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standards of beauty
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Standards Of Beauty
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standards of beauty
Photoshop Of Horrors
This item about Scarlett Johansson on the cover of Cosmo focuses on her waist. Specifically: The waist the magazine's art department whittled for her. Is ScarJo curvy? Yes! Does she have, as seen here, a waist that is only a smidge wider than her neck? No. And we know this because M. LeBlanc at Bitch Ph.D. did the research. When seen "in the wild," Scarlett's midsection is that of a normal, fit human being. It's only on the cover of Cosmo that she takes on the dimensions of Betty Boop. Oh, and, as commenter TheGarlicSong pointed out, on this cover, her left arm is smaller and shorter than her right arm. WTF. (Click to enlarge.) [Bitch Ph.D.]
american titocracy
Would You Get "Botox For The Résumé"?
"Who would ever dream that '20-plus years of experience' would be a liability? These are strange times." That's Lisa Johnson Mandell, a journalist who lives in LA and should know better than to say something like that, but anyway she stopped getting work around her late forties, and she didn't know why, until her husband broke it to her that it was because she was old. So she strategically took the first ten years off her CV, stopped giving anyone her graduation year and had some "youthful" pictures taken. And now she has a job running a pop culture website so she told the Wall Street Journal all about it. (She's 49.) I could express sincere and unqualified horror at this trend, but as a proponent of not lying about one's age, I have to confess: the thought of looking for jobs at pop culture websites in twenty years makes me happier about the fact that pop culture websites will probably figure out a way to kill me first.
standards of beauty
Paying Someone To Cut You Is Growing In Popularity
The economy may be in the crapper, but Americans know what's really important: Looking good! Science Daily reports that plastic surgery procedures will quadruple by the year 2015. They're predicting that cosmetic surgery will weather the current decline, and that in 7 years, 55 million surgeries will be performed annually. "While today's economy reflects a slow-down in plastic surgery procedures, the specialty will weather the current decline in economic growth just as it has previous declines, such as the stock market correction after the 2001 Internet bubble," says American Society Of Plastic Surgeons prez Dr. Richard D'Amico. "This prediction for 2015 is exciting." Definitely! Americans already spend $13.2 billion, more than the GDP of Bolivia, on cosmetic surgery, so quadrupling that number to $52.8 means more cash for doctors. Eh, you're thinking, I'm not shallow like that, I've got priorities. Guess what? More »
Something Stinks
Summer = pit stains. Unfortunately. But Shizuka New York, a midtown salon, offers an "underarm overhaul," reports New York magazine. Steaming, cleansing, hair removal and botox injection should render your pits perfect. The cost? $1,500. You could probably buy new arms on the black market for that kind of cash. [NY Mag]
objectify this
Ms. Writer: Avoiding (Fashion) Magazines Is Good For Female Mental Health
The new issue of Ms. hits stands today and inside is a story about self-objectification, or "viewing one's body as a sex object to be consumed by the male gaze." More and more women are viewing themselves as sex objects, says Caroline Heldman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of politics at Occidental College, and it's due in large part to the veritable onslaught of advertising images that we're subjected to. The average American, according to Heldman, views "3,000-5,000 ads per day, up from 500-2,000 in the 70s," and a good chunk of those ads show naked and/or fetishized women. It's possible that none of this is news to you, but the far-reaching effects of self-objectifying might surprise you. More »
standards of beauty
Getting Gorgeous Used To Be A Lot Less Complicated
Over on the blog called The Smart Set, Paula Marantz Cohen writes a requiem for the beauty parlor. Cohen recalls an age when you went out just to get your hair did, not mani-pedi massage with full-body deforestation: "When I was growing up, my mother used to go twice a month to the beauty parlor. That was what it was called then — not the hair stylist or even the hair salon, all latter-day terms. She would have her hair cut, colored, or coiffed, and sometimes she would get a manicure. But hair and nails were the extent of it. The body that lay in between was off limits. Caring for that — whatever it might entail — happened in the privacy of the home." These days, "maintenance" often involves so much more. But why? More »
on beauty
Telling A Child She's Beautiful Could Be Sending The Wrong Message
In today's Times of London, fashion editor Lisa Armstrong dissects what she deems our egregiously-lookist society. "Increasingly, looks are used to define women who never set out to compete by those rules," Armstrong points out. "The entire female flank of the French Cabinet has recently had their wardrobes pored over as if they were auditioning to fill in for Cate Blanchett on the red carpet while she takes a spot of maternity leave." Armstrong also quotes Fay Weldon, writer and insane-o, who, for once, makes a good point. "Nowadays, all little girls are told that they're beautiful by their mothers, even when they're not," Weldon says. "We're terribly conflicted. We don't want appearance to be important, but almost everything we do reinforces that they are." More »
clips
Earlier: •Bikini Waxes, Highlights & 'Tramp Stamps': That's What Little Girls Are Made Of
•How Many 8-Year-Olds Have To Get Bikini Waxes Before We All Agree The Terrorists Have Won?
Some Six-Year-Olds May Have More Makeup Than Their Moms
The mainstream (morning) news is getting on the girls-getting-beauty-treatments bandwagon: This morning, Today's Janice Lieberman reported on the marketing of manicures, pedicures, cosmetics and hair treatments to little girls...and their mothers. (How long until Sephora opens a chain of "Sephora Jr." stores?) Lieberman visited a mani-pedi party at NYC's Dashing Diva salon and spoke to psychologist Dale Atkins, who cautioned that "when kids are exposed to these types of products and images...it affects their self-esteem body, image, future eating disorders and sense of who they are." Clip above.Earlier: •Bikini Waxes, Highlights & 'Tramp Stamps': That's What Little Girls Are Made Of
•How Many 8-Year-Olds Have To Get Bikini Waxes Before We All Agree The Terrorists Have Won?
tech appeal
Scientists Create Computer That Can Comprehend "Beauty"
Scientists at Tel Aviv University claim to have created a computer program that can recognize human attractiveness. Here's what they did: they had thirty men and women look at 100 images of young, white women and judge the "beauty" of each image. Then, according to EurekAlert, "Based on human preferences, the machine 'learned' the relation between facial features and attractiveness scores and was then put to the test on a fresh set of faces." The computer rankings turned out to be very similar to the rankings people gave, and so the scientists are surmising that the computer is "interpreting" beauty on a human level. On researcher, Amit Kagian, says "I believe that some kind of universal correctness to beauty exists in nature, an aesthetic interpretation of the universal truth. But because each of us is trapped with our own human biases and personalized viewpoints, this may detract us from finding the ultimate formula to a complete understanding of beauty." More »
clips
Related: Would You Rather Be Fat Or Blank? [NBC News]
Fat & Smart? Or Skinny & Stupid?
The Today show had a segment this morning ostensibly about "brains and beauty" that actually concerned some internet game "Would you rather be fat or [blank]", in which people go online and pick the "disability" they would prefer over suffering from obesity. In predictable fashion, Today show producers sent their cameras out on the street and interviewed a half-dozen people (all of them women, of course), asking "Would you rather be 40 pounds overweight and smart, or skinny and stupid?" Almost every one of the respondents picked poundage and brain cells over being svelte and stupid, except for one woman, who gave an amusing, politically-incorrect answer she will no doubt get shit for. Clip above. (A more in-depth, in-studio discussion can be seen here.)Related: Would You Rather Be Fat Or Blank? [NBC News]
clips
Beauty Is Not In The Eye Of The Beholder
A documentary series from 2001 called The Human Face reran on PBS last night, and it was really insightful. While the adage "Beauty is only skin deep" is often quoted when discussing what makes a person beautiful, doctors and scientists interviewed for the documentary say that isn't necessarily so. Beauty is actually all about the face (so take good care of yours and moisturize!), and in fact, is not nearly as subjective as we've been led to believe. Clip above.
double standards of beauty
Women Of All Ages Feel Better When They Wear Things That Fit
I know I can't stop yammering about Time senior editor boffing, botox manifesto writing former Glamour editor Charla Krupp and her new bestseller, How Not To Look Old. There's a first-person take on Old by 40-something Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon today, and Williams puts her finger on just why the book is so irksome to me. It's not just the parts where Krupp advocates unrealistic and "wackadoo" ideas, like Botox, $70 concealer and personal shoppers, it's that the good advice Krupp gives (and there is some in the book) could be gleaned for free by watched a couple episodes of What Not To Wear. More »
Getting Gorgeous On A Global Level
The new beauty craze in Japan? Devouring pigs' feet and turtle meat and blood. All of the items are rich in collagen, which is considered to be good for the skin, and women are eating it up, so to speak. "Suppon," or soft-shell turtle, is great for the complexion, restaurant owner Sosuke Miyagawa tells Reuters. "We cut the neck of the suppon and squeeze out the dripping blood, then mix that with Japanese sake or plum wine. This gives an instantaneous effect." Uh, delicious. Meanwhile, the male beauty industry in Japan is booming: Sales of male beauty products and treatments grew last year by 4.2 %, while there was a 0.6% decline in the women's industry. Dudes are getting facials, massages, pedicures and buying "man make-up." A pedicure sounds better than turtle blood, but then again, my Southern Grandmama ate pigs feet all the time and her skin was awesome. So whatever works, right? [Reuters, Independent]
The new beauty craze in Japan? Devouring pigs' feet and turtle meat and blood. All of the items are rich in collagen, which is considered to be good for the skin, and women are eating it up, so to speak. "Suppon," or soft-shell turtle, is great for the complexion, restaurant owner Sosuke Miyagawa tells Reuters. "We cut the neck of the suppon and squeeze out the dripping blood, then mix that with Japanese sake or plum wine. This gives an instantaneous effect." Uh, delicious. Meanwhile, the male beauty industry in Japan is booming: Sales of male beauty products and treatments grew last year by 4.2 %, while there was a 0.6% decline in the women's industry. Dudes are getting facials, massages, pedicures and buying "man make-up." A pedicure sounds better than turtle blood, but then again, my Southern Grandmama ate pigs feet all the time and her skin was awesome. So whatever works, right? [Reuters, Independent]
Wow, Time magazine is really plugging the hell out of Charla Krupp's hateful-but-bestselling tome How Not To Look Old — a book that advocates Botox and hair-dye for the post-menopausal set. It's been mentioned twice in the magazine in the past month and there's an entire blog post devoted to the book today. And lo, what do we have here? Krupp's husband, Richard Zoglin, is a Time senior editor. How Not To Look Old is now on the New York Times top-10 list for advice and how-to books. Krupp proves yet again that making women feel bad about themselves is an endlessly lucrative endeavor. [Portfolio, Time]
Oldies But Goodies
Well we talk about unattainable standards of beauty these days, but this Jantzen swimsuit ad from 1954 features an alluring woman with what appears to be a 15-inch waist. It's literally not much wider than her neck, and yet she somehow has the strength to entertain not one but two suitors. Click the image to see the advertisement full-sized. Also note that if this glittery grape-colored swimsuit were available today this writer would most certainly buy it. [Vintage Ads]
Well we talk about unattainable standards of beauty these days, but this Jantzen swimsuit ad from 1954 features an alluring woman with what appears to be a 15-inch waist. It's literally not much wider than her neck, and yet she somehow has the strength to entertain not one but two suitors. Click the image to see the advertisement full-sized. Also note that if this glittery grape-colored swimsuit were available today this writer would most certainly buy it. [Vintage Ads]
clips
Tina Yothers Ate Carrot Sticks On The Set Of Family Ties
The cast of Family Ties gathered on the Today Show this morning in honor of a new book — titled Sit, Ubu, Sit — written the show's producer, Gary David Goldberg. After an interview with Matt Lauer, the TV family returned for another sitdown with co-host Al Roker, who passed on viewers' questions, one of which was directed at the females in the cast and had to do with the stay-slim standards of beauty in Hollywood. Although none of the women seemed interested in delving into the issue, Tina Yothers let it slip that she considered herself "a big kid" and that carrot sticks were provided by producers... perhaps as a subtle suggestion that she lose weight. Clip above (and listen for Tina's TV dad's undermining comment about Clydesdales).
'Family Ties' Stars Hold Family Reunion [NBCNews]
standards of beauty
