WOMEN'S NO-WIN WAR 1

Women's No-Win War:

Feminism vs. Culture's Beauty Standards

Ashley Henderson

Portland State University

CR 410: Gender & Conflict Resolution

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Women's No-Win War:

Feminism vs. Culture's Beauty Standards

Feminists like Naomi Wolf, writer of The Beauty Myth, have advertised to women the

idea that the female quest for ideal beauty is one of the major factors holding women back from

happiness and success and keeping them subjugated to men. Feminists like Wolf encourage

women to resist men's and culture's idea of beauty and instead dress for comfort. Feminism is

famous for the discouraging of wearing make-up, high heels, and other common beauty practices

with the idea that if women didn't spend all their time and energy meeting societies beauty

standards they would have more time to become executives and political leaders. When women

are frightened by the idea of not being attractive enough to find a mate, they are reassured that

they should be with someone who understands that inner beauty is what really matters.

While this ideal sounds like a utopia, it is unfortunately completely unrealistic. Basic

evolutionary psychology teaches us that men are interested in women initially for signs of

fertility and women are interested in men initially for resources. Evolutionary biology teaches us

that men's primary initiative is reproduction and women's is having enough resources to take care

of their children. Signs that women are fertile include: youth, clear skin, a symmetrical face and

body, an hourglass figure, and feminine facial features—full lips, smaller chins, and large eyes

indicating high levels of estrogen. Women look for a couple physical signs in men, tall and

symmetrical, to show they are parasite free. More important to women are high status, power,

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and access to resources.

In the right perspective, some beauty standards and practices—such as foot binding or

clitoridectomy do hurt women, but feminists like Wolf argue that eyebrow plucking and blond

highlights are just as detrimental. These feminists also complain that women who conform to

beauty standards are unintelligent and naïve. Feminism's distaste for female beauty standards fall

on the extreme end of the spectrum. Like most extreme ideals, it is based on a reasonable and

logical idea—beauty isn't all that matters. Unfortunately, outside of philosophy and in the

physical word, “the more attractive the woman is, the wider her pool of romantic partners and

range of opportunities in her work and day-to-day life” (Alkon, 2010, 58).

Women use make-up, fashion, and other beauty methods to enhance their appearance of

fertility, consequently increasing their opportunities with men in relationships and business—but

moderation is the key. While a woman wearing sweatpants isn't going to get positive attention,

women under pounds of make-up or with noticeable plastic surgery are not going to either. The

key to beauty is subtle and undetectable enhancement. Eyeliner makes a womans eyes look

bigger but only increases beauty if it's difficult to tell she's wearing eyeliner at all.

Alkon (2010) also stresses in her article that women need to recognize that male sexuality

is different than females, not evil. She also states that beauty shouldn't be important in just

attracting a partner, but that it should be maintained for life. She suggest women take a healthy

approach to beauty in “neither pretending it's unnecessary or unimportant nor making it

important beyond all else” (Alkon, 2010, 59). She ends with a choice for women to either make

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informed decisions about how much effort they put into appearance or to accept the costs of

going ungroomed.

According to Paul's (2010) article on female estrogen levels and attractiveness, ovulation

and hormone levels not only control attractiveness, but also cognitive ability, creativity,

expression, social skills, and a female's choice of male companion. A woman is more attractive

and adept when ovulating—which seems like evolutions way of encouraging pregnancy. Many

studies have proven that female hormone levels not only control female behavior but also male

interest in them. Hate and resentment towards men for following their evolutionary psychology

will not accomplish anything.

This conflict affects all women despite what their specific countries beauty standards are.

Women are raised hearing two truths; learning from their loved ones that they should be valued

for their personality and skills rather than appearance and learning from society, media, and their

peers that beauty is all that matters. Group psychology in cliques and attractiveness based media

reinforce in girls that beauty is all that matters. Humans seems to be drawn to extremes. Rather

than finding the middle path between the dialects of ideal physical beauty and positive

personality, skills, and creativity—girls feel forced to choose one or the other. Each extreme of

the spectrum reject the other extreme. Girls may find it nearly impossible to have their

attractiveness and personality recognized by their peers.

Extremes are helpful to conflict and detrimental to conflict resolution. I purpose a

resolution to the conflict of female beauty. If find the middle ground between the angry feminist

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crowd and the elective plastic surgery crowd, there is a beautiful gray area for girls and women.

As Alkon described, female physical beauty is necessary for interpersonal and business success.

But extreme beauty obsession complete with unnecessary plastic surgery and heavy make-up,

will hurt more than help.

A middle ground idea for women is mild physical enhancements such as healthy exercise

and diet, subtle make-up, and complimentary clothing along with self-esteem, intelligence, self-

confidence, and expression would create a true beauty. To win women's no-win war, the war

needs to be forgotten and a middle path followed. Unfortunately, the beauty industry would lose

billions of dollars with this change and will fight for the extreme beauty standards until it's dying

breath. Make-up and anti-aging cream companies do not make money off of women who want to

subtly enhance their image. Instead, they promote and charge big dollars for radical and

overnight changes. A switch to the middle road is much more likely to be obtained than a switch

to a different extreme, yet finding the middle ground is still not an easy change to make.

This change would need to be rooted in people rather than media. Media is and probably

always will be based on profit, and profits are made off the current state of society. If women

themselves start changing the way they view themselves and the way the spend money on their

appearance—the media will eventually have to follow suit. The change is within us—spread the

word.

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References

Paul, A. M. (2010). The Double Life of Women. Psychology Today, 43(6), 74-79.

Alkon, A. (2010). The Truth About Beauty. Psychology Today, 43(6), 54-50.