ARTEMIS winter 05
photo courtesy: National
Although beauty can never be nailed down to one look or one ideal for all women, there are still some standards that many women aspire to meet.
The Eye of the Beholder The changing definition of beauty around the world. By Sarika Jagtiani
One only has to watch Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis’ expressions of awe in “Some Like It Hot” when they first see Marilyn Monroe to realize that she was, at one time, the epitome of sexiness. But times change. In today’s climate Monroe’s agent probably would have told her to lose thirty pounds before attempting to go out for the role of a sexpot. After all, Monroe was a size 14. It may be difficult to imagine that a size 14 would be considered sexy. If that’s difficult, try imagining a place where people don’t exercise and wear tight clothes. Or a place where foot binding is out but surgery to make eyes appear rounder is in.
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Asia On the Oct. 6 Oprah Winfrey Show, a large portion of the show, which was about 30-year-old women around the world, was spent on beauty ideals. Reporter Lisa Ling offered information on Asia’s current state of beauty, where trading in some typical Asian features for Westernized ones is the norm. “In Asian cultures, it’s always been considered more beautiful if you have rounder eyes and more Western features,” Ling said. “I’m Chinese. If you notice on my eye, I have this sort of flap of skin over my eyes. What’s happening in Asia is they’re lifting the skin and making it more deep set. And it’s happening so frequently in Korea that a lot of women do it before they even get married and they don’t tell their husbands. And they destroy all their pictures.” In Korea, some go beyond eye surgery to a painful calf procedure where muscles are shaved to make legs look thinner. Ling said that Korean women believe that looking more Western may help find a good job or a husband. Taiwanese women also feel the pressure to Westernize their looks, according to business graduate student Chen-Mei Yang, who has been in the U.S. for two months. “Generally speaking, we, men and women, expect women in Taiwan to have thinner figures, big eyes and whiter skin,” said Yang.
“We think white skin can cover other shortcomings in bodies or faces. From men’s opinion, I think they like women with plumper bust and long straight hair and legs, so whitening cosmetics or losing weight products in Taiwan are popular.” Yang said that the American ideals that she’s observed – good figures, long legs, and beautiful faces – echo the Taiwanese beauty ideal. This may be, she said, because Taiwanese culture is greatly influenced by Japan, which is in turn influenced mainly by the U.S.
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Ammar believes that women in the U.S. also have different standards of beauty depending on what part of the U.S.’ diverse culture to which they relate. “I think in the U.S. there are multiple standards of beauty depending on the subculture one belongs to – African American, Caucasian, Latina, etc.,” Ammar said. “The Egyptian ideals of beauty, the nationalistic ones, are closer to the African American, and Latina ones.” Ammar said there are two beauty ideals in Egypt
In today’s climate Marilyn Monroe’s agent probably would have told her to lose thirty pounds before attempting to go out for the role of sexpot.
Arab nations Nawal Ammar, associate professor of justice studies and interim director of women studies, is Egyptian by nationality, Lebanese by birth and has lived seemingly everywhere in the Arab world – from Cairo to Beirut, from Kuwait City to Baghdad. According to Ammar, women in the U.S. generally aren’t as concerned with fashion and beauty like women in the Arab world are. This sentiment was echoed on The Oprah Winfrey Show by Zain Al Sabah, whose great uncle is the Emir, the current ruler, of Kuwait. She said that American women dress for comfort, not as much for fashion and beauty as Arab women.
that “compete and co-exist.” Because Egypt was ruled by the Mohammed Ali dynasty and later colonized by the British, female beauty was defined by light skin, straight hair and a full figure. When nationalism rose in the early 1900s, however, Ammar said that the Egyptian beauty ideal, in part, meant darker skin and big, black eyes. Ammar, who has been in the U.S. for 22 years, said Egypt and the U.S. now share one common idea about beauty. “Both in Egypt and in the U.S. there is an emerging ideal of the ‘global beauty,’ such as Iman the model or Paula Abdul the singer – both a mixture of ethnicities, and styles.” She also said that two of Egypt’s traditional beauty
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