Reading through “Male Beauty Work”,
I see once again how double biases affect men and women as they decide what to
do with their bodies. To the average person in our society, a man with leg hair
seems masculine, and a woman with shaved legs seems feminine. If a woman
doesn’t shave her leg, she’s often perceived as masculine, a lesbian,
unhygienic, and sometimes as an empowered feminist. At least in our society,
it’s still possible for a woman with unshaven legs to come across as powerful.
If a man decides to remove the hair from his legs, it can be perceived as gay
or feminine, and not much else. No one is going to say he’s masculine. This is
why learning about male beauty work in Japan was so interesting. To read about
men stressing about their appearance is a new concept for the majority of us.
For the media to exploit “men’s fears of women’s negative evaluations” is
refreshing, and saddening. It’s refreshing because usually it is the women
being targeted by the media and fashion industry to change one thing or another
about their appearance and their bodies, so it’s nice to see that men can be
equally as stressed about their appearance and see them shelling out money to
have these “problems” fixed. However, then I realized that equaling the playing
fields this way wouldn’t solve anything in the long run. Making men and women
equally self-conscious and willing to spend insane amounts of money on beauty
products is feeding the false notion that there’s something wrong and unnatural
in our natural appearances.
I have a few male friends who I’ve
talked with about their problems with their bodies. One of my good guy friends from
home was complaining shortly before we left for school about how rough his feet
were. I had plans to get a manicure the next day so I jokingly invited him
along to get a pedicure. He laughed, but then 20 minutes later he asked if I
would seriously take him with me. He ended up getting over his discomfort and
while he was getting a pedicure (without polish, of course), he asked the woman
if a lot of guys came in, and she told him that there were a surprising number
that have come to get manicures and pedicures, as well as facials. The
difference between Japan and here is that in Japan it’s more socially
acceptable for men to get work like that done, where as here it’s more hidden,
clearly shown by my guy friend wearing his sunglasses and a hoodie until we
were safely inside the salon. My other guy friends have talked about getting
their chests waxed, and whether or not they should grow out their beards.
The quote that really stuck with me
from the article “The Political Economy of Choice” was “We may think in the
west that we are free, but we have been brought up constantly under the
pressure of advertising, in the form of peer pressure and other social
normalization”. To take something as natural as bodily hair and make people
feel ashamed of it to the point where they feel there isn’t a choice but to do
something about it just shows how powerful societal pressure has become. It
isn’t even questioned by the majority of people anymore. A couple hundred years
ago women would voluntarily break their ribs so they could wear smaller
corsets. Today women and men get hair ripped from all over their bodies, they
get it lasered off, and they get needles shoved through their ears, noses, eyebrows,
and tongues. Personally I’m all for self-expression. If you want to get a nose
ring, or five piercings in your ear, go for it – as long as you’re sure it’s
completely what you want and you’re not doing it for someone else. As for the
dangers presented in this article, the societal pressure has to stop. People
have to become better educated about these issues to the point that they can
start questioning these things on their own, instead of being horrified reading
articles like these.
Although
it’s not what the articles about, this reminded me of when I was going into
ninth grade and I decided with a group of friends that we should get our ears
pierced on our cartilage. We went to the Claire’s jewelry store that was in our
town and all lined up to have the girl shoot an earring gun at us. Despite the
pain, we were all so enthralled that we all had new earrings. Five of us went,
and only two still have their earrings today. One girl started to hate it and
took it out, claiming she never really wanted it in the first place and she
just didn’t want to be the only one not getting it. The other girl’s earring
got infected, and that’s also what happened to mine. Even though my earring’s
out for good, the back of my ear is still vaguely messed and that’s a reminder
for the rest of my life to make sure that whatever I choose to do to my body
should be safe, and realize that weird side effects can happen and that some
things are permanent.
Watching
the movie “Miss Representation”, I was most shocked about the part news
stations play into making women feel less powerful, less respectful, and just
overall self-conscious about their bodies. The example that really stuck out
was when they were talking about the 2008 election and comparing Hillary
Clinton and Sarah Palin. They were quick to say that Hillary Clinton would
never have been where she was if it wasn’t for her husband, and completely
ignored any accomplishment she had. As for Sarah, they were quick to cover up
something she said was wrong with comments about her appearance. One article
about them was called “The Bitch and The Ditz”. This isn’t okay. This is
diminishing women down to their appearance and “female characteristics”. No one
would ever be allowed to refer to President Obama or Mitt Romney as “a bitch”,
and if they did there would be serious backlash against them. Because Hillary
Clinton was a strong woman and demanded to have people listen to her, men, and
even women, perceived her as being a bitch. Because Sarah Palin was “too good
looking”, people perceived her as being ditzy, whereas if she had been older or
less attractive, nobody would have listened to her. This portion of the movie
clearly showed to me how society is unconsciously uncomfortable with women
being equal to men, and how this needs to be fixed.
Anna Grofik
ReplyDeleteAs Jane gave in her interesting examples, male beauty work is viewed as feminine in the U.S. If a male were to go to a salon, his masculinity would come into question and a women’s lack of self-beautification would bring her femininity into doubt. It was interesting to read about the androgyny that exists in the Japanese beauty industry, specifically in waxing. Also in Jane’s discussion of “The Political Economy of Choice” I agreed with her in saying that people are made to feel ashamed of the way they look even though they were born that way naturally. This embarrassment is what coerces them into practices such as Brazilian waxes. In addition, Jane’s ear-piercing story truly shows that we don’t really question why we modify ourselves until we realize we don’t enjoy doing it. Furthermore, I agree with Jane in saying that the backlash against female politicians is a practice that needs to be eradicated.
I think Jane makes a really great distinction in her piece about self-expression and external pressure. When she stated: “Personally I’m all for self-expression. If you want to get a nose ring, or five piercings in your ear, go for it – as long as you’re sure it’s completely what you want and you’re not doing it for someone else.” I think that beautifying ourselves goes hand in hand with cultural norms. As an interviewee suggested in Lorber’s article last week, we make a statement no matter what we do to our hair. This is true of course, to attributes even beyond our hair! However these personal statements are I think always influenced by outside sources. If I buy a new shirt, or pierce my ears, or dye my hair, it’s all being influenced somehow. I think what our choice is, in terms of waxing or anything else is if we choose to be a part of the many or the few. We can’t choose to be influenced one way or another, but I think we can decide for our self what we are going to do with our influences, we can figure out how we are going to internalize and process the outside media into a decision that makes sense for our self. We need to focus on our personal ideals of beauty, self-expression, and personal truths before being sucked into straitening, dying, shaving, plucking, and waxing our hair or altering our natural bodies in any other way.
ReplyDeleteTJ Brady- I completely agree with Jane that it was interesting to learn about the mens grooming habits in Japan. Being an American male who does minimal grooming it was a little scary to hear about how the Japanese men took their grooming so seriously. It was scary because whose to say it's not possible for this to be true in America in the near future? This is something I could not imagine doing and is something I hope I never have to do.
ReplyDeleteWatching "Miss Representation" was eye-opening and a little sickening. The worst part for me was how the media ripped apart Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton. Watching the media rip them apart showed me that no matter what a women in power does, she loses. If she is conservative like Hilary Clinton, they look at her as less feminine and not a real woman. If she dresses like Sarah Palin and looks like a stereotypical woman they assume that she isn't smart and don't take her seriously. No matter what a woman does she loses.