“Beauty Standards in American Culture” by Lamar Todd

Lamar Todd

Professor Shaw

WGSS 275

November 4, 2019

“Beauty Standards in American Culture”

In class, we have discussed what beauty standards are reflected in American culture and how they shape and cultivate the stereotypes and sociological norms that we act upon on a daily basis. Advertisement uses images, sound, and psychological expertise to manipulate the consumerist mind into conforming to the beliefs that are considered “normal”. Deviance is defined as nonconformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society. As explained by Neel Burton, “A fundamental problem with labeling human deviances as mental disorder is that it reduces a complex, important and distinct part of human life to nothing more than a biological illness or defect not to be processed or understood.” When people choose to deviate from these norms, others choose to label this as an innate issue alienating those who are different when in fact this leaves no room to understand the bigger picture.

The image above shows two women of different complexion advertising a makeup brand used by all women of different shapes, sizes and colors. Most makeup companies attempt to show an array of options for matching skin tones because they want to reach as much of their audience as possible. This advertisement for “Lancome” in particular fits into the stereotypical European beauty standards that are so present in most aspects of beauty ideals in our society. Both women are thin with petite features reminiscent of many white models. While this company attempts to come off as diverse and inclusive, they fail to deviate from the norm pertaining to beauty standards in America.

Another example of this is shown in a reading, “Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia” authored by Penelope McLorg and Diane Taub where it is explained how the preset norms for masculinity and femininity allow for a large deviation in which a person is not considered ideal. Through self observational studies from a group called BANISH (Bulimics and anorexics in self help) Taub and McLorg are able to determine how detrimental the stigmatic labeling of groups of people can allow for primary and secondary deviance. Primary deviance is defined as rule breaking that occurs before labeling, while rule breaking that occurs after labeling is referred to as secondary deviance. Fifteen interviews with fourteen white females and a white male lasting 2 to 4 hours revealed the trend of conformity in the participant’s responses. In this case, conformity was trying to fit society's norms of thinness for cosmetic rather than health purposes by the way of bringing, starvation, laxatives, purging and self denial. The fifteen individuals in this study felt that weight loss was of the utmost importance. Of those who were interviewed, the author was able to break the participants into two categories. Primary deviation started with an individual's weight loss followed by praise from their micro circle. These efforts intensified until the family and friends became worried no longer praising the individual. Other individuals whose anorexia was reinforced by the cultural norms that idolized them were the product of secondary deviance. Most individuals with anorexia live in denial of their condition. An example of this was a woman named Chris who participated in the study. She said that she was just being healthy and “had total control over her body”. Those who were bulimic admitted it, feeling like the disease gave their life meaning and defined them. Eventually the participants lives became the disease, cutting off interaction with close friends and family due to interference with their need to continue their bulimic or anorexic habits, starting a downward spiral. The idolization slowly turned into a pattern that stripped them of their identity and labeled them by their physical appearance or actions.

Taub and McLorg show us how the labeling of a group of people can take away their personal identity. The Lancome makeup advertisement as well as the case study described in the above article shows that classifying people into a particular category does not account for the very different personal conditions and societal conditions that these individuals are forced to face.