Power of beauty: How come the beauty became the currency of power

and what impact it has on female mindset and behavior.

By Rūta Vizbaraitė
(outline in the ending)

From a very early age I was submerged into fantasy superhero movies. I
remember clearly my dreams and hopes to one day as well acquire some
supernatural strength as I’ve seen people do in cinematic universes. I
recall the movies that were shaping my thinking, portraying powerful
female figures, such as: Cat Woman, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and obviously Lara
Croft. I remember my fascination for the Lara Croft movie series. Angelina
Jolie played a character of “highly intelligent and athletic British
archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins
around the world “.1 Lara Croft seemed to have it all: extreme beauty,
intelligence and physical strength, which made her a role model for
thousands of little girls all across the world including myself.

At that time I truly believed that this image of females was something
new and inspiring. It broke all stereotypes that at that time I was able to
come up in my mind. Lara Croft was the main character, intelligent,
strong, she didn’t need a male character to save her or take care of her,
she was independent and would spend her free time studying texts or
practicing fighting skills. “She was a true feminist hero we all needed”,- I
would think. Yet, she had something that made all of her
accomplishments disappear in the shadow of male sight - extreme beauty.
And as for many other fiction female characters - beauty was an
inseparable part of power.

I vividly remember myself at one moment in my youth considering what I

would choose if I was able: to acquire a physical superpower or become
the most beautiful woman in the world, as if it were equally valuable
traits. This question unconsciously haunted me throughout all of my
youth. Now, I once more reconcile it and try to understand how come the
notion that beauty is the currency of power became a widely accepted
norm and what impact it had and still has on female mindset and
behavior.

1
Wikipedia, “Lara Croft”, 2023 March 30 revision.
The idea that woman’s beauty is a currency of power can be traced back
to longstanding societal and cultural norms that place more value on
physical appearance for women than for men. The benefits that physically
attractive or “eye catching” women receive in American culture are
empirically researched. “Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that
obesity negatively affects women's, but not men's, social mobility, with
obese women showing lower educational and economic attainments than
their parents. Compared to average-weight or thin girls, overweight girls
are also less likely to be accepted to college. In addition, job
discrimination and hostile work environments are more frequently
reported by overweight women than by overweight men. More generally,
women deemed unattractive by their coworkers are described more
negatively than comparably unattractive men. Additionally, a recent
supreme court case illustrates that women who aspire to high-status work
positions may suffer job discrimination based on an unfeminine
appearance. Physical attractiveness has also been shown to correlate
more highly with popularity, dating experience, and marriage
opportunities for women than for men. Indeed studies of implicit cultural
models of gender relations suggest that both women and men discuss
heterosexual relations as though women can "exchange" their relative
attractiveness for good treatment in relationships.”2 These factors put
external pressure on women to be preoccupied with their own physical
appearance since how it appears to others can determine her life
experiences and success. Beauty became a currency in male dominated
capitalistic society denying everything that women fighted for in early
1970. The liberation and advance of women rights in politics and social
life were replaced by internalized laws of beauty, “...it reconstructed an
alternative female world with its own laws, economy, religion, sexuality,
education, and culture, each element as repressive as any that had gone
before.”3

The idea that beauty is a female source of power was unconciously

implanted into a woman's psyche through television, movies and
magazines. Now we place ourselves in a new environment for ideas of
beauty to be spread - social media. If earlier it was easier to distinguish
and understand that movies and advertisement is ruled by men, by the
occupation in the field, social media is a fluid, free to enter space for

2
Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi‐Ann Roberts. "Objectification theory: Toward understanding
women's lived experiences and mental health risks." Psychology of women quarterly 21.2 (1997), p
177-178
3
Wolf, Naomi. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House,
2013, p. 16
everyone. 2023 statistical analysis shows that distribution of Instagram
users worldwide are split almost equally, 51.8% male and 48.2% female
users.4 This means that because the algorithm prioritizes personal
preferences, the app suggests images to users without any external
forces of patriarchal decision. Women have a platform to express their
opinions and wishes, and the right to speak is no longer concentrated in
the hands of men, which has achieved gender equality to a certain extent.
However, due to the public orders and social aesthetics formed under the
framework of the millennium patriarchal society, the conventional
ideology is still deeply clamped in social media, resulting in the absence of
"female consciousness" in the media.5 Because over years of persistent
female objectification in media and culture, women acquired this view
themselves: one must look at herself as something that must embody
beauty and men must want to possess women who embody it.6 If we
would also come back a bit and focus on the female wish to acquire
beauty for social status, power and control, Instagram and other similar
social media offer a new currency or reassurance of power - likes. We
tend to associate our value with like count and compare our like counts
with others for understanding of hierarchical positioning. Multiple sites
offer help and recommendations on how to enhance your profile
performance, what and when to post to gain more likes and exposure.
Georgia Institute of Technology and Yahoo Labs researchers looked at 1.1
million photos on Instagram and found out that pictures with human faces
are 38 percent more likely to receive likes than photos with no faces.7
This being said the importance on those faces to align with societal norms
of beauty is put onto pedestal. As unconscious hallucinations of beauty
grow, the conscious powerful industries that help you achieve that beauty
grow in income. The $33-billion-a-year diet industry, the $20-billion
cosmetics industry, and the $300-million cosmetic surgery industry makes
their capital from unconscious anxieties of female looks and furthermore
through their influence on mass culture they stimulate and reinforce the
hallucination of “beauty myth”.8 The fear and anxiety to not live up to
expectations of the public forces thousands of little girls to turn against

4
Dixon, Stacy Jo, “Distribution of Instagram users worldwide as of January 2023, by gender”, Statista,
[Chart], 2023 January
5
Ren, Siyi, Yexi Wu, and Yuchen Zheng. "Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Female Self
Image." 2022 8th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR
2022). Atlantis Press, 2022, p. 1167
6
Wolf, Naomi. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House,
2013, p. 12
7
Georgia Institute of Technology. "Face it: Instagram pictures with faces are more popular."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 March 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140320134724.htm>.
8
Wolf, Naomi. op cit., p.17
their natural body proposition and alter it using multiple dieting
techniques suggested online. Multiple studies have shown a certain
connection between social media use and eating disorders. Turner and
Lefevre conducted a study in 2017 that showed relation for instagram use
and symptoms of Orthorexia Nervosa.9 Furthermore the ability to polish
pictures with available editing apps enables women to display a better self
to others online, yet it creates unrealistic self image that contributes not
only to dissatisfaction of self image in real life but it also confuses
followers to live up unfeasible expectations. The observer's perspective
that women often adopt toward their own bodies also makes them
alienated and distant from their own bodies and bodily sensations, further
making them unable to understand body signals of hunger or even
intuition. Multiple studies suggest that in the absence of relevant
contextual cues, women are less accurate than men at detecting internal
physiological sensations, such as heartbeat, stomach contractions, and
blood-glucose levels. Because women are simultaneously aware of their
outer body appearance, they may be left with fewer perceptual resources
available for attending to inner body experience. Also they are more likely
to not be able to experience flow state in their work since it requires loss
of self-consciousness. Laboratory experiments have shown that intrinsic
motivation is reduced when individuals are made self-aware, either by the
presence of a mirror or a video camera. Women's internalization of an
observer's perspective on their bodies, by definition, creates a form of
self-consciousness. To be "doubled," is simply incompatible with the single
mindedness of flow states.10 In sum, female sense of self, inner bodily
states and health are negatively impacted by using beauty as a
socio-cultural norm to attain power, recognition and success.

The notion that beauty is female currency for power and control is the
idea profoundly created to enslave women and their bodies to patriarchal
socio-cultural context, in which female looks define their value and
contribute to their success both in work environment, school and
relationships. This male gaze is so deeply rooted into the female mindset
that women tend to internalize an observer's perspective themselves and
the cycle of woman objectification is no more something to blame men for,
women do it themselves. This self objectification and beauty ideals portrayed
in the media leads to body dissatisfaction that is accompanied with eating
disorders and self destructive ways of trying to adjust to societal norms.
After experiencing all of this myself in the years past, only now I see that
9
Turner, Pixie G, and Carmen E Lefevre. “Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of
orthorexia nervosa.” Eating and weight disorders : EWD vol. 22,2 (2017): p. 281
10
Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi‐Ann Roberts. op cit, p. 183-185
taking control over physical appearance is not only a cry for attention and
love of the general public, but also the dogma of patriarchal institutions that
was deeply embedded years ago. In 1855 suffragist Lucy Stone said that it
is very little “to have the right to vote, to own property, etcetera, if I may not
keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right.” 11 More than 150 years
have passed fighting for women liberation, and just now with the rise of
digital media and its equal access, women are starting to break through the
social ideals of beauty and take back control over their own bodies.

Lara’s Croft game “Rise of the Tomb Raider” released in 2015 finally
demolished all remnants of the past objectification of Lara. No more
butt-focused camera shots, no more inappropriate and revealing clothing
and unrealistic physique. The narrative doesn’t force her into a love story
nor makes her damsel, as at different points in the game she rescues
each of the two main guys in the story. She used to be the literal pin-up
girl for “video game vixens,” but now she’s just a badass, not meant to
titillate in the least. 12

There is still a long way to go for fixing the representation of women in

the media. As we do so we must acknowledge the impact on the young
audience in shaping their understanding and positioning of selves within
society.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia, “Lara Croft”, 2023 March 30 revision. Internet link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Croft
2. Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi‐Ann Roberts. "Objectification theory: Toward
understanding women's lived experiences and mental health risks." Psychology of women
quarterly 21.2 (1997): 173-206. Internet link:
https://neamacares.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Objectification-Theory.pdf
3. Wolf, Naomi. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random
House, 2013. Internet link:
http://www.alaalsayid.com/ebooks/The-Beauty-Myth-Naomi-Wolf.pdf
4. Dixon, Stacy Jo, “Distribution of Instagram users worldwide as of January 2023, by gender”,
Statista, [Chart], 2023 January, internet link:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/802776/distribution-of-users-on-instagram-worldwide-gend
er/
5. Ren, Siyi, Yexi Wu, and Yuchen Zheng. "Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Female Self
Image." 2022 8th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research

11
Wolf, Naomi. op cit. p.11
12
Tassi, Paul, “With 'Rise of the Tomb Raider,' The De-Objectification Of Lara Croft Is Complete,”
Forbes, 2015.
 (ICHSSR 2022). Atlantis Press, 2022. Internet link:
https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125974538.pdf
6. Georgia Institute of Technology. "Face it: Instagram pictures with faces are more popular."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 March 2014. Internet link:
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140320134724.htm>.
7. Turner, Pixie G, and Carmen E Lefevre. “Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of
orthorexia nervosa.” Eating and weight disorders : EWD vol. 22,2 (2017). Internet link:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40519-017-0364-2
8. Tassi, Paul, “With 'Rise of the Tomb Raider,' The De-Objectification Of Lara Croft Is
Complete,” Forbes, 2015. Internet link:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/09/with-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-the-complete-
de-objectification-of-lara-croft-is-complete/?sh=6c8db5f6efd6