1. Gender, Beauty, and The
Female Body

2.  Girls need men
 Girls need to know
how to “catch” men
 Girls need to be sexy
 Girls bear all
responsibility for the
consequences

3.  Love
yourself…..
but look at
how skinny
you could
be!

4.  Learning gender
 Contradictory advice about how to navigate
life as an adolescent girl
 Inaccurate representations of
bodies, experiences, and expectations

5. The idea that there is a universal standard of
beauty that women must possess in order to be
successful and attractive to men.
1. This is MYTH rather than REALITY.
2. A political tool, a consequence of backlash
against feminism

6. How Does it Work?
A. Uses images of women against women’s
advancement (119)
1. Self-hatred
2. Physical obsessions
3. Fear of aging
4. Fear of loss of control

7. Why is the Beauty Myth so powerful?
A. Most powerful remaining ideology to
control women
B. Subtle, seems to work toward
“improving” women
C. New technologies are invasive and
promise “youth” and “beauty”
D. Claims to be based in nature/biology

8. A. Beauty is not universal or changeless, because it
is a construction
B. Perpetuating the beauty myth maintains men’s
institutions and institutional power
C. The beauty myth prescribes behavior (not
appearance)
D. The beauty myth keeps young girls and women
pre-occupied or busy.