How are society's beauty standards of females and males affecting their identity?
What makes us beautiful?
I’m interested in exploring different cultures’ idea of beauty and how that shapes the identity of both female and males. By exploring individual expressions of beauty in different cultures I would like to understand how that influences peoples view of themselves and what they believe their role in society is. Different cultures ideas of beauty adds to society’s gender norms. I am interested in this question because I love makeup and sociology. I was influenced to think about this from reading an article which explained why a person who wears makeup does not mean that she is not confident. The reason why I read that article was because I was told that I should stop wearing makeup in order to work on my confidence. I was also influenced to think about this question after watching a YouTube video on two women that are defying Brazil’s beauty standards and how they are ostracized by society. The video got me thinking about how if the two Brazilian women moved to say the United States if they would still be as ostracized as in Brazil?
If my first question does not work out I am also interested in the way racism is affecting the U.S economy and causing the middle class to disappear as well as what the U.S can do to re evaluate the training of police in order to end police brutality against minorities.
10 Potential Resources:
- Aesthetic Resistance to Commercial Influences: The Impact of the Eurocentric Beauty Standard on Black College Women
- http://elitedaily.com/women/wear-makeup-when-you-want/1031180/
- https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/brazilian-plastic-surgery-beauty-on-a-budget/57b474c8c087b5b037d4328a
- http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/g3279/weird-beauty/?slide=2
- Beauty Matters. Peg Zeglin Brand. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 57, №1 (Winter, 1999), pp. 1–10
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9FmDBrewA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tneKwarw1Yk
- http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1798&context=etd
- http://reidhoffman.org/shape-your-identity-or-it-will-shape-you/
- https://mic.com/articles/111228/how-western-beauty-ideals-are-hurting-women-across-the-globe#.7LKiFNV3X
Helpful Search Terms:
- beauty standards
- women beauty standards
- men beauty standards
- gender
- identity
- confidence
- Brazilian beauty standards
- plastic surgery
- globalization of beauty
