Week 9 - Verduzco

Week 9
ASA 141
Alejandra Verduzco
Race and Beauty

This weeks reading was probably one of my favorites of them all. This week's reading written by Frith, Cheng, and Shaw was a scientific article regarding an experimental study done to analyze advertisement collected from women's fashion and beauty magazine in Singapore, Taiwan, and United States to compare the ways in which Western and Asian Models were portrayed in advertisements. This article went into depth about the different type of beautiful women could be identified as, such as Classic, feminine, Sensual, Exotic, Cute, Girl-Next-Door, Sex Kitten and Trendy. The articled showed that back in the day women were often only featured in advertisements that were about domestic products or household chores. They had five different hypotheses all being supportive with the results from the experiment except for one. The ones that were proven were; "Asian Models would be used more frequently in Asian magazines and western models would be used more in US magazine ads," "Beauty types for models used in Asian magazine would differ from those used in Western magazine advertisements," "Western models would display in more seductive dress than Asian models," "Products categories used in Western Women magazine advertisement would differ from those used in Asian Women's Magazine advertising." The one theory that was proven wrong was the theory of " Asian models would tend to gaze away from the camera more frequently than western models." This was because Western women are constructed in terms of "the body" and fits with the higher proportion of Sexual beauty type. While Asian women were used more often in advertisements for facial beauty, such as cosmetic surgery sought for women in the US.

This article just goes to show how much our world revolves around our appearances rather than our personality. This is the type of society standard most women are set to, thus creating women to feel the need to try and comply by society's view rather than being comfortable with who they are and where they come from. I was bullied for many years of my life, from strangers and even my own family, because I didn't fit into the standard they had in mind. It's advertisements like this that depicts how women should look like. Luckily as years start to pass we see a more diverse form of advertisements that depicts different ethnicity, sizes, and beauty. Hopefully, as the years pass we see a huge increase in the not only diverse advertisement but in women confidence and self-love.
How can society do a better job of showing women to love who they are?
Do you think men experience this type of pressure to look a certain way such as women