farmerl@handel.cs.colostate.EDU (lisa ann farmer) (11/06/90)
In article <9011012313.AA11775@rpp386.Cactus.ORG> you write: > > > >Feminine beauty is something which women wish to attain - it has >nothing to do with men, just as the "Bronze Adonis" male form is >something which men pursue and which equally has nothing to do >with women. If you look at the advertising industry and who runs it you would see that this is not true. Women ( and men) are told what they should look like by the patriarchial structure. In today's society a woman who is thin conforms to the "perfect body" image. All one needs to do is to look at our problem with eating disorders to see that something is dysfunctional. I don't like the fact that we have to "attain" beauty. It is something that is inherent is everyone. We, as a society, need to stop thinking of beauty as a goal. Feminine beauty has everything to do with men because they are in control (meaning the power structure/patriarchy). Granted there will always be some measure of whether you feel attracted to someone but it should come from within yourself instead of being shaped by the advertising industry.
bee@ms.uky.EDU ("E. Gilliam") (11/07/90)
farmerl@handel.cs.colostate.EDU (lisa ann farmer) writes: >Feminine beauty has everything to do with men because they are in >control (meaning the power structure/patriarchy). Granted there will >always be some measure of whether you feel attracted to someone but it >should come from within yourself instead of being shaped by the >advertising industry. Well said! I do have to admit, though, I like men with short hair. No matter what the guys on tv have, no matter what the guys everywhere else have, I like short hair. I just think it looks better. I can get used to the longer, "in" style, because a lot of guys I know have gone through the "i just have to have long, 'cool-looking' hair" phase, but it's not the same. I don't know why I get this. Something about that "sharpness" that also makes me think suits are neat. I hope I'm not a product of the advertisement industry... -- bee@ms.uky.edu, ukma!bee, bee@ukma.bitnet Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. -the _Chicago Reader_
ag1v+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrea B. Gansley-Ortiz) (11/10/90)
Speaking of liking short hair, so do I. I like the clean cut, clean shaven, tie and suit look. Or just a collared shirt with a sweater and nice slacks. There's nothing that looks better to me. (Except maybe ...) I feel that advertising has a lot more to do with how men and women try to conform than feminism or patriarchy. Right now in the U.S. teenagers will pay more attention to the fads then they will to how good they look in something. But they also get a lot of peer approval for wearing faddish clothing. The way advertising controls people is a hard thing to break. And neither the federal or state governments are trying limit the manipulative ways of advertising. Just 2 more pence to the wind. Someone should be getting rich off this bboard. Andrea Gansley-Ortiz
avery@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Avery Colter) (11/16/90)
How about this aesthetic concept: There is no such thing as ugliness as applies to human bodies. There is merely beauty of different polarities, and people whose ideas of beauty match some, but not all, of those polarities. -- Avery Ray Colter {apple|claris}!netcom!avery {decwrl|mips|sgi}!btr!elfcat (415) 839-4567 "Fat and steel: two mortal enemies locked in deadly combat." - "The Bending of the Bars", A. R. Colter
baranski@meridn.enet.dec.com (12/07/90)
Richard Shapiro says: >This is a typical "free will" argument, and suffers the usual difficulties. >Human beings are not autonomous, independent subjects. We are utterly social >creatures: our very sense of self, our subjectivity, is highly constrained by >the various social groups to which we belong. This has long been one of the >crucial, and central, arguments of feminism and the study of gender. The >"freedom" you describe is illusory." It is illusionary if you have a habit of following the herd. Only if you have a habit of thinking for yourself can you have Freedom. People are interdependant, but each and every person has free will, and the freedom to choose; if only they choose to use it. :-) Jim Baranski
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) (12/07/90)
"In this case, the "beautiful female" has been created by a male-controlled fashion industry. I would add that there is a "beautiful male" created by some of the same people, but there's much less pressure for men to adapt to this standard." It's also possible that there is as much pressure on everyone, but that men react to it less. Jim Baranski
baranski@meridn.enet.dec.com (01/02/91)
Interesting that Dworkin makes 'depersonalization' and all the rest, *only* a crime if the subject is a woman... Jim Baranski