Evolution – Distorted Perceptions of Beauty

At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don’t care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.
- Ann Landers (1918-2002) -

Why do you think women worry about how they look?

• Do women tend to judge other women by how they look?
• Are women bombarded by companies who want them to think that they don’t measure up?
• Do women judge themselves by what is negative, not what is positive?
• Do women pressure other women to conform to an idealized image of what is beautiful?
• Do women equate aging to loss of beauty?
• Do women believe beauty gives them a competitive edge in all facets of their lives?
• Do women fear that men won’t like/love them if they are not beautiful?
• Do women believe that beauty is of more value than intelligence?
• Are women surrounded by media role models who are air brushed, photo shopped beauties?

An example of an Air Brushed and Photo Shopped Model:

Here are some other websites that discuss Distorted Perceptions of Beauty:

Real or Retouched? Distorted Perceptions of Beauty - An excellent example of very bizarre photo retouching.

Chasing Beauty: An Addict’s Memoir  by Lisa Hickey- “I want beauty not to matter.”

How much time do you spend trying to make yourself look better?

Do men worry about how they look? If so, why?

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For more Women and the Beauty Industry rants from your un-retouched, un-makeupped, wrinkled, grey haired author, go to my Category called Women’s Stories.

Simply Eggcellent – Don’t be a Stupid Girl

I Believe Women will achieve the Equality they deserve when they can defy all the industries that make them feel unworthy.
I Believe Women will achieve the Happiness they deserve when they quit worrying about their age, and how they look.
I Believe the Media does a better job at Instilling Fear in people than it does in empowering them.

Many women, I’ve discovered, don’t share my beliefs. They are willing to support the industries that tell them they are not good enough – not pretty enough, not thin enough, not sexy enough.

Fortunately, there are women who do share a few of my beliefs and one of these is the writer of the blog Hippie Cahier.  She recently wrote an ‘eggcellent post’ “I don’t wanna be a stupid girl”. Also, be very sure to watch the video by P!nk called Stupid Girls. 

 

Another blogger who writes about women, both historically and in the present, is Barb at Before Morning Breaks. In this post she tells of a new fashion hell: Before Morning Breaks Considers Changing Buttletts.

Please use the comment form below to link to any of your posts, or any posts you have read elsewhere, that encourage women to ‘Not be Stupid Girls’!

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Some of my other Rants about why I wish Women would ignore the industries and the media that they are slaves to:

A 3 Dressed Up As a 9 - Sondra the Snow Goddess before and after she is photoshopped so she looks thinner.
A Skinny-Obsessed World – “Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls.” J.K. Rowling
The Beauty Hype – I’m against women being told they must color their hair or hide their wrinkles or paint their faces or wear certain clothes or lose weight – in order to be beautiful.
Mother Nature Defies the Beauty Industry! Can you imagine what the world would look like if Mother Nature listened to the human Beauty Industry?
How to Run in Stilettos – “Courage is no match for an unfriendly shoe“. Roger Moore, as James Bond
What Dressing Like a Slut Says – So ladies, wear revealing clothing if you want to. But don’t ever think it is safe to wear anything you want where ever you want. Life isn’t about Why you shouldn’t be a victim, it is about how NOT to be a victim.
The Glass Ceiling is Made of Cloth – But really ladies, if you can’t peacefully co-exist with your own body (just as it is when you hop out of the shower) why do you think you are playing on the same field as the men you are competing with?
The Many Faces of Women’s Equality – I’m all for women’s liberation and gender equality. I just don’t want to see the children get trampled in the morning rush to the office.
The Power of Grey Hair – Mia Gallagher believes our fear of mortality is behind the fear of ageing and treating ageing as a disease that can be cured with potions. “If aging is a disease then life is a disease.”
Women, Liberation, Freedom, Beauty – As Naomi Wolf explained in The Beauty Myth: “An ideology that makes women feel “worth less” was urgently needed to counteract the way feminism had begun to make us feel worth more.”

A 3 Dressed Up As a 9

You looked a whole lot better to me
From twenty feet away
You’re just a 3 dressed up as a 9 ….
Trooper

Catchy song – although I don’t think people should be judged by their looks, do you? The song confirms the stereotype that men are only interested in women’s looks, and that women will do what it takes to meet a man’s expectations.

The Fashion and Beauty Industry have certainly capitalized on the desire of women to be younger, thinner, firmer, smoother…. and if the product can’t actually do what it claims, then the Advertising Industry will find a graphic artist who will make sure that expectations and reality appear to be one and the same. (If you Google ‘Airbrushing Celebrity Before and After’ you’ll see  some excellent examples.)

Let me demonstrate how simple it is to alter a photo to make a model ‘more beautiful’. In the photo above, Sondra the Snow Goddess is modelling the latest in scarf wear.

Here is Sondra after a session in Photoshop. Her eyes are more symmetrical, her lips have been plumped up, and her whole body has been elongated. Do you think she looks more ‘beautiful’? The right answer is “No, of course not!” Any other answer is dead wrong.

Perhaps the simplest way to make Sondra’s photo more dramatic, without altering her body, is to add a frame to her photo. If your Blog theme doesn’t add a frame, you can do it yourself before you upload. I like to add a simple black and white border around the outside with a program called FastStone Image Viewer.

Would you like to make your own Sondra the Snow Goddess? The directions for these Mini Crochet Snowmen are at Cut Out and Keep. I used Crochet Cotton, and though this made a very cute snowman that was only 1.75 inches tall, next time I would use a heavier wool and bigger crochet hook.

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My Similar Beauty Industry Rants:  A Skinny Obsessed World
The Beauty Hype
Mother Nature Defies the Beauty Industry
How to Run in Stilettos
Women, Liberation, Freedom, Beauty

Weekly Photo Challenge: Self Portrait

You will regret that cell-phone self-portrait in the bathroom mirror one day.
Unknown Author

A Portrait within a Portrait. I wish I could claim the idea as my own, but I have seen it done before. I just can’t find a link to show you!

The photos were pretty straight forward to take – bring a tall stool from the kitchen, stack a footstool on top of it, set the wooden clock on top of that and then sit the camera on the very top. (Think Yertle the Turtle, only my motivation was different.) Set the timer, then press the button. Pick up the picture frame, move into position. Click.

Repeat… many times. The photos weren’t as clear as I would have liked – too much wobble in the tower that held the camera.  A tripod would have worked better, I suppose, but I couldn’t find one.  I called in The Car Guy and got him to take a few of the photos, so I can’t claim that the entire project is a Self Portrait, I’m afraid!

Once the pictures were on my computer, I invoked the great and powerful Photoshop Elements and created five layers, one layer for each of the five photos I chose. I erased the pixels that were inside the picture frame, then shrunk each successive photo to fit each frame.

Do you think you look the same in a photo as you do in your mirror? Could you live without ever looking at yourself? I tried going a whole day without looking in the mirror. Pretty easy, actually, because I don’t wear make-up. It was a bit hard to put in eye-drops, though. The Car Guy said that shaving would be a bit dodgy without a mirror.

A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.
John Singer Sargent

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My Similar Faces Story: Weekly Photo Challenge: Faces – portraits of my Pansies