A thoughtful and compelling evaluation of the modern woman's own Sisyphean task: to reckon with the clever seduction of the "Beauty Trap!" Instead of being punished by pushing a giant boulder up a hiil, she is enticed to adorn herself in fashionable though impractical high heels and strut down a slick, uneven runway for all eternity. Amidst the clamor and judgment of the modern "culture gods," is it any wonder that so many women slip and fall again and again?! As in the case of Sisyphus, there seems to be only two narrow paths of escape: redefine beauty on your own terms and continue down the runway or let go of the concept completely, humbly take a seat and enjoy the garish show from the sidelines. There are serious tradeoffs to either choice and every woman needs to decide for herself. I don't envy her options!
I think it's also worth exploring how recent a phenomenon attraction-based (or love-based) relationships are. Historically, attractiveness did not rank very highly compared to health, family upbringing, family assets and piety. These were the characteristics upon which marriages were arranged. (I presume extramarital relationships however operated to some degree on attractiveness, but it's hard to build a beauty culture around activities done in secret).
Only since the industrial revolution has beauty become far more culturally important. I wonder why this is. Is it because it's actually beneficial to women to double down on beauty (which you disagree with)? Or is it because it's valuable for corporations, who have a more engaged consumer base to sell to? Or is it because of men, who value attractiveness more and more, and other traits, like family upbringing or piety, less and less? I suppose it's many of these reasons and more.
I believe a lot of it is about modern consumerism. The greater the insecurity around ones attractiveness (and associated self-worth), the easier to sell to.
As well, the more we've moved up Maslow's hierarchy, with adequate prosperity, the more we societally select for wants (e.g., beauty) versus needs in partnership.
While I think there's a plausible link between the increase in attraction-based relationships and the value of female beauty in the dating marketplace (which increases the incentive to perform beauty work) I agree with Andras that the profit element is probably a stronger driving force. Women who are already in relationships with men who want to be with them regardless of how much beauty work they perform are still motivated to do a lot of it, as are women who are clearly valued in other ways such as the economic marketplace or their community. If mating value was the key force incentivizing this work we wouldn't expect these results. I also don't think individual men within relationships drive much of the incentive to do beauty work. As women will tell you they don't even notice much of it! This is often to the woman's frustration - think about women complaining that their partner never notices when they get their hair cut etc. Also, the degree to which men weight female beauty when choosing a partner isn't independent of societal values, since the more we culturally reinforce the value of female beauty the more a heterosexual man's status is enhanced by the beauty of his partner.
I think businesses are generally increasing desires that already exist rather than creating new ones. In my experience (limited, admittedly), many women do beauty work to maintain a feeling of control over their lives when confronted with stress, sadness, thwarted dreams, or mortality. Also, a lot of beauty work seems to be not for impressing men, but impressing other women.
Agree with the latter part, I don’t think beauty work is mainly about finding a heterosexual mate. I also agree that businesses don’t create the desire for beauty products/procedures as a category (although I think they strengthen it), but I do think they create demand for specific types of products/procedures, some of which are more harmful and costly than others. No one was getting BBLs before the Kardashians made their body into a trend - but I think that’s consistent with your comment about foot binding etc.
Very thought provoking article! I imagine the desire to be seen as beautiful, or simply attractive, is hard wired into everyone, especially women. Capitalism, consumerism, and social media exacerbates and exaggerates this human need, and the pressures that come with it, while ironically creating a market and demographic to rebel against it (body positivity). I'm not sure how things will balance themselves out over time, but you raised all the right questions!
Society (that is, socially progressive society) can't quite make up its mind about whether beauty is a valuable currency that needs to be redistributed more evenly, or it's a harmful patriarchal concept altogether that needs to be rejected. The conundrum is quite clear. If you accept the former, it legitimizes the beauty hierarchy and causes in-fighting. If you accept the latter, you run into upsetting conclusions, like if attractive women really are an oppressed class, then that would mean hot white women are actually victims, and very few people can tolerate that idea.
Yes, love the way you phrased this: “Society (that is, socially progressive society) can't quite make up its mind about whether beauty is a valuable currency that needs to be redistributed more evenly, or it's a harmful patriarchal concept altogether that needs to be rejected.” The desire to redistribute is another way of explaining the “Lizzo is SO SO gorgeous” line.
Very good and thorough piece! I think it might be impossible to keep most humans from valuing physical beauty, since we're social and sexually reproducing animals, but the standards of that beauty seem at least somewhat negotiable. If most of us can agree that it's no longer acceptable to deform women's collarbones with giant neck rings or destroy their ability to walk with foot binding, then we can also probably change some of the "beauty work" in American culture.
A thoughtful and compelling evaluation of the modern woman's own Sisyphean task: to reckon with the clever seduction of the "Beauty Trap!" Instead of being punished by pushing a giant boulder up a hiil, she is enticed to adorn herself in fashionable though impractical high heels and strut down a slick, uneven runway for all eternity. Amidst the clamor and judgment of the modern "culture gods," is it any wonder that so many women slip and fall again and again?! As in the case of Sisyphus, there seems to be only two narrow paths of escape: redefine beauty on your own terms and continue down the runway or let go of the concept completely, humbly take a seat and enjoy the garish show from the sidelines. There are serious tradeoffs to either choice and every woman needs to decide for herself. I don't envy her options!
I think it's also worth exploring how recent a phenomenon attraction-based (or love-based) relationships are. Historically, attractiveness did not rank very highly compared to health, family upbringing, family assets and piety. These were the characteristics upon which marriages were arranged. (I presume extramarital relationships however operated to some degree on attractiveness, but it's hard to build a beauty culture around activities done in secret).
Only since the industrial revolution has beauty become far more culturally important. I wonder why this is. Is it because it's actually beneficial to women to double down on beauty (which you disagree with)? Or is it because it's valuable for corporations, who have a more engaged consumer base to sell to? Or is it because of men, who value attractiveness more and more, and other traits, like family upbringing or piety, less and less? I suppose it's many of these reasons and more.
I believe a lot of it is about modern consumerism. The greater the insecurity around ones attractiveness (and associated self-worth), the easier to sell to.
As well, the more we've moved up Maslow's hierarchy, with adequate prosperity, the more we societally select for wants (e.g., beauty) versus needs in partnership.
While I think there's a plausible link between the increase in attraction-based relationships and the value of female beauty in the dating marketplace (which increases the incentive to perform beauty work) I agree with Andras that the profit element is probably a stronger driving force. Women who are already in relationships with men who want to be with them regardless of how much beauty work they perform are still motivated to do a lot of it, as are women who are clearly valued in other ways such as the economic marketplace or their community. If mating value was the key force incentivizing this work we wouldn't expect these results. I also don't think individual men within relationships drive much of the incentive to do beauty work. As women will tell you they don't even notice much of it! This is often to the woman's frustration - think about women complaining that their partner never notices when they get their hair cut etc. Also, the degree to which men weight female beauty when choosing a partner isn't independent of societal values, since the more we culturally reinforce the value of female beauty the more a heterosexual man's status is enhanced by the beauty of his partner.
I think businesses are generally increasing desires that already exist rather than creating new ones. In my experience (limited, admittedly), many women do beauty work to maintain a feeling of control over their lives when confronted with stress, sadness, thwarted dreams, or mortality. Also, a lot of beauty work seems to be not for impressing men, but impressing other women.
Agree with the latter part, I don’t think beauty work is mainly about finding a heterosexual mate. I also agree that businesses don’t create the desire for beauty products/procedures as a category (although I think they strengthen it), but I do think they create demand for specific types of products/procedures, some of which are more harmful and costly than others. No one was getting BBLs before the Kardashians made their body into a trend - but I think that’s consistent with your comment about foot binding etc.
Very thought provoking article! I imagine the desire to be seen as beautiful, or simply attractive, is hard wired into everyone, especially women. Capitalism, consumerism, and social media exacerbates and exaggerates this human need, and the pressures that come with it, while ironically creating a market and demographic to rebel against it (body positivity). I'm not sure how things will balance themselves out over time, but you raised all the right questions!
Society (that is, socially progressive society) can't quite make up its mind about whether beauty is a valuable currency that needs to be redistributed more evenly, or it's a harmful patriarchal concept altogether that needs to be rejected. The conundrum is quite clear. If you accept the former, it legitimizes the beauty hierarchy and causes in-fighting. If you accept the latter, you run into upsetting conclusions, like if attractive women really are an oppressed class, then that would mean hot white women are actually victims, and very few people can tolerate that idea.
Yes, love the way you phrased this: “Society (that is, socially progressive society) can't quite make up its mind about whether beauty is a valuable currency that needs to be redistributed more evenly, or it's a harmful patriarchal concept altogether that needs to be rejected.” The desire to redistribute is another way of explaining the “Lizzo is SO SO gorgeous” line.
Very good and thorough piece! I think it might be impossible to keep most humans from valuing physical beauty, since we're social and sexually reproducing animals, but the standards of that beauty seem at least somewhat negotiable. If most of us can agree that it's no longer acceptable to deform women's collarbones with giant neck rings or destroy their ability to walk with foot binding, then we can also probably change some of the "beauty work" in American culture.