Women and Femininity in U.S. Popular Culture

In a culture saturated with idealized and retouched photos of models, comparisons of "ideal" and ordinary bodies seem inescapable, whether by others or by oneself. The American sociologist Leon Festinger's Social Comparison Theory of self-evaluation based on external models "would predict that people might use images projected by the media as standards for comparison" (Grogan, p. 100). Constant bombardment with an unattainable ideal of "models' bodies (slim and carefully arranged in the most flattering poses) would be expected to lead to unfavorable evaluation of the body of the perceiver" (Grogan, pp. 100–101). Some women do indeed report greater dissatisfaction with their own appearance than before exposure, others "no change," and some even report increased satisfaction. Grogan cites another study that correlates exposure and more negative body image to pre-test attitudes about the body. Clearly, studies of women exposed to media images have yielded mixed results.

In any case, such comparisons increase a young woman's sense that her appearance is substandard and urgently in need of repair. Forgotten is the reality that hair and makeup artists spend hours preparing models for these photos. Even then, the images can be airbrushed and pasted together. One actress (Julia Roberts) found magazine photos of herself to be a composite of different shots. Another (Kate Winslet) was displeased to find that her thighs had been slimmed in a picture air-brushed without her permission.

In their real lives, not even models or media stars resemble their carefully staged professional photos. How, then, can any woman without such resources escape disappointment with her appearance? Media images are partly to blame for the wounding and deflation so many feel in our narcissistic culture. Psychologists "argue that a failure to match the ideal leads to self-criticism, guilt and lowered self-worth"; this effect is stronger for women than for men because of more frequent exposure to photographs and the "cultural pressures on women to conform to an idealized body shape are more powerful and more widespread than those on men," says Grogan (p. 100).

In addition to this psychological need to repair perceived flaws, consumerism creates appetites for products that respond to the newly-awakened need to improve one's appearance. If not born beautiful, one can own the paraphernalia of beauty. Thus marketing in tandem with industry and the media motivate women to try to remedy their disappointment in their looks. Sandra Lee Bartky refers to this in Femininity and Domination as the "fashion-beauty complex" (p. 42), parallel to the "military-industrial complex" in that both are "major articulation[s] of capitalist patriarchy … a vast system of corporations—some of which manufacture products, others services and still others information, images, and ideologies" (p. 39). The fashion-beauty complex, argues Bartky, has replaced the family as the regulator of femininity.

The American feminist Naomi Wolf addresses the conflict between social and biological requirements for attractiveness in The Beauty Myth. The Professional Beauty Qualification, or PBQ as she terms it, reflects the demands of a capitalist economy and the exploitation of sex and fantasy as incentives to consume and as criteria for hiring in the job market. The connection between publicity and success, status, sex appeal, and the admiration of others has long directed print and other forms of media.

Real-life achievements, based on talent, discipline, frustration, and hard work as much as on luck, seem disconnected from these images. Competency does not always help to secure or keep employment, according to widely publicized lawsuits of wrongful job termination for reasons other than weak performance. Some women have been fired because they were neither pretty enough nor slim enough to sell products in department stores, to read the news as television anchors, to work as flight attendants, or even to sing in the opera—an art form traditionally dependent on talent rather than appearance. The internationally respected soprano Deborah Voigt was dropped from a scheduled production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos because her weight strained both the costume and her credibility in the role. "Tenorissimo" Luciano Pavarotti, in contrast, was not fired for his enormous body. Rather, he chose to retire because he no longer could move on stage.

Of particular concern is the early-twenty-first century phenomenon of "makeover" programs (What Not to Wear, How Do I Look, Date Patrol, Style Court, and Extreme Makeover). The last is the most serious challenge to women's (and men's) health and well-being, fostering the fantasy that with enough money and cosmetic surgery or other procedures, anyone can have Hollywood-style glamour and, in fact, should. The program features multiple surgical procedures over a period of many hours and with good results. No information emerges about how the potential candidate's health history, suitability for extreme surgery, or physical condition are evaluated before selection is made. Minimal attention is spent on pain or complications of recovery. Television programs on stomach stapling (gastric bypass surgery) provide more information on the potential dangers of this last-chance solution to morbid obesity. Indeed, either way the patient is at serious risk. The problems with silicone breast implants are better publicized, but still women of all ages continue to desire large breasts that change the proportions of their bodies. Younger and younger adolescents ask for cosmetic surgery, a phenomenon that should not surprise a society with ever-growing numbers of young women suffering from eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.

"How healthy is the Surgical Age?" asks Wolf (p. 229), citing deaths caused by smoking, fasting, and other extreme methods of weight control and cosmetic surgery known as "body sculpting." She correctly aligns such practices with an intense stress that, she suggests, can contribute to mental instability. "Narcissists feel that what happens to their bodies does not happen to them" (p. 230). In other words, paying attention to various body parts or facial features contributes to a fragmented and fragmenting view of the self, a distorted sense of the body as abnormal or diseased. "The Surgical Age's definition of female 'health' is not healthy" (p. 231).

Wolf's Surgical Age goes hand-in-hand with "body dysmorphic disorder" (formerly "dysmorphophobia"), a somatoform disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) (number 300.7 in the International Classification of Diseases). Intense preoccupation with minor flaws, real or imagined, in facial or body features can lead to excessive, almost compulsive grooming rituals to try to undo or control one's "deformity." Symptoms range from both avoiding and seeking out one's reflection in mirrors or windows to "significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning … [and] may be underrecognized in settings in which cosmetic procedures are performed" (DSM-IV, p. 467). Short of calling the Surgical Age pathological, this statement infers that genuine psychological disorders may be masked in a society that promotes an exaggerated level of self-scrutiny.

A woman who chooses to submit to multiple plastic surgeries over a period of years in order to achieve a "Barbie-doll" look for her face and body may be determined to enjoy the attention, success, and glamorous social life she thinks beauty will bring. There may be a relationship between good looks and social success, in that attractiveness increases self-confidence, an appealing trait that draws people's attention. Self-confidence can be learned, however, and does not result from physical appearance alone.