First, I have to point out it was only a suspicion, I have never made any “claim” to who defines beauty. But, alas, I now have my hands dirty, and my mind thinking, so I imagine one is somewhat forthcoming, though I make no promises of quality.

Second, I wanted to point out the telling shift from Sam and Rudo’s first response, to Rudo’s second. In the first two both of you referred to “male oriented” (Rudo) or “men… define beauty.” (Sam) But by the second response Rudo has moved to the term “patriarchy.” Which is a much more defenseable position, but also a substantially different one. This brings me to Rudo’s unnamed “feminist” and her response to my “claim:” Perhaps the better term (to social status) would be status quo. We have all, no doubt, experienced the tyranny of the status quo. Conceptions of beauty, consequently, are subject to the same tyranny. At the very beginnings of societies one might imagine the idea of beauty resulting from the decisions of the ruling classes (in some situations male, in others female, but most likely in the method described in Mauritania women judging men and vice versa. These ideals became embedded in the culture, eventually enshrined in art and lore, and then, subject to the inertia of public opinion in a decentralized pretechnological society, gets codified throughout an extensive cultural history and inculcated into the spirit of the culture itself.

This hardly seems to me the same claim as “it is the fault of males.” It is much more nuanced, and respectable.

However, to apply the term “patriarchy” to any of these specific instances seems to me to be loading the term, overlooking the complexity of gender differences, and perverting their meaning.

And lastly, Vogue is just as trashy as all the others, don’t kid yourself Rudo.

My Women’s Studies mind is all a-flutter with the turn that this conversation has taken (did I intentionally manipulate the conversation? I’ll never tell). Feminist thinkers talk a lot about the intersection of consumerism and patriarchy, and some tend to regard those things as springing from the same influences. Anyway, Stacie, I thought you brought up a really great point with your example of the D&G ads. I would definitely agree that in the media, women appear to be the ones controling ideas of what’s beautiful and what’s not, and imposing those standards on other women.Vogue and the millions of “women’s magazines” out there serve as perfect examples. As do the shows which are made by women, for women (Grey’s Anatomy, Oprah, every single show on Lifetime & Oxyen) which focus a lot on beauty and fashion and send very definite messages about contemporary sexuality. However, I look at the same things which you are talking about (the images of dominating, powerful women in the media) and conclude that instead of showing how much women control the definition of contemporary beauty, it shows how much women have bought into patriarchal standards. You might be thinking, oh no, here we go, she’s going for the Stockholm Syndrome angle, but it’s true, people who are marginalized in societies embrace the expecations set by the “oppressors” as a means of survival. Look at all the black people who speak in ebonics (I’m talking to you, Kanye West) even though they come from affluent families. And then look at how much money they’re making: a lot (don’t even talk to me about Flavor of Love). In the same way, women exercise their bodies to death and put weaves in their hair to meet the expectations of a patriarchal society, because if you don’t you become the fat, ugly chick, and who cares that you’re smart. I read this great article in one of my courses earlier, called “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power” and it appropriated Foucault’s Discipline & Punish and applied it to feminist theory. As most of you probably know, Foucault talks about Bentham’s Panopticon, the prison he designed which was shaped kind of like a donut, with all the prisoners being held in the “hole”, and the guards watching in towers surrounding the prison in a circular shape (what would be the actual donut itself. yeah, this is hard to explain.) Anyway, the design would basically allow the guards to monitor the prisoners 24/7 since at any given point, each prisoner can be seen by several guards from a variety of different points on this circle. The idea was that the prisoners would feel such a sense of transpency (and basically, become paranoid) so much so that they would start governing their own behavior in fear that they were being watched. And voila, residivism goes down, because even after you’re out, you still carry that feeling of transparency and the paranoia that comes with it. You wouldn’t dare steal again if you felt like fifty pairs of eyes were on you constantly. Ok, so to tie it back to the question at hand. Foucault said that in the same way, modern societal institutions like schools and churches have taught us to discipline and punish ourselves and that like the prisoners we’ve lost any real self-determination. That is, we only think we’re making decisions, but really, society has already conditioned us to make them. Feminist theory extends that and argues that because like the prisoner, women have been unceasingly punished because of their weight, their hair, and most especially, their behavior, their psyches have just succumbed and they have begun to “discipline and punish” themselves in the way that the patriarchal society did. Sandra Bartky, the author of this article, says that in this way, “the patriarchy” has made its job easier, because who needs to flog women in the streets for misbehavior when they’ll do it to themselves (figuratively of course). And the best part is, like the prisoner, women only think that they’re liberated, what with their corporate jobs and abortion rights, but when they go home, they still complain that they’re fat and put on make-up and shave their legs(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/us/09beliefs.html?ex=1184212800&en=5ff9b0d66fb0c119&ei=5070). Compare the pictures in Cosmopolitan (even in the “classier” Vogue) and Maxim and then tell me that women haven’t internalized patriarchy. It’s the same actresses in the same feline poses and in the same get-ups. And yet this is called “progress” because at least, with Cosmo, it’s women who are objectifying other women.

So basically, what I’m saying is, what you see in the media is not women actually controlling representations of themselves, but patriarchy letting them think that they do, which is what is known as “consumer feminism.” Consumer feminism is Sex & The City, it’s Grey’s Anatomy, it’s the Spice Girls. Representations of these powerful women who at the end of the day, derive their substance (or raison d’etre, if you will) from the way they look. It’s a win-win situation: women get to think they’ve achieved parity and yell “girl power,” and patriarchy still rules and subjugates women.Therefore, Greyson, a feminist would answer your claim that those with higher social status have more to do with shaping the perception of beauty than men by saying, “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Full disclosure: I sometimes read the Vogue in our library (at a women’s college no less!) so I’m not exactly Gloria Steinem here.

As a person who spends a couple hours each month ritually pouring over Vogue magazine in a mix of awe, disgust and bafflement, I think I can venture to discuss the concept of beauty in the modern setting.
It really struck me in Sam’s post when she wrote “the most significant similarity between their society and ours (I think) is the fact that the men, not the women, define beauty” and “In the United States and most of the West, women are expected to be thin, small, and, basically, weak.”

I consider Vogue to be a mainstream publication, and so I have trouble with the concept of stating who defines beauty in America, and what that beauty is. Specifically, Vogue publishes lots of Dolce &Gabbana ads. In short, Dolce & Gabbana is the reason that I can’t believe that men define beauty for women in our society. (I suppose though, I may just have a really weird sense of aesthetic virtue.)
The models in D&G ads are beautiful. They are also sexy. They ooze beauty and sex like nobody’s business. Almost all of the D&G ads I’ve seen in Vogue go something like this:
There are four women and one man. The women look beautiful, but somehow distant, aloof, yet predatory. They know they are beautiful and powerful. The man looks, well, submissive. In this month’s issue, he is wearing a leopard-print speedo-like-article, lifting a huge weight behind his back, and has his eyes closed. There is a look of ecstasy on his face as he waits for female model #2 to kiss him…or bite his face off. His is a very vulnerable position. He is not looking at the women, has no idea what they’re wearing, and basically looks like a piece of chattel. The women are not weak. They are not small, either, standing just as tall as the man (true, in heels), and while looking thin-ish, their comparative bulk to the man is not significantly less. True, his thighs are much bigger–I’ll give him that.

What I’m trying to get at with this lengthy, descriptive example (I couldn’t find a pic online, sry) is that if an American company is paying lots of money to make an ad where women are wearing beautiful things and toying with a half-naked guy, how can we say then men define beauty for women in this country? True, this is a single series of ads, but it seems to me that if the concept of beauty was completely dominated by men’s perspectives, and they were accomplishing this without force-feeding women, then why would a company place an ad where women were being the assertive ones and telling the reader what to wear. The reader should be thinking “oh, you might think your bag is nice, but what would my boyfriend think.” Instead, you have an ad that says “What your bf thinks of this bag is irelevant.”

I think this ad, from a successful company and published in a popular magazine, shows that the definition of beauty in America does not come from one source, and although general standards like “thinner, healthier-looking bodies are more attractive” apply almost all around, I don’t see how we could say that men have dictated this to be so.

In general, I try to shy away from debating gender issues, as I have such little understanding of the “fairer” sex and these discussions often bring troubles upon me. And I spend little time pondering the societal conception of beauty, or the societal conception of anything non-sports or politics related for that matter, so in this case I won’t enter into an argument over who in any society defines beauty, though my suspicion is that it is more a question of status than gender. I must, however, point out an oversight of yours: the article describes and even in your own post you suggest that men are held to an equally strict standard by the women. As Ms. Mahmoud (from the article) said, “Men want women to be fat, and so they are fat, women want men to be skinny, and so they are skinny.” In fact, it would be unnatural to suggest that it should be any different (in the theoretical sense, not the practical sense of course.)

The significant similarity between our societies that comes to my mind that I would worry about more than the one you mention is this weakness to societal pressure that causes a person (or often a person’s parent) to put beauty before health in prioritizing their needs.

To answer Rudo’s question, I think consumers are quite capable of controlling the process, but they seem to have become increasingly less inclined to do so. Judging by the hundreds of sparkling new Detroit Tigers hats I’ve seen, I can see that many people are quite content being led around by their nose, or blown about by the wind. Which leads us back to Sam’s call for a paradigm shift, I fully agree with your sentiments here. We have digressed as a society so far down our present path that a radical shift seems necessary to correct it within our lifetime. I would suggest, however, that your diagnosis is faulty. It is not Orange Shirt guy that needs to change, it would sure be nice if he would, but he is probably a lost cause. It is we who need to change by not enslaving ourselves to the opinions of others.

Second, to deviate from traditional economic assumptions, I do wonder if supply does not create or induce demand, not just with food, but with pratically everything in American society. If you consider how incredibly focused and just downright brilliant modern marketing campaigns are, you have to wonder, do consumers really control the process? I know this issue has been the subject of a great number of much better articles and books (Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing and the Marketing of Culture, Fast Food Nation, etc) but I thought it might be pertinent to your article.