KILLPACK 1 Hayley Killpack ENG 2010 Camille Peck 26 January 2014 Writers Prompt 1 The topic that I will

l be researching throughout the semester is the discrimination of women in society. A question that I believe sparks a lot of wonder and questions is: Why do we consider what we think to be beautiful as beautiful? We all know what beautiful is, but why do we believe it to be beautiful? In an essay done by LaNae Valentine, Ph.D., she talks about the standard of beauty throughout history. For example, a high rounded forehead was considered beautiful, so women plucked out hairs from their natural hairline to the crowns of their heads(Beauty Through the Ages). Another example is in China all the up to World War II. Girls had their feet bound, crippling them for life, so that their feet were only three or four inches long. That was what was considered beautiful back then. So what is considered beautiful now? Woman throughout history and today are forced to put themselves through terrible things in order for society to consider them beautiful. Why? Why do girls and women feel the need to starve themselves, have a variety of surgeries to alter their natural appearance, spend a fortune on clothes and hair appointments and makeup and manicures and more? This is a major problem in society, and it does get talked about sometimes. Society complains about these standards, but the irony of it is that society set these standards. Society decided what was beautiful, so society has to be all those things to be beautiful.

KILLPACK 2 It is a vicious cycle, and a start to changing the idea of beautiful would be to change the women in magazines back to what they actually look like. We need to teach the rising generation a different kind of beautiful because the existing one is pretty fargone to change what they think.

KILLPACK 3

Works Cited "Beauty through the Ages | Recapturing Beauty." Beauty through the Ages | Recapturing Beauty. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.