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Trevor Paul

Mrs. Stanford

AP Language

1 March 2021

Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?

What would a person walking down the street in 1950s New York say beauty is? What

about someone walking in the 1550s in the West Sahara? Would they say the same thing? They

might say that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or something along those lines, in their

respective languages of course. Often, we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but, if you

take multiple people from the same area, background, culture, or race and ask them to provide an

example for beauty, they would likely provide very similar images of women in their culture, so

is it in the eye of the beholder? It is important today to understand the impact of this on women

in today’s society. Today, even though significant progress has already been made, it can still

significantly alter a woman’s perception of herself and of others as well as vice versa. The

perception of beauty still impacts women today from a global scale down to the individual level.

It often promotes judgment based on uncontrollable factors, encourages unhealthy behaviors for

women, and forces competition between peers for arbitrary reasons based on little besides

preference.

Often, the first judgments of a person are based almost solely on their appearance. Within

seconds of seeing someone for the first time, the human brain immediately makes connections,

and observations are taken, making judgments and assumptions about someone subconsciously.

This happens to everyone and everything a person might interact with during their life, not just

women. Where it differs for women is the beauty factor. When someone might look at a man,
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they would often just take in their general appearance, how they are dressed and put together,

maybe what they drive or what they might do for a living, but not beauty with men. On the other

hand, beauty is a major consideration and a large factor when it comes to the first impressions of

women, something that they cannot control naturally. This difference is the biggest obstacle most

women may face in the first impression with either other men or women. Because of the beauty

stigma that is present around women in our society, one that likely has been present since the

dawn of humanity, women are being held back almost solely based on their appearance and a

factor that has little effect on men in the same position. Written about in What Is Beauty and

How Do We Know It? by Nancy Etcoff, she states that our brains scan the area for beauty like

radar and can recognize and judge the beauty of a face, subconsciously, in a fraction of a second

(Etcoff 68). This instant recognition and judgment based on beauty does exactly that, instantly

judge based on beauty and first appearance. It is important to recognize this as a society as

knowing how beauty can promote unfair judgment of a woman can help people to prevent it

from happening and tuning it out of our minds during encounters like these.

Similar to how beauty can promote unfair judgment with women, it can also promote

many unhealthy behaviors that run alongside the stress of judgment because of beauty. Behaviors

such as limiting one’s food intake, developing bulimia, contracting unhealthy addictions to cope,

as well as engaging in cosmetic surgery are all side-effects of beauty and all primarily affect

women. In the article The Democratization of Beauty by Christine Rosen, she writes about how

out of 860,000 cosmetic surgeries performed in 2002, only 150,000 were men (Rosen 77). This

shows the clear differences between the numbers of surgeries done between men and women as

well as how women are much more affected by beauty and are therefore more likely to get

cosmetic surgery than men. When a society like this one develops the image of beauty and
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maybe the ideal woman or partner, it puts pressure on women living in it to appeal to that ideal

and try to reach it, even though it is often completely unrealistic, unattainable, or completely out

of reach for most, if not all, women. When women are pressured to achieve these levels of

beauty, is when behaviors like these emerge. These behaviors are seriously harmful to those who

are affected by them and often lead to consequences down the road. This is an issue today

because of the disparity in the difference between the number of women who are affected by

these elements and the number of men affected by the same things. The inequality present is due

to beauty standards and the perception of beauty across the world and especially in the United

States as well as women being held to these standards much more closely than men.

Lastly, beauty standards in women can force competition between peers on both sides of

the spectrum. For many men, beauty standards can cause unnecessary competition between each

other, even violence, over something that is, from an objective view, completely arbitrary and

makes little difference in the end. However, this competition is much more impactful and

prevalent between women. The ideals of beauty over time have changed, and with that change,

many women feel pressured by their peers to fit in with the change and be beautiful for society as

well as to be better than all of those peers in order to come out on top, being the most beautiful,

the most attractive, and the most desirable. This competition aspect, likely related to survival and

reproduction, is what causes practically all of the harm listed prior. This is the reason that beauty

affects all women with an often detrimental outcome. Trying to be the best and achieve the top

usually means sacrificing almost everything in one way or another. This is shown in American

consumerism and explained in What is Beautiful? By Alex Kuczynski where she mentions an

MTV television show all about giving teenagers and young adults plastic surgery to change their

appearance to one that will satisfy their taste for beauty and be the ideal form of beauty
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(Kuczynski 75). I believe that this is one of the most important things to consider with the

American ideal of beauty and that many young people are willing to go through with cosmetic

surgery to achieve it and become better than all those around them. This is what causes many of

the problems.

Many men will argue that things like these happen to them as well. That men often get

plastic surgery or liposuction because they too may feel insecure and not live up to a modern

beauty standard. While it is true that men do receive plastic surgery as well as suffer from other

behaviors associated with beauty, they are not the same level as those faced by women. On top of

this, men do not face the same pressure or the same amount of pressure that women do,

especially when it comes to their appearance. Like mentioned earlier, The Democratization of

Beauty by Christine Rosen clearly states how there are hundreds of thousands more cosmetic

surgeries performed on women rather than men (Rosen 77). What Rosen writes shows clearly the

difference in the amount of women receiving the different surgeries that alter their natural beauty

and the amount of men doing the same thing. Of course it happens on both sides and of course

men are harmed, changed, and altered by the struggle for beauty, but it cannot compare to that

faced by women at the same time in the same world.

Beauty today still has a significant impact on women throughout the country and

throughout the world. It always has through history. Even with many people making strides

towards inequality, the world still isn’t there yet. The modern idea and ideal of beauty will

continue to affect women for the rest of their lives until something jurassic is done about the

situation or until another societal mood shift comes and we look back at the past and make the

proper changes to make sure that it doesn’t happen ever again. Beauty can cause unfair judgment

in women, it can cause unhealthy behaviors, and it can cause competition between many that
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ends up only causing things to get worse for every party involved. Knowing this can help people

further understand the struggles of women as well as generate ideas as for ways to solve it.

Solving it may include changing how people view the entire world and everything in their eyes

from teaching differently at a very young age. It is possibly only this that could be hoped for in

order to change this world forever.

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Works Cited

Etcoff, Nancy, et al. “Chapter 5: Beauty: What Is Beauty and How Do We Know It?.” English

Language & Composition: Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis, edited by John Brassil,

Peoples Education, Saddle Brook, NJ, 2008, pp. 68-69

Kuczynski, Alex, et al. “Chapter 5: Beauty: What is Beautiful?.” English Language &

Composition: Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis, edited by John Brassil, Peoples

Education, Saddle Brook, NJ, 2008, pp. 74-75

Rosen, Christine, et al. “Chapter 5: Beauty: The Democratization of Beauty.” English Language

& Composition: Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis, edited by John Brassil, Peoples

Education, Saddle Brook, NJ, 2008, pp. 77-82