The 21st Century : The Era Of Perfection

     Sure, some of us have this great confidence within ourselves about looking great, but that does not hold true for everyone. I understand the pain or disgust, or even disappointment one feels when they look in the mirror and say, “I wish I could change this or that about myself”. Although this piece is written about the author’s life, it holds meaning and connects with for many people; one only has to dig deep enough to find one. For me, it was to realize what is important in life can change, adapt and that we must explore our inner selves and find our own path in life.

There are beauty standards all over the world, but America has one of the most highest and unreachable standard of the all. In the article “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines reflects the issue on how narrow-minded society, magazine and the rest of media is depicting the perfect body. The ideal body in America is established as skinny, tall, perfect skin, tight body are characteristics that destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem (172). As girls get older and into their teen years, they have been brainwashed to need to look like the unrealistic, and photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are right in the beginning.

Every day, a person will see celebrities on television, talk to peers in school or at work, or have encounters with strangers on the street, and automatically make assumptions on what their life must be like. Many times, they envision the other person’s life to be something bigger and better than their own life and that vision causes them to become jealous. That jealousy, in effect, can consume them and cause them become unhappy with the assets and characteristics that they have. People can become so discontented with their lives that they would be willing to give up everything they have to start over or have a different life with different problems. The way that the main characters in Jane Martin’s “Beauty” describe their lives as

Society has set certain stereotypes to girls and women about what it is considered to be beautiful that girl’s focus more in their appearances than in their internal selves. Every girl deserves to feel beautiful because they all are, but how can girls think that they are beautiful if there is always that constant reminder of what being considered beautiful is. It is often seen on TV various shows where little girls are being judged by the way they walk, turn, how their makeup and hair is done and what they are wearing, and obviously their beauty. Society has set such high standards of what is considered beautiful and girls are being the victims of those standards. Girls now feel that they are not beautiful enough because they do not meet

know the feeling one can have when one hears a beautiful song that brings joy to ones heart, stand in a field of flowers that excites ones eyes, or admire a face that is visually pleasing. The controversial issue that surrounds beauty is that some believe that true beauty is defined by someone’s outer appearance, while others believe it is something that is experiences through a person’s character. Beauty is defined as the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the sense or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. The secret of beauty has been a quest of humans for centuries. It has been determined that women and some men spend up to one third of their income on products and procedures that enhance their looks. People spend way too much time looking in the mirror, scrutinizing, worrying, fretting, and wishing people could change something about themselves. People dream of looking like the girl at work because she has great hair, or the girl people meet at a party because she is skinny, with the perfect nose. This happens because people are constantly on social media. A pretty face is not a complete definition of beauty, nor is the quality of one being kind and compassionate. To contain beauty, someone or something does not have to be physically beautiful. Beauty is everywhere. Take a simple flower.

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

Together, we can lower the numbers of people dying from eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries by resisting the beauty ideal. We can choose “to not participate in the beauty rituals, to not support the industries that produce both images and products, and to create other definitions of beauty” (WVFV, pg. 232). The most crucial and easiest solution is to create other definitions of beauty. Ultimately, it is up to the individual to decide what is beautiful. What if someone decided that the only thing that could contribute to one’s beauty is who someone is on the inside? Wouldn’t our world be a completely different place? Instead of

In this day and age, the epidemic of these so called ‘beauty’ standards is only getting worse and worse. Because of photo modification, low self esteem in regular everyday people is starting to become something that is nearly considered normal. Today, 42% of girls from age 5-8 want to be skinnier, 52% of girls aged 9 to 13 feel better when they are dieting and by the age of 17, 78% of girls are unhappy with their own bodies. Think about

Dove’s Choose Beautiful campaign encourages woman all around the world to ignore media’s unattainable standards of beauty and replace it with a message full of female empowerment. The commercial features women all over the world, who as they enter a building have the choice between a door marked “average” and a door marked “beautiful.” This campaign began after Dove conducted a study that found “that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful; most say they’re average” (Chumsky, 2015). Many women say that they went through the average door without hesitating and feel that being beautiful is too far out of reach. They felt that society had labeled them as average

Beauty standards in America are always changing and continuously on the rise due to society’s constant obsession with the perfect body image. This image is built upon the things we see in movies, television shows, and magazines, which causes girls to feel the need to look flawless and set far-fetched goals for their physical appearance. Today’s era marks tall, skinny and flawless faces as beautiful, and if girls don’t have any of these attributes, they truly believe that they aren’t as beautiful and will do whatever it takes in order to obtain that beauty. In today’s ever-so-demanding society, social media, flawless models, and pressure from not only peers but from family as well, have all implemented a negative impact

Now, let’s get the facts straight about “Beautiful” people’s self-esteem. Our self-esteem has been affected by the “Beautiful” people. We either have high or low self-esteems and the environment that we live in creates it. At work, school, and home we are surrounded by beautiful people with high self-esteems. The not so pretty people have low self-esteems towards the world and themselves. Dove gives plentiful facts about self-esteems related to beauty. Dove Self Esteem Fund, company, in the article "Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National report on the state of Self-Esteem" (2008), analyzes that girls have a lot of pressure due to emotional stress with ourselves. Dove gives a lot of ethos to back up each statement said. Dove talks about kids and parents in order to get to kids and parents to be involved in a positive way. This article attracts audience as young kids, teens, and parents. Parents also contribute to kid’s low self-esteem issues. Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, commissioned by the Dove® Self-Esteem Fund, reveals that there is a self-esteem crisis in this country that pervades every aspect of a girl’s life including her looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members (Dove). Self-esteem is a key issue in the world. In the article it’s revealed as a crisis in the country and it’s mostly about beauty.

Self- love. How is it done? One of the hardest things to do as a female in today's society is love yourself. Popular forms of media, such as Instagram, have been creating these unrealistic beauty standards that most can't achieve. From skinny physiques to curvy physiques, everyone is fighting to achieve a definition of beauty that ultimately doesn't exist.

Anyone studying need "21st century abilities" to be fruitful. It 's energizing to trust that we live in times that are revolutionary to the point that they request new and diverse capacities. The aptitudes understudies need in the 21st century are relevant today as they were 20 years ago.

Dear little girl, as you grow up you will learn that your role in society has been limited to specific roles. You will learn very on that your sole purpose in life is to be of benefit to a man. In elementary school you will be told that, if a young boy hits you this is his way of showing you that he “likes” you. You will learn much more about boys before you learn anything about your sexuality. When you eventually learn, it’ll be mandated through the eyes of man. You will find that you do not have autonomy over your body but that you must always be aware of the ways in which your body affects men. You may be told that you should cover up so that grown men will not be “tempted”. As you get older you will become more aware of beauty politics. Because of society’s deep investment into physical beauty, you too will naturally become deeply invested into your body. And this will not be your fault, but because of this you will internalize that your physical appearance is much more valuable than yourself as a person. Often this will be reiterated through popular culture and media. More importantly from this you will learn that if nothing else, you have your looks. But beyond this you will realize that society’s ideal beauty standards will not apply to you. School may become a place where you are either objectified for fitting into what society has defined as “beautiful” or you may be humiliated for not fitting into the normative of beauty. If you are of a fair complexion and

Today, I will help you learn to love yourself by using tips and tricks that worked for me as well as my own personal experience.