[miss_jane]

As I read through some of the threads about various aspects of beauty (cosmetic surgery, shaving, makeup etc) I noticed that the majority of them were distinctly not about the politics but about hints ands tips. I thought it would be useful and nice for busties to have a place to discuss the politics behind the "beauty myth" and hopefully clear some of our thoughts on it.

The type of topics that have been playing on my mind:

*Cosmetic Surgery
*The Removal of Body Hair
*Diets
*Makeup
*The Media's Attitude

Just to make everything clear I don't want this to become a place to attack busties who chose different ways of expressing their beauty.

So what are your thoughts? Can stereotypical beauty maintenance sit comfortably with feminist politics? Feminism is about a lot about choice for the individual, but is any choice (specifically about beauty) that a woman makes necessarily feminist? How difficult is it to stand up and fight the beauty myth?

As a side note : The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is the book that stemmed these thoughts in me and a few years own I still haven't cleared in my mind the way I feel about things.

[mornington]

as far as pressure coming from women, and women being socialised to look a certain way - I have to agree. Women - and I'm making vast sweeping generalisations here - are more "sociable" than men, and I think that the pressure to "normalise" goes hand-in-hand with that - sociablility is desirable, and if you have to normalise to be sociable, then women are going to be striving to fit in with the ideal/norm. It's also (imo) women who put this pressure on men ... an interesting thought... it's only since the victorians that men have been less flamboyant that women in terms of beauty.

But I do agree with greenbean in that image is more of a state of mind; someone who is happy with thier looks - no matter whether they're conformist or not - is more ideal than an "ideal body". (actually, can I just agree with all of greenbean's last post?)

And on an aside (lecture incoming)... arranged marriage is not, and never can be, the same thing as mate selection. Ven is right in that "smelling" the right person works on pheremones, the endocrine system and the like - mate selection runs on choosing the male with the best genes; testosterone inhibits the body's natural defenses against disease, so a healthy male with high testosterone (which is "smelt") is more attractive. It's called the sexy son effect. With people it's more complicated, but there are similar rules - with wealth & plastic surgery (& perfume!) masking the affects of testosterone. Wealth is why you get arranged marriage - the effect of wealth in creating healthier, wealthier, sexier, sons. As far as as females go, its the effects of oestrogen on the body that are attractive, but most females do the choosing - it's human society that alters this balance.