The Importance of Beauty and Social Norms - Essay Example

The Importance of Beauty and Social Norms 2008 Although beauty has been an important aspect of everyday lives of women, it was, till recently, neglected in western philosophical discourse. It was thought that individualism originated from the mind, which was considered distinct from the body. In the postmodern times, however, there is a significant increase in the study of the sociology of body with the replacement of, as one scholar says “the notion of the body as a productive agent by the hedonistic body with its various manifestations” (Bethelot, 1986, quoted in Jeacle, n.d). While in the Victorian ages, the preoccupation with the body was considered to be restricted to the elites society only, the consumerist society has seen the unification of body and individualism on a mass scale with the advent of ready-to-wear clothing, departmental stores, diet and physical education options. Further, in the present times, the wide variety of fashion commodities that are available to all sections of the population – not necessarily limited to the elite and the bourgeois – means that the expression of beauty through commodities follow some standard patterns. In this paper, I will discuss the concepts of sartorial fashion and beauty-enhancing plastic surgery that have become important tools for expressing both individuality as well as group identity. The role of the media, including films, television and magazines play no mean a role in this identification. One of the most distinctive features of visual culture in any society is the evolving dress code, with its variety of fabrics, styles, colors and trimmings. From clothing to footwear, accessories to make-up, body images to hairstyles, the conglomerate that is known as fashion and beauty reflects largely the cultural mores of the society. The origin of the word, fashion, may be traced to the Latin word, factio (which is also the origin of the political term, faction, thus hinting at fashion as a means for political statement) or to facere, which means to make or to do (implying that the word originally signified what people do instead of signifying as now as what we wear). The word facere is also the origin of the word fetish and, ironically, clothes are perhaps the most ‘fetished’ commodities to promote beauty in today’s society (Bernard, 1996). The concern to adapt oneself to the social norms of beauty has defined gender roles, social status and sexual identities in the modern times. Much of what apparently seems to be individuality, however, is shaped by societal roles (Davis, 1994). The way men and women clothe themselves has changed over the years such that fashion has become a means of communication that is quite different from what it was earlier (Crane, 2001). In the nineteenth century, clothing signified social identity, particularly in France and America. In contrast, late twentieth and twenty first century fashion has followed the multi-code societal norms, in which fashion signifies lifestyles, gender identities, ethnicity and age but much less the social status. While nineteenth century French designers made clothes specifically for the local elite, the designers of today generally cater to the global markets, the sensibilities of which are constructed through the use of popular cinema, television and music. Entwhistle (2000) further argues that fashion as a means to identity formation cannot be discussed in isolation to the body since it is through the articulation of bodily identity – gender and sexuality – that clearly situates one’s societal identity. Typically, feminists view the obsession with beauty as male oppression. The Victorian corset, for example, is supposed to be the male fetish with constriction of the body that serves the purpose of sexual gratification. Wilson (1995), on the other hand, poses the thesis that through history, beauty has been used for a complexity of purposes, from developing an identity to subverting it and not just as a means of establishing social norms. To Wilson (1995), the corset was a symbol of rebellion for the Victorian woman, rather than submission, to masochism as it was typically the ambitious and aggressive woman instead of the subjugated middle or lower class women who adopted the use of the corset. Hence, instead of the popular notion of bourgeois conformity, Victorian dress, in Wilson’s view, was a symbol of rebellion though through a group identification. Wilson (1995) carries the theory of fashion for sexual nonconformity even to the 1950s and 1960s, when wearing tight girdles and well-fitted high heels had become the norm. During the period when the second-generation feminists were making a mark in society, wearing high heels were, according to Wilson, a mark of sexual aggression. While beauty has been accepted as a medium of communication, it remains to be seen whether it expresses an attitude towards individualism or a group identity. In this context, it would be interesting to take a look, as Miller et al (2005) have done, at the play (also filmed later) Educating Rita by Willy Russell (1991). In Act 1 Scene 1 (page 101), Rita, a naïve hairdresser tells her Open University teacher Frank, “But they expect too much. They walk in the hairdressers’ an’ an hour later, they wanna walk out a different person. I tell them I’m a hairdresser, not a plastic surgeon. It’s worse when there’s a fad on, y’now like Farrah Fawcett Majors”, a character in a television soap opera. In her characteristic style, Rita explains what beauty should intrinsically mean, “these women, you see, they come to the hairdresser’s cos they wanna be changed. But if you want to change y’have to do it from the inside, don’t y? Know like I’m doin’. Do y’ think I will be able to do it?”. The exchange between Rita and Frank demonstrates the attitude towards beauty that develops into a group identity, often initiated by popular stars in the mass media, not a style statement that emerges from the inner self. Leitch (1997) describes the pop star Madonna’s image building exercise through her use of a diverse range of identities – ranging from post-punk trash to vintage Hollywood - in her extravagant stage performances. She has guided western youth culture, selling various Madonna memorabilia including t-shirts, make-up kits and endorsed merchandise. But, the fashion identify that Madonna signifies is a combination of the modernist – through her extravagant subversion of normative culture – while also postmodernist – upholding the dominant culture without destabilizing the existing fetish. With no dramatic political statements being made, the postmodern society hinges on to the tendency of forming group identities in a narrowly focused commodified society. While liberating beauty from the clutch of the elite by making designer labels and Madonna-type fashion available to all and sundry, democratization of beauty has meant that symbols of individualism – which would perhaps earlier be considered acts of rebellion – has reached the previously marginalized groups. Beauty has, therefore, come to reflect a collectivized global attitude and not simply as that of individual creativity. Women fashion magazines like Vogue, Glamour and Essence have been powerful vehicles for carrying the capitalistic beauty trends ahead. While these magazines have been vocal about sexual abuses on women and the development of the independent identity of women, they have also been the platform for exhibition of the male gaze through the sexuality of the photographs carried. Through photographs, two streams of identity construction are evident – one that subjugates the woman in the domain of economic, cultural and physical power relations and the other that is independent and willful, particularly through the deliberate use of fashion clothing and make-up to enhance beauty (Leitch, 1996). The development of group identities can be viewed from the trends in television programs that specialize in lifestyle learning. For example, BBC’s What Not to Wear is one of the first programs on makeover of individuals towards a group identity. Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall, who have been writing on style tips in the Daily Telegraph, present this show and following its immense popularity, have followed up with a best-selling book on the same topic. The program, in the form of a reality show, picks on an individual – typically an unfashionable person recommended by friend and family for a makeover – whose sartorial style provokes horror to the presenters. Subsequently, the individual is handed over a GBP 2000 check and guided through a shopping experience directed to make her sexy and beautiful in the ordinary sense of the term. Contradicting Rita’s view of inner self-identity in Educating Rita, the presenters aim to make over the personality and increase in self-esteem in the individual through developing a typical group identity in beauty. While the individual initially resists (perhaps a mock resistance) in the transformation, each episode of the show ultimately ends happily, with the individual acknowledging greater confidence and friend and family satisfied with the makeover. Various other lifestyles programs, like 10 Years Younger (Channel 4) and You Are What You Eat (Channel 4) promote such group identification (Miller, et al, 2005). Besides clothing, the tendency in postmodernist society towards group identity through beauty is also evident in the obsession with slenderness. As Bordo (1995) says, "To be slim is not enough----the flesh must not ‘wiggle.’" While in the nineteenth century, the body and clothing signified social status, in the present capitalist society, slenderness has come to be a show of power without the explicit depiction of material wealth. Just as managing wealth has become as important as amassing it, the lack of slenderness in body has come to symbolize the lack of will and control. The group identification with slenderness is further promoted through the mass media with unending streams of commercials regarding diet supplements and physical fitness equipment. Just like in clothes fashion, the consumerist society constructs the identity that the group aspires for. Whether slenderness is the true image of a beautiful woman remains controversial but undoubtedly the idea has made remarkable impact on young women. The image of women from the early age of print and other forms of media has been used to promote sales of certain products, mostly used by women but also for which buyers are males only. The purpose is to physically allure or rouse the purchaser through the image of daringly dressed women. Tall women with slender looks fit better to this slot. So, they are the ones who are hyped as the model of beauty. Women also try hard to loose their weight or undertake plastic surgery to alter one or some of body features even at the cost of their health. The plastic surgery industry, in order to commodify the feminine body, has developed a normative concept of “normal body”. In this projection, even a normal body is turned abnormal. For example, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons launched a media campaign in the 1980s describing women with very small breasts as abnormal and describing the disease as micromastia. Breast implantations were supposed to cure the disease and the society applied for permission to do so to the Food and Drug Association accordingly (McNamara, 2006). Proponents of vaginoplasty, who endeavor to undertake a surgical technique on the vagina, target the procedure on women who have their genital muscles loose after childbirth. One such surgeon claims that the procedure is “an essential service to women with certain physical dysfunction” (quoted in McNamara). Women too fall for this perception of “abnormality” if the body features do not conform to the gendered norms. Interviews of women who undergo plastic surgery have shown that most consider this as a means to become “normal” and increase their self-esteem, without underscoring the fact that an artificial process has been used to bring about this ‘normalcy’ (McNamara, 2006). Besides the notion of abnormality, procedures to alter primary physical characteristics through plastic surgery are often used in the name of hygiene. Feminine cleanliness, too, conform to the notions of daintiness that the society imposes. According to Davis (quoted in McNamara, 2006), “The same social world that generates the mythos of the delicate, proper lady has also continually spawned and recycled dirty jokes about “vaginal dentate”, fatal odors, and other horror-story imagery about female genitalia. The off-color disgust has always been tied in a complex way to a vast, off-color desire, and these both have been concomitant with the prescription of the dainty”. The media plays an important role in genderizing the female body. The representation of Size Zero female body, with large breasts and flat stomachs, are what women want to emulate. These idealized bodies are often impossible to achieve without plastic surgery. Pornographic magazines, videos and films also portray an idealized sexual female body. The representation of the female body as a commodity, enhanced by the media, has given the necessary impetus to the plastic surgery industry. In particular, in this gendered heterosexual world, the female body is distinctive from the masculine body. Angela King (2004, cited in McNamara, 2006) insists in the Foucaultian paradigm that women discipline their bodies through fashion, make-up and surgery in order to correct their bodies and suit the societal norms of beauty. Thus, the concept of beauty has evolved over historical sequences as a tool for conformity or for subversion. Whether it is the social backdrop of conformity of societal norms or there is rebellion in the air, fashion follows the dictates of expression of group identity. In the Victorian sartorial style, the body-hugging extravagant fashion can be read as either a symbol of male oppression or female sexual aggression, but in either case it gave rise to a group identity. Similarly, in the capitalist consumerist society, the mass production of standardized fashion and easy reach of designer labels have democratized fashion towards a global culture. Even the apparently rebellious fashions that reflect political agenda are really expressions of solidarity with group identities formed through the political ideologies. Works Cited Bernard, Malcolm, Fashion as Communication, London: Routledge, 1996 Bordo, Susan, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body, University of California Press, 1995 Butler, Judith, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, New York: Routledge, 1993 Crane, Diane, Fashion and its Social Agendas: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing, University of Chicago Press, 2001 Davis, Fred, Fashion, Culture and Identity, University of Chicago Press, 1994 Entwhistle, Joanne, The Fashioned Body: Dress and Modern Society, Polity Press, July 2000 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, New York: Vintage Books, 1977 Jeacle, Ingrid, Accounting and the Construction of the Standard Body, retrieved from http://les.man.ac.uk/ipa/papers/9.pdf Jeffreys, Sheila, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, New York: Routledge, 2005 King, Angela, “The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body”, Journal of International Women Studies, 5.2, 2004 Leitch, Vincent. B. Costly Compensations: Postmodern Fashion, Politics, Identity, Modern Fiction Studies, 42, Spring, 1996, 111-28 Miller, Nod et al, Learning to be Different: Identity, Embodiment and Popular Culture, Paper presented at the 35th Annual SCUTREA Conference July 5-July 7 2005, University of Sussex, England, UK, retrieved from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/142018.htm McNamara, Karen Roberts, Pretty Woman: Genital Plastic Surgery and Production of the Sexed Female Subject, 2006, http://www.gnovisjournal.org/files/Karen-Roberts-McNamara-Pretty-Woman.pdf Wilson, Elizabeth, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, Rutgers University Press, 2003 Read More