by learning proper movement, voice, speech, manners, class, and sophistication. Chapter 9: Perfect 10 Personality How to improve your charm, confidence, sassiness, positivity, and intelligence. Chapter 10: Perfect 10 Character How to improve your inner beauty.

Reshaping... looks at women's involvement in cosmetic surgery and raises the question of why women put themselves under the knife for operations which are painful, risky and expensive and often leave them in worse shape than before.