Question

Please answer each question in 1-2 sentences:

1). What is the beauty myth?

2). Give at least two examples of how the idea of beauty supports gender stratification.

3). Why do you think it has been especially difficult to convince men to share the housework?

Answer 1

• 1.The basic premise of he beauty myth is that forced adherence to standards of physical beauty has grown stronger for women as they gained power in other societal arenas. Naomi Wolf argues that this standard of beauty has taken over the work of social coercion formerly left to myths about motherhood, domesticity, chastity, and passivity, all of which have been used to keep women powerless. The myth of beauty spreads the belief that an objective measurement of beauty exists, and that woman must want to embody it, and that men must want such women.
• However, Wolf contends that the beauty myth is really not about women, it is about men’s institutions and power. Beauty is about behavior, not appearance. The qualities labelled “beautiful” in women in any given time period are no more than symbols of female behavior considered desirable at that time. Besides weakening women psychologically, the beauty myth feeds a multibillion-dollar cosmetics industry, and keeps women from rising too high in the workplace by offering a way around antidiscrimination laws.
• 2.Beauty is linked to power and ranks women in their attractiveness thus affecting social opportunity,if you have perfect skin and the perfect body then as a woman you have better opportunities to land a job in entertainment or modeling industry and also be at the top.Females definitely feel more pressurized than men to look beautiful and attractive all the time.The make up advertisments lways show women using every possible type of make up to get that "perfect look".The concept of looking perfect,being slim,having a fairer skin,always dressed perfectly all applies to more women than men. Like how a man needs to be rich,a woman needs to be attractive physically.
• 3.Gender roles is the problem.I think that it is difficult to convince men to share in housework because of our cultural standards. Typically, “taking care of the home and children has been considered ‘women’s work’ and being the breadwinners is role alloted to men.In addition, I think that some aspects of the fact that women do most of the housework has been because of biological differences.
• Women are the ones who become pregnant and have children – a process that takes months. Add to that the time it takes to raise a child, and that process can take years out of a woman’s working life. For women to take so much time off of work, I think that men feel a lot of pressure to support a family with just one income. I think this gives men inflated egos, they think that they do such hard work; staying home and raising children couldn’t possibly be that hard.