Thursday, April 21, 2011

Beauty Cult

        In "Beauty Cult" by Jessica Valenti, she talks about how women redo themselves to look better for men.  According to Valenti, women are doing everything from wearing makeup and heels to tanning or even plastic surgery.  Most people do not understand why someone would put himself or herself through the pain of surgery in order to look better.  However, everyone wants to look good or else we would probably just wear t-shirts and jeans and pull our wind-blown hair into a bun every day no matter where we were going.  Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to get a good paying job dressed like that.  Valenti tells of a bad experience where she was accused of showing off for President Clinton because of how she dressed.  I think no matter whom or where you are there is always going to be someone there to call you a slut or a whore.  Dressing up and looking nice is not going to change that one way or the other.  I understand what Valenti is saying about people trying to look better for men.  That is not to say women do not do that every day; however, I know from personal experience that this is not always true.  I myself have had plastic surgery and it was so that I could feel better about myself; not to look better for any man.  We all know that beauty comes from within but when you look in the mirror and you are not comfortable looking at yourself it makes you understand why some women and men have plastic surgery.  Unless you are happy with yourself, you cannot be happy with your life.
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2 comments:

  1. Amy ChastainApril 30, 2011 at 3:47 PM

    Hi Cristina,

    I'm glad that you do bring this up. One thing that Valenti does not distinguish is corrective surgery. She only addresses plastic surgery. Corrective surgery may include liposuction, a breast reduction, etc. I don't know if this is the surgery that you mean, but this is important and I think that Valenti should have discussed this in part. What do you think?

    Ms. C

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  2. CristinaMay 2, 2011 at 12:40 PM

    I did notice throughout the book she was somewhat one sided in a lot of the topics, however most of them I agreed with. I myself had implants after having my children because I had two different sizes and was just not comfortable with myself. I believe that if you are not happy with yourself, regardless of what other people say you should have the right to make changes to yourself; but this should only be if the person is not happy with themselves.

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