Cultural attitudes about our bodies

ENGLISH 111                                        

SPRING 2013

PROFESSOR DUBSON

Name: Sarah Benjelloun Touimi

Due: February 14, 2013

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT #1

CULTURAL ATTITUDES ABOUT OUR BODIES

      Beauty is relative and every human being seems sensitive to their beauty. Indeed, taste differs from a person to another and beauty depends on each person’s taste, but whatever the diversity observed in the world, the attention to the beauty nevertheless seems universal. Our society emphasizes discipline, productivity and competition and unfortunately nowadays, even the human body became the expression of these values. In fact, our attitudes about beauty as it applies to the face and to the body changed because of many factors: the media and their constant commercials about the beauty and the body, the role of the family has changed, the plastic surgery industry and the new technologies that have been developed these past years. All these factors have an important role in this new idea about beauty and the “perfect body”.

     In my opinion, the relation with our body should be inspired of an old Chinese proverb that says: "Heal your body so that your soul will feel good in it”. It means that we should treat our body as a friend, which, we should respect, take care of, and accept as it is. Also, my grandmother who is Moroccan always told me that it is more important to be good and have a good personality then to be beautiful because, goodness and virtue necessarily bring a form of beauty. However, in today's society, we have a very difficult relationship with our body. According to American studies, the latest statistics indicate that 85% of girls do not like their appearance. It seems that the other 15% correspond to the current standards of beauty. The human body has become a reflection of our industrial capitalist world that promotes efficiency, performance and competition. Indeed, by our physical appearance, we want to show that we adhere to these values ​​widely popular in the society. We hope to prove our worth. Then we treat our bodies not as an ally but as a raw material, which we have to transform to make it acceptable by the society. For instance, in my high school in Morocco, all my classmates used to care a lot about their bodies and many groups were created because of their different idea about the body.

     Moreover, I think nothing is more natural than the diversity among human beings. Besides, how boring it would be if we were all the same! But this great diversity is now unfortunately hidden. We believe that we are solely responsible for our morphology and the body changes as we please. We claim that by making efforts and spending money, we can make the body achieve the criteria defined by the perfect model: tall, young, thin and well cut. Thus, the dictatorship of the perfect body has never been so widespread. Of course, ornaments and artifacts have always been female rituals and the pursuit of beauty. But when the body was not exhibited, we focused more about taking care of the face and hands. The pressure on women today is much stronger and the ideal of beauty that is imposed is less accessible: be very thin and have a bust, it is almost impossible without surgery.

     To continue, I think there are three factors that explain why people want to have the “perfect body”. First, “the perfect body” is the simple reflection of our capitalist society. Indeed, having a perfect body is the ultimate proof that we adhere to the values ​​in vogue at the moment: the performance, spirit of competition, efficiency and self-control. Moreover, looking young as long as possible is now the assurance of our productivity. This is an illusion, but this belief is deeply rooted in our minds.

     On the other hand, the importance that we attach to the perfection of our body is also due to the dissolution of family and social ties. In the past, our cultural model consisted of family and community solidarity. Today, it is oriented towards consumption. For instance, before, in my family we used to meet every Sunday to share a family time but today there is no more Sunday’s meeting. The family and the community no longer provide the links that are forged between people. They rely more on individual efforts that each makes to enter into relationship with others. But we live in an age of instant where the image is extremely important. When we try to build relationships, first impressions count a lot. In rural areas in Morocco, the person’s reputation was built around several factors: his parents, his family, his knowledge, and his reputation. In urbanized societies, such as in France we do not know the origin of the people around us. Or moreover, in the United States, exists a process called “embalming” that consists on making dead people look like they are just asleep. Again, people care more about the appearances.

     In addition, loneliness is everywhere, as is the lack of love and communication. To break this solitude, everyone is desperately trying to match the images that are valued, including the importance of looking good. But, strangely, the more we try to escape the loneliness, the more we are sinking. This quest for “ the perfect body” is, after all, a fairly narcissistic, which leads us to be alone most of the time. Facing ourselves, we forget to go to others.    

     Finally, the excessive research of the “perfect body” reveals the immense power of advertising discourse that encourages us to examine our bodies and others in detail, in order to meet the smallest defects. This way facilitates the beauty industry to earn a lot of money, but it also leads us in a gear that it is very difficult to get out, because self-esteem is at stake. In the second place, the pervasiveness of advertising and its blaming speech is the first cause of all this pressure that women experience today. Advertising has led to the widespread dissemination of models of beauty, which we constantly compare ourselves to. And the pressure is enormous.

     The message that the advertising wants to send us is on two levels. First, it tells us that we are not thin enough, beautiful and fit. To prove its statement, it presents us models that have all the beauty’s criteria. In addition, it encourages us to carefully examine our body in detail in order to discover some defects. Then, advertising plays on our sense of guilt and convinces us that with a little more tenacity and determination, we could all look like models, even if they are unreal. Also, their speech is centered on the lack of self-esteem for profit. Thus, advertising reminds us, the idea that we are fully responsible for our appearance, putting aside the genetic or other factors essential to human nature, such as aging or pregnancy for women. The tactics of advertising, are manipulation.