Blog 3: The Beauty Myth: The Importance of Appearance

It's crazy how society has indoctrinated man and woman to think about first impressions when dressing ourselves. We find in the readings how much our society influences opinions, actions, and even legal justification for discrimination on gender appearance. Case after case in the readings were situations where women were pinpointed in their work environments and culture because of their out of the norm appearance. However, who in society, who has the authority, and who creates the guidelines that have dictated the discrimination of women on a case to case basis. Unfortunately, we--man and woman--have allowed our media, society, and mass influences affect our opinions on appearance and those who take action on appearance.

Fortunately we do not have to agree with societies ever increasing image influences. We see in this Dove commercial how one particular company is choosing to encourage "individuals" to choose whether to stand above the influence:



I find it very interesting how the situations presented by Naomi Wolf were described by the male adjudicators in Barnes v. Costle "...if a woman's unique physical characteristics--red hair, say, or large breasts--were the reasons given by her employer for sexual harassment, then her personal appearance was the issue not her gender,in which case she could not expect protection under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act." Unfortunately, to whoever ruled in this case, in my opinion needs to look up the definition of gender. Gender is the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones). Biological in the definition refers to sex of male or female not gender of male or female. Gender as defined are characteristics that are attributed to the sex of males and females. So a man can be male yet carry-out a feminine gender role in a certain area of life, and a woman can be a "housewife" and yet love masculine hobbies like mountain climbing, motor cross sports, and golf.




It is very interesting to me to read on page 42 of the saying "business like and feminine," from this section I find that women cannot appear business like and feminine. The phrase is intriguing because a business suit male or female is a powerful symbol of: status, power, finances, and taste. However, a suit in all the characteristics can be business like and feminine without being subjected to an overly male influence. I, personally have an amazing business suit I purchased when coming to college. The suit is black, tailored, a skirt, blazer, and it is of the highest degree of professionalism without masking my personality and my respect for the interviewing process. I've noticed when females my age purchase a suit described in the text such as:

"'Business like yet feminine' is a favorite description of clothing sold in mail-order catalogs aimed at working women, and this elusive dualism is what triggered the strong response in the United States to a series of ads for lingerie manufacturer that showed business wear blowing open to reveal a lace-clad nakedness. But words 'businesslike' and 'feminine,' as we saw, area each used to manipulate the other as well as the woman caught in the middle."

These young women in my life that purchase this powerful article of clothing influenced by such guidelines seem more self conscious about their outfit instead of allowing the suit to empower their abilities to focus on the interview at hand.

The most shocking moment of the reading is on page 55 and 56 where women's bodies are used to describe their economic roles. I find the passages of these pages to be represented in a clip from Legally Blonde the first movie (the intended portion of the clip goes to 1:42 not the full 9 minute clip).



The social controls of appearance, culture, and societal influence all play on the female development whether good or bad. They can limit a woman and/or provide room for acceptance and improvement. Unfortunately, the discussions of female harassment, sex violation, and unjustified judgement still exist today and we still live a very male influenced society. However, women are stepping up to the plate and playing the game and not backing down as such in the most recent case of Erin Andrews, ESPN sideline reporter.