For as long as humans have been around, there have been beauty standards. What people wear, how they style their hair, skin tones, and body types have changed repeatedly throughout history. Beauty varies from culture to culture. One common characteristic these beauty standards have is that they are all portraying the “ideal” or “perfect” body, which people try to strive for. It is clear that there is no “perfect” body, even though we are deceived to believe there is. Throughout time so many beauty standards have been thrown in our faces that we go to extreme ends to have our own bodies be “perfect” when in reality, there is no such thing. Paintings, statues, and toys such as Barbie dolls are all influenced by how we view bodies in the past and the present.

To complete our study, the first step is to research articles and determine if it fits into our topic of beauty standards from the 1920s to present. Our genre is historical because we are looking at beauty standards over the course of one hundred years. We are looking at this perspective from an economical point of view. Advertisements have an impact on how society views certain things. When people sees advertisements about clothes where the models are super thin, it makes them want to be super thin to fit in. Society should really be embracing all body types, but companies believe that does not sell. Some companies have even said that their clothing lines are just for beautiful or thin people. Things are starting to change, but the prevalent ideology is to have a thin body.

We want to find meaningful, credible articles to give us information on our topic and pictures of statues, sculptures, and other types of art to show our audience what it would look like. Our audience is young adults. Young adults, especially females, today are prone to advertisements that try to convince them to change the way they look because society will accept them if they appear a certain way. To be able to get the population of young female adults to be interested and read the article, we would be most likely to have an attention grabber clickbait title that would make them question themselves. We want to write a formal blog post. We are still working out the details and we know that we don’t want a scientific or research paper. The usage of imagery would be a crucial part of the process in which to keep our audience informed and hook to the article. Pictures would also be included to help our audience visualize what we are talking about.

In order to obtain the best and most reliable information, we will read an extensive amount of articles. We will need to spend some time in determining which articles are reliable and give the best representation of body image during that time with the most evidence to correctly determine if it is accurate. We will be looking at and analyzing different images, such as paintings, sculptures and personal images of women in different time periods ranging from the 1920s to present day. We chose to exclude surveys, polls, questionnaires, etc in our research process because we are using research from previous articles. We also decided to not do a scientific or research paper, mainly because a lot of our research can be shown and further analyzed by images. We decided that a blog post or something similar will answer our question based on our research in the best way.

In a way we are working on a historical article on the standard of beauty, but at the same time, we also are using a bit of psychology to hook our audience. In a way, we don’t really use psychology as we only present images relating to the beauty standard of those time periods, it is also not fully historical as we might present our image and make speculations based on the features and details. Our work will be the combination between historical and psychology as we target the audience with artwork from the past and using our speculation and imagery to maybe lead our audience to a healthy lifestyle.

 

Barbie has been one of the biggest global cultural icons for sixty years, first appearing at the New York Toy Fair in 1959. At first, it was represented as a way of telling women they could do anything they wanted, but since beauty standards have evolved Barbie has been remade multiple times in an attempt to keep it relevant. For example, one of the first remakes of Barbie was “Slumber Party Barbie” which included a bathroom scale that had a weight of 110 on it as well as “a one-page diet book with one simple rule: “DON’T EAT!” (Giang, 2016, 1).

Although in the next year, they renamed the doll and took out the scale while the diet book remained, this still shows a huge and prominent beauty standard of having to weight a certain amount. Most importantly this gave the impression, mostly to young girls, that you shouldn’t eat in order to look like Barbie. For years to come, Barbie was remade with different themes and many different beauty standards represented in them. It was not until recently that Barbie had different body shapes and other skin colors besides white. The first African American Barbie was made in 1980, over 20 years after Barbie came out. There was also a controversy when they released another African American Barbie in partnership with Oreo Cookies. Because this doll was called “Oreo Fun Barbie,” there was a recall because many people saw “Oreo” as a derogatory term. Since there are not many Barbies or dolls in general with different skin tones other than white, it shows that one of the biggest beauty standards is racial discrimination.

It wasn’t until recently that Barbie has released dolls with different body shapes. From the beginning, Barbie had been portraying an “hourglass” like figure, with a tiny, unrealistic waist size.

There has been much debate over whether Barbie affects how young children view body image. Exhibiting an exaggerated thin body and out of proportion body part such as arms and legs, few views this as an ideal body type. In “Is Barbie bad for body image,” the article discusses that “almost 40% of children are thought to be dissatisfied with the way they look, and girls as young as five report weight concerns and express a desire to be thinner” (Yager, 2018). This is surprising due to the young age these girls are expressing distaste with their own bodies, however, this age is the audience Barbie is directed to which establishes a stigma for young girls to want to look like this very popular playing doll.

The articles continues by mentioning that body image is complex, and that there are certain stereotypes, regarding body image, in the media children watch that suggests that being thinner is better. Growing into teenagers and adults, these people grow up believing that a certain body shape is more desirable because of what media and advertisements have shown them all throughout their lives.

In many societies and cultures, women are often presented in works of art, such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. Although the beauty standard now is to have a slimmer and toned body shape as opposed in previous times in history, a more heavier set women was seen as strong, able to produce babies, and able to hunt and provide. Nowadays, most people’s body image is represented through modeling images or self taken images, usually posted on social media. Artwork is highly recognized by many people and can be a great influence of beauty standards.

The Aphrodite of Knidos is a famous statue that “established a model for the ideal female nude: tall and poised, with small breasts and broad hips” (Piazza, 2018, 56). Also, she was portrayed with a curvy abdominal area. Greek statues were realistic representations of the human body. They were not ultra-thin. For women, having wide hips was beneficial to having children. Males were expected to be strong and muscular, and this is reflected in their statues. This expression of realistic take on sculpture does not exist in The Aphrodite of Knidos alone but rather to be spreading across time and region. Several noticeable examples are Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch, Medici Venus, and Venus Callipyge in Ancient Roman.

In as early as the The Paleolithic Era, the beauty standard was to be more on the heavier side as opposed to today’s standards, that you have to be small and skinny in order to be beautiful. During The Paleolithic Era, “large breasts, large hips and a healthy stomach” (Petty, 2018, 1) meant that you could bear many children and that “A big healthy body was all that mattered because you were your own method of survival.” This demonstrates that at the beginning stages of human life, it was more common and appreciated if a women was of a heavier set. For example, The Venus of Willendorf, is a statue that was created as a paradigm for fertility and this statue, although it was an exaggerated version, it represented this body type.

In many sculptures or works of art that display a woman or her figure, appear to have “feminine” traits, such as seeming to be “soft,” delicate, slacking musculature and often have an “hourglass” shaped figure. Different time periods, of course, had different representations of how a woman’s body should look like. For example, during the early 11th century, woman had more wider hips and a more “fuller” shape, often which was looked as something good because it meant they were able to bare children. In contrast, in 1531, the painting Les Trois Grâces, meaning The Three Graces, showed the depiction of women during this time period as “thin, sinuous, and softly rounded physiques.” (Kunitz, 2017).  This representation of a woman’s body seems to be similar to what it is today although the “ideal body” has changed numerous times since then and now.

Many pieces of art from a paintings to sculptures are still looked at as representations of one’s body but most displays of the “perfect body image” are shown through, photos such as photoshoots, social media posts or just plain photographs as opposed to the works of art previously done.

From the early 1800s into the mid to late 1900s, pin up girls were a phenomenon of soldiers and civilians alike. The Pin Up era intended for posters of models to be hung up on walls, hence the term “pin up.” The typical pin up girl had “the rosy cheeks, bouncy curls, hourglass figure” (Frank, 2014). They started with advertising posters featuring the woman’s body in pants instead of long skirts, thus allowing the female form to be shown. This is where the obsession with legs began. Although this was as minor shift in women’s clothing, it caused major controversy. The mainstream culture of this time had never seen anything such as a woman’s legs being revealed. By wearing pants instead of skirts, it made the woman more sexualized but also more masculine because during this time period, pants were only associated with males.

Moving from there, the advertising became more enticing, showing more leg and sexualizing women more so than before. These ads are used in calendars in which the pin up models are called “calendar girls” (Frank, 2014). Using calendars as a way to advertise was a seemingly genius marketing strategy because it would be a year long ad. However, the first calendar didn’t do as well as thought to have. In 1903, the calendar market began to rise (Frank, 2014) and since then there has been multiple calendars with this theme of nude or partially nude woman.

Marilyn Monroe was considered one of the most beautiful women in the 50s and 60s. She was an actress and sex symbol with one of the most famous examples of an hourglass figure. She had both fans and critics. After wearing a low cut red dress to a party, a columnist called her “cheap and vulgar,” and in response to this, she posed in a potato sack, still looking absolutely stunning (Marilyn).

Interestingly enough, Marilyn Monroe posed nude once and the pictures were sold to Western Lithograph Company, a calendar company (Santiago, 2016). Then comes the invention of Playboy introducing a whole new level of pinup. In the first issue, Hugh Hefner, purchased the nude photos of Monroe from the Western Lithography Company and used them in the magazine as well as placing her on the cover in a slightly risque jumpsuit. Eventually near the 1950s, the sultry pictures in the magazine exceeded the popularity of the pin up girl, where it had begun. Thus leaving the pin up girl to be collected instead of produced.

What women have done in order to beautify themselves with makeup has dramatically changed through the ages based on what was considered to be beautiful pertaining to a woman’s face. Starting in ancient egypt with exaggerated eyeliner using kohl to the Elizabethan era with the white face makeup signified with a red lip to japan with pale white foundation used on geishas. In modern day makeup, the use of foundation, eyeliner, mascara, along with many other makeup products, can change your appearance. Makeup has a huge impact on one’s life. It can determine whether or not you get a job, because women are considered more professional if they wear makeup.

Throughout history, makeup trends have changed with seemingly every decade. For example, in the 1920s woman wore very heavy makeup but in the 1960s the trend was accentuating the eyes with bright and bold colors and in the 1990s, grunge was the major makeup trend. Just like the changing makeup trends, the icons representing these trends changed as well. For instance, in the 1950s Marilyn Monroe was the face everyone associated with, while in the 1980s, Blondie embraced the brightly colored eye shadow.

There have also been new products, techniques and ideas as makeup has evolved. For example, defining brows and contouring weren’t as popular as they are now. It seems as though many people want the “chiseled” look and go to many lengths to get it. As well as each era having its own unique set of standards for makeup, usually in relation to their culture. For instance, in Ancient Greek, unibrows were very common and popular because it portrayed “natural beauty” and those who couldn’t grow one themselves, would animal hair or use kohl to make one. Compared to nowadays, unibrows are almost never seen as a trend because many people like the trend of full carved out and defined brows.

In relation to the “sex appeal” of skin tones, nowadays, many beauty industries are creating a wider variety of shade ranges for products such as foundation and concealer. The common trend was that the lighter or paler you were, the more attractive and “healthy” you looked but now it seems as though many people tend to go for the darker or tanned look. Due to this, many companies have received good and bad publicity which inevitably affects their income and sales. If a makeup brand doesn’t have as many options in a shade range, they get negative feedback and possibly even lose profit, but if a brand, such as Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, who has 50 shades of foundation, they will get a lot more, mostly positive feedback and the customers are more likely to buy from that brand.

The desire people have to look darker than their natural skin tone can easily be and has led to questionable results. In some cases, people will use foundations that are 3-5 times darker than their skin tone, which in some cases can be construed as “black face” or that they are trying to be someone they aren’t. In many cases, the person doing this may not even realize that it can be taken as “black face.” Most situations involving this are because the person wants to look more tan because that is what society says is the way to look. As crazy as it sounds, the beauty industry can and does actually profit from racism. Although “black face” is common in the beauty industry, it is not necessarily this form of racism that leads to profit.

Saying that racism can and does lead to profit seems like it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t. The way the beauty industry profits off of racism, whether it is purposeful or not, is by the publicity. Many brands usually have a very limited range of makeup shades which is what leads to controversy among the buyers. However, whether the publicity a brand gets is good or bad, it usually leads to profit. A major publicity stunt that brands like to do, is to put out something controversial and then apologize for it later in order to create “hype” or attention surrounding their brand. In many cases, these stunts work and many, but not all, consumers accept the apology and continue buy from and/or inducing the brand and its products. “By causing a controversial moment, gaining traffic, and then solving the problem or promising to do better, the brand may be, in a twisted, self-sabotaging way, trying to develop an element of trust between consumers.” (Acquaye, 2018). This entire marketing scheme seems ridiculous and you would think it wouldn’t work, but in many cases it does. Also, it seems that there are “loyal customer” that despite what the brand does, they will still buy and promote them, this is usually seen involving Beauty Bloggers and YouTubers.

YouTube has been around since 2005, but only within the last ten years or so has the beauty community on YouTube started to blossom. Since around 2015-2016, the beauty influencers that originally started on Instagram have grew onto YouTube and have become one of the biggest viral entertainments. The beauty “gurus,” as they are called, make huge profits per video from YouTube. The more views a YouTuber gets, the more they get paid and watching these videos has become widely popular among many age groups. “So far in 2018, people have watched (on average) more than a million beauty videos on YouTube every day.” (Jones and Gelbart, 2018). Not only do the beauty “gurus” make money but also the Brands used and indorsed in the videos do as well. The more popular a Youtuber is, the more sponsors they get and the more money they, and the brand makes.

The makeup industry has a large profit because of all the different brands and what they are offering customers. Although some makeup brands are beginning to struggle and face problems due to all of the new brands and formulas being made, “Beauty and personal care was a $465 billion global market in 2017.” (Bloomberg, 2018) According to Euromonitor International, the makeup industry will continue to expand more than 2 percent a year.

Of course, the beauty industry is booming because of the heavy demand and popularity of makeup, but some of the first brands such as Revlon and and L’oreal, are struggling or even in debt because of the rise is upcoming starter brands as well as the making of new formulas, many of which are non-animal tested and better for you. These original makeup brands are very unlikely to go out of business completely due to their high level of popularity and wealth achievement, even if they are beginning to suffer financially. With the rise of new techniques and ideas, these original brands will have to adapt their ways to a certain level in order to remain a consistent, up-to-date brand.

From the The Paleolithic era to Ancient Greece, the early Renaissance era, and eras after that until now, beauty standards among women were constantly changing and still are changing. As an example, the beauty standard during the Paleolithic era is far away from the standard of beauty of now day as according to the statue, Venus of Willendorf, women are supposed to have “large breasts, large hips and a healthy stomach,” (Petty) as it is a good body to bear many children. Another example is how during the the Elizabethan era, pale skin is considered to be a symbol of class and a feature of beauty, but nowadays women pay money to get tan. These are just a few examples of the constantly changing beauty standards that forever exist within every society all around the globe.

In the early 1800s, the bicycle was invented. Men were scared that women would gain more freedom, so doctored would try to discourage women using bicycles and say that “bouncing harmed women’s fragile insides and the friction of the seat was likely to get them aroused” (Frank, 2010). With the bicycle, the outfits of women also changed, by introducing women to pants. These pants called “bloomers” and women were more sexaulized by wearing them because it gave shape to their legs. While this may seem utterly ridiculous to modern readers, it was common for women to wear large dresses and always have a male companion with them, for their “safety.” The bicycle was the gateway to freedom for many women and a shift in style.  What was considered to be perfect from hundreds years ago isn’t what we considered to be perfect anymore, so what is the perfect standard of beauty.

Body image is an issue in today’s society, especially for teenage girls. Society has told them that they need to be skinny and wear makeup to be pretty. However, it was not always like this. In “Learn How Our Standards Of Beauty Have Changed Throughout History,” Laura Caseley gives a brief history of beauty standards throughout Ancient Greece, Japan, several countries in Europe, and the 20s to present day America. Through that, we can see that no beauty is the same and no standards stay the same. Beauty standards as we know are an ever-changing idea of beauty and how it should be expressed by those who it is created for.

A main objective in beauty standards is how different skin tones are viewed by society. It has been a common concept that the darker the skin tone you had, the less attractive you were or that there was a certain stigma attached to darker skin tones. The concept of “beauty equals white” has gone on for as long as one can recall which has meant that we now have body altering processes such as skin lightening to achieve this beauty standard that one must be of a lighter skin tone in order to be or appear beautiful. The concept of “beauty equals white” can be seen extremely clear with in the East Asian culture as it was deeply rooted within the society. According to an article published by The South African College of Applied Psychology, “In South Africa, skin lightening and hair straightening was noted in the days of Apartheid..” which is heavily used because if you were to fit this image, you were more likely to receive job opportunities and better resources than people who do not fit this “ideal” image.

In the article Egg White or Sun-Kissed: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Skin Color and Women’s Leisure Behavior, the authors say that “Culture-based values, such as the preference for tanned skin among Euro-Americans and for lighter skin among East Asians effect a wide range of daily behaviors. These behaviors include conscious as well as subtle daily decision-making regarding sun-seeking, sun-avoidance, and sun-protection behaviors; indoor versus outdoor leisure participation; and appearance modifications” (Chen et al, 2018, 255). Body modifications are more common in the present day for women than men.

Women are expected to doll up, wearing makeup and cute clothes. Females have to pluck eyebrows, wear eye and face makeup, as well as generally change the majority of their appearance. Society also reinforces this. Advertisements and the media tell young girls to change the way they look to fit in and look “better.” For a long time, women who had lighter skin were favored. Today, there is much more diversity and people are much more accepting of differences. More people are embracing their natural self. Having tan skin is now the trend. Women lay in the sun, get spray tans, and go to tanning beds to darken their skin. Also, using a darker foundation shade is common to darken one’s skin.

Physical and mental health are large factors in the view of body image. Because society has such a big stigma with having the “perfect” body, it puts an extensive amount of pressure on people, mostly young women. Many people have the desire to fit in and in order to do that, they will go to extreme measures to achieve this image. For example, “Some people even develop eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia,” (Home, 2019.) in an effort to achieve the perfect body image, according to what society says it is.

The ideal body image is generally associated with a skinny or little body type and while being obese isn’t healthy, being underweight isn’t healthy either. According to doctors, if someone’s body mass index is under 18.5, it is considered underweight. Keeping this in mind, many female fashion models have a body index of 17.2 because the average weight of these models is 120. Of course, not everyone’s body is the same but it is important to keep in mind the risks of being underweight just as much as the risk of being overweight.

Body-fat percentage, a term that can loosely lead to misunderstanding and dangering those who do not understand it’s true meaning and value. In instance, the body-fat percentage for the normal female individual to live a normal life is roughly 12-15%. While that number might seem high, it is not as the reason why they have a higher body-fat percentage is “protect her and a potential fetus” (Tanita). If someone who has no knowledge of that value was to look at that number, they would immediately think that they are unhealthy and wanting to decrease the percentage not knowing that it was how women evolve to be for survival purposes. If compare the percentage to males’ percentage of course males’ body-fat percentage would be lower as they are not designed that way. The risks people take to achieve these body images are dangerous and can lead to long term effects. For example, many people will starve themselves to lose weight to binge, which generally leads to an eating disorder, such as Bulimia, anorexia, etc. There are also many physical risks involved in trying to achieve this “perfect” image. Physical risks are usually associated with the actions people take, such plastic surgeries or the clothing they wear. The clothing related to physical effects is more commonly used in earlier time periods, such as the Elizabethan Era.

Throughout the Elizabethan era, women wore dresses with many layers and corsets. Corsets restricted breathing, pushing the breasts up and the stomach in to make it appear as though one had large breasts and hips. In novels during this time, women are characterized as weak and they faint constantly. Due to hot weather, many layers of a thick, heavy dress, and the corset, it made sense why women were fainting. These fainting bouts affected their physical and mental health. Women were “weak” because they were kept weak.

Not only does it affect your physical health, it affects you mental health as well. The way you perceive your body image, especially if it is compared to others can play a huge factor in your mental health. “Girls and women with negative thoughts and feelings about their bodies are more likely to develop certain mental health conditions, such as eating disorders and depression.” (Women’s Health, 2018.) Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety can stream from many different aspect, but it can be said that self-esteem correlates to both of these. The way society is formed to compare one another’s body and to say that one is “better” than the other hugely related in girls, especially teenagers to young adults, to develop these mental health disorders.

Restraints on beauty standards, especially for women, have been present for a long time. The restraints have evolved over time, but have not gone away. It used to be that if a woman wore pants, it was a scandal. Pants opened a whole new world to women, who were confined long dresses that restricted their activity. Now women can wear pants, but the restraints are the size of the pants, the style of the pants, and who wears the pants. People usually associate change with something that is better, but change is not always for the better. Whether the restraints today are considered better depends on the person. In this society, you can do or wear what you want, but there are limits to what is acceptable. For women, you must have certain length when wearing dresses, skirts, or shorts. If you cover up, you are a prude. If you show a lot of skin, you are a slut.

The restraints that had been placed on women will always exist no matter, however just because it exist doesn’t mean that it cannot be change or alter for the purpose of better for women’s life. Take dress for example, the people of the past were able to change and in return women wearing pant had become more acceptable. Though there are many other restrain that was to put upon them, they were able to eliminate or at least change one aspect of their life for the better. Over time they were able to gain more control over what they can and cannot do, though there are still limitation or restraint, they were able to vastly improve their life.

Restraints for males are that they are expected to be manly and strong, to not show any emotion. Unlike females, males are not allowed to wear dresses. With women, they have a choice to wear a T shirt and pants, but men are looked down on if they wear a dress or skirt. Society shames them, saying they are being too feminine. Males who wear makeup is also frowned upon. They are perceived as “girly” or “gay.” Even though wearing makeup has nothing to do with one’s sexual preference, society throws out this label. In addition, many in society consider being part of the LGBTQ community is wrong, and being called “gay” is still used as an insult. Having the choice to wear whatever you want is what should be important. Being who you want to be is important. Younger generations are very vocal about becoming a better, more accepting society. There will probably always be some kind of restraints, but hopefully they will improve.

Shaving is a big double standard. Women are expected to shave their legs and their armpits. Being female and having hair is considered unsanitary, with the only exception having hair on the head. Hair on your head is supposed to be long. Even though this is somewhat changing today and younger people are more accepting, society still expects women to shave their legs. Males are not perceived as gross if they have hair. They are not expected to shave their legs or their face, but they can if they want. Although, males who shave their legs are sometimes criticized by others. In fact our body consist of “around five million hair follicles,” however, most of them are thin and short therefore invisible to us. Having body hair can benefit as it help “regulating our body temperature” (Macdonald, 2015) and the removal of pubic hair can lead to “irritates and inflames the hair follicles left behind, leaving microscopic open wounds” (Gibson) open for bacterial infection. If we are to hate our hair that much and try to remove it, we will cause harm to ourselves. One of our group members, Phong, believes that we would look like a “walking testicle.”

Why are women supposed to shave their legs and underarms? Back at the turn on the twentieth century, King Camp Gillette, was losing money in the razor business so he decided to start marketing to women about how shaving their legs and armpits was more sanitary (Komar, 2016). Before this, shaving was not a concern because women were dolled up from head to toe. At the turn of the century, women began showing more skin, wearing shorter dresses, skirts, and pants. Shaving was not merely a fashion statement “but a new part of what it meant to be a proper woman in polite society” (Komar). These razors could be bought with a dress and hats and gloves.

As we all know, beauty standard is a constant moving flow of motion and that motion was caused by us, by the people. Throughout the blog we can see how people have influence our society’s idea of an ideal body type and our idea of beauty as a whole. Take Barbie as an example, they are dolls that we created for the purpose of children’s amusement, but unknown to us it started an unhealthy body type or perception. Unknown to us. It affected teenagers and children, causing them to have insecurity issue, and possibly lead to them having eating disorder and depressions. However, because our unhealthy perception is a form of beauty standard, it is slowly changing and becoming something healthier, something different, something more accepting.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a common phrase which holds very true. Beauty cannot be defined by one person. Society is the determiner of beauty standards. Today, beautiful means many different things. While being stick thin is still a norm in the fashion industry, this is changing. Models of various body sizes are becoming popular and encouraged by the younger generations. Not everyone likes this, because of bigotry and ignorance, but only time will tell how things will change. Normalizing these differences will help society grow. People are more accepting of the differences of others than ever before. Not everyone has the same idea of beauty, but overall it is accepted.

These beauty standards that have adapted over time give way to major risks, whether it be mental, physical or emotional. Whether it be deformed figures or having a heat stroke due to the clothing they are forced to wear or it be eating disorders and mental health issues because some people are put down because they don’t meet the “ideal body” standards. All of these things can be derived from exaggerated, in some cases, unrealistic beauty standards.