Everyday Sociology: The Double Standard of Beauty

In the blog post “Beauty and the Double Standard of Aging” written by Lisa Wade, PhD, she touches on the difference in aging expectation in regards to attractiveness between men and women. She discuses how both young boys are girls are culturally viewed the same way concerning attractiveness. They both have a delicate beauty that is fragile until they are no longer in the early part of the life cycle. Boys then transition into the second standard, which is being a man. The cultural standard is that men are rougher, thicker, and lose their innocent smooth and hairless skin. Both of these stages are viewed equally in attractiveness and are happily welcomed. This is not quite the case for girls making the transition to being women. The same expectation is held throughout a women’s life without any second equivalent step. Women are still culturally expected to have soft, clear, wrinkleless skin. Women are taught to continue to strive to look as they did as young girls. 

This has always been an issue within our culture; therefore many of us do not see it as an issue. Many aren’t aware of how different these standards are and how truly unfair they are.  This blog post brings to realization that women are held to such high and nearly impossible standards of beauty, where as men are able to happily accept both stages of their physical appearance changes in life. I never put much thought to how women are expected to maintain many of the same physical appearance traits as from when they are young girls before puberty that is made point in this blog post. That expectation is impossible because throughout life, the body does make inevitable changes. Why is it that only women are held to this standard of beauty?

This idea of beauty for women is constantly supported by society, especially in the media. When looking at ads in magazines or TV commercials, all of the women have flawless skin, no wrinkles, are thin, and so on. Is that what real a woman is suppose to look like? This is a question that is being asked by all girls and women who are being exposed to these types of advertisements. In most ads and TV commercials the women are photo shopped in order to attempt to meet the idea that our culture has set for the beauty of women. This ends up setting women up for failure as they attempt to reach this impossible standard of beauty. What is this doing to the young girls and women in our society? How is this affecting their confidence and their performance rates in society?

This double standard of beauty is an issue that can no longer be overlooked.. Having this standard of beauty for women that is impossible to obtain takes a large toll on a women’s confidence, which in turn leads to less confidence in other areas than appearance such as ability in the work place and place in society. This double standard has a greater impact than many are aware of. It is important that this information and truth be spread through out society so that this double standard is no longer present.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/02/04/susan-sontag-on-the-three-standards-of-beauty-girl-boy-and-man/

Sociological Autobiography

Every culture has their own set of values along with beliefs, norms and symbols to support those values. I come from a Lebanese and German family with several set values. It is a part of Lebanese culture to be family oriented and be supportive of ones family. My family and I greatly value the bond, quality time and respect we have for one another. As a mixture of the two cultures, they both have in common the value of religion, which is also greatly valued in my family. Another value that is shared among many other families experiencing American Culture is the value of education.  Having values within a culture is extremely important because it is a commonalty that unites the culture.

            The importance of family is the most valued within my culture and family. We value spending quality time with family, respecting one another, supporting one another, and maintaining that special bond. I with socialized with this value at an extremely young age. My parents socialized me siblings and I by establishing norms in our home to support the value of family. An example would be our dinnertime routine. Every night for dinner my mom would cook dinner, my siblings and I set the table and wait for my dad to return home from work. Once we were all home, we would sit down and have dinner together. During dinner we would discuss how our days were, share interesting things we may have learned, and had casual conversation. My parents made it very clear that this was an essential to our family and that we must always be home for family dinner. This remained the norm in our family until my twin brother and I moved away for college. When we return home from college for breaks and such, we continue with this norm of having dinner together every night as a family. When comparing this norm and value to others, I realized that only a handful of cultures do value the importance of quality family time. I was shocked that not all other families eat dinner together every night, but instead they would eat whenever convenient for each individual, which usually resulting in eating alone. It has made me appreciate the relationship I do have with family and helped me realize the importance of family that the Lebanese culture values. I hope to carry on this value with future generations in my family.

            The majority of cultures around the world has religious values and believes in some sort of higher power. In my culture, especially the American culture, we value religion. Since a young age my parents would take my siblings and I to church every Sunday, I did my first communion, and we celebrated all religious holidays.  My mom would have bibles and crosses around our house as symbols of our beliefs. As I grew older, I began to question how important this value that my culture held was to me. This caused me to stop doing the norms such as going to church every Sunday and lead me to not do my eight-grade confirmation, which many Catholics believed was an important part of being apart of this religion. I started to reject certain aspects of this cultural value, but decided to keep others. I still valued and value today that there is a higher power, that it’s important to maintain a relationship with this higher power, and I still celebrate Catholic holidays. However, I rejected the idea that I needed to attend church every Sunday, pledge myself to the catholic religion permanently, and accept that the only way to be forgiven for sins is by confession. This decision was not happily accepted by my culture, but has helped shaped me as a person. It has helped me make decisions based on what’s best for me, regardless what other may think. It has also allowed me to help me identify who I am as a person and what is important to myself.  I will continue to make decisions based on what is best for me and not based on cultural values.

            In America, we a told from a young age that in order to be successful, one must attend college. My parents shared with and were socialized with it by their parents, teachers and peers as my siblings and I were. The value of an education has been on a continual increase and transferred attending college into a norm. In today’s culture it is almost looked down upon if one does not attend college or some type of schooling after high school. It has also lead to people believing that the only way to get a job in order to support ones self and maybe family is by attending college to get a well paying job. I share this value, which has aided in shaping me as a person. This value of a higher education and achieving greater things has lead me to always be craving more out of life and to set high goals for myself, which has benefited me greatly. This value has also helped lead me to the decision of applying to medical school, along with several other factors. I expect that this is remain a value in American culture and plan to eventually socialize future generations with these norms.

            Having specific values and norms within a culture are important to help members of that culture identify themselves, whether they reject that value or not. It is also important in bringing the culture together as one. Having a mixture of cultures I identify with has helped me determine my identity; mainly through being socialized with each culture’s certain values.