The Selling of Beauty.
Or Something Else.
The white beauty myth has made its way to the United States and the magazine industry. As readers flip through the glossy pages of Vogue or Cosmopolitan, the technique the magazines use to sell products and ideas is blatantly obvious. The pages are covered with beautiful women to encourage readers to either read the article or buy the product. These women usually have long hair, white teeth, flawless, sun-kissed skin, and perfectly toned bodies, selling not only the products but also notions of femininity and ideals. Sara Baartman's influence can be felt as one looks through these magazines, as these ideals strongly cater to western culture.
Unfortunately these ideals affect not only women in America, but those abroad as well. According to the Research and Creative Magazine, sponsored by Indiana University, in India, "traditional norms of beauty are being redefined in terms of Western associations with success, empowerment and the attractiveness of light-colored skin". Indian women are undergoing skin-lightening treatments to achieve the look presented in so many beauty magazines. Ironically, American women are risking their lives in tanning beds to also achieve the perfect skin color. If the reader of the magazine is not already inclined to alter their body, the magazine gives suggestions and tips for self-improvement. The magazine informs women how they can easily lose weight, alter the color of their skin, look younger, be prettier, and dress better, as if how they look now is not good enough.
One study took a more detailed look at Cosmopolitan (Cosmo) magazine, the best-selling women's magazine in the nation. This study explored the content and images of this magazine from spring of 2005 to spring of 2011. What the study found is not ground-breaking or surprising; however, it is terrifying. Beauty Redefined, the organization which conducted this study, states, "Plenty of research has demonstrated links between women’s magazines and body image disturbance, disordered eating, drive for thinness, appearance obsession and other scary factors (1). These factors are related to images and content that rely on photoshopping images, consistently emphasize thinness, weight loss and the attainment of what the magazines define as ideal beauty in order to achieve health, happiness and relationship success". Therefore, the magazine correlates improving one's appearance with improving one's health, happiness, and relationships. If this is correct, then I would suggest the magazines explain why a woman with an eating disorder has a decrease in health, happiness and relationship success, even though she may have "improved" her appearance (by society's standards). I'd like them to explain why a young adult woman may have increased her breast size through plastic surgery to improve her appearance, but her health decreased due to an infection caused by the silicone implants. The idea that "improving one's appearance" will lead to a better, happier, and more successful life is completely misleading and inaccurate.