increasingly “feminine,” exaggerating biological differences to suggest that male
breadwinners can afford to have their wives stay at home. When women’s status rises,
men tend to become more interested in their own upper-body muscles, and beards
and mustaches increase. In some Islamic cultures, women are believed to
be so sexually alluring (and men so unable to control themselves when
confronted with temptation) that they wear burkhas, which keep their
entire bodies covered.
In the United States, women’s beauty is placed at such a high premium
and the standards of beauty are so narrow that many women feel trapped
by what feminist writer Naomi Wolf (1991) called the “beauty myth”—
a nearly unreachable cultural ideal of feminine beauty that “uses images
of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement.”
By this standard, women are trapped in an endless cycle of cosmetics, beauty aids,
diets, and exercise fanaticism (Wolf, 1991, pp. 10, 184; see also Rodin, Silberstein,
and Streigel-Moore, 1985; Streigel-Moore, Silberstein, and Rodin, 1986).
Weight and Height.The body shape and weight that is considered ideal also varies
enormously. And it appears that standards are becoming harder and harder to
achieve. For example, in 1954, Miss America was 5' 8" and weighed 132 pounds.
Today, the average Miss America contestant still stands 5' 8", but now she weighs
just 117 pounds. In 1975, the average female fashion model weighed about 8
percent less than the average American woman; by 1990 that disparity had grown
to 23 percent. And though the average American woman today is 5' 4" tall and
weighs 140 pounds, the average model is 5' 11" and weighs 117 pounds. Forty-two
percent of girls in first through third grades say they want to be thinner, and 81
percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat. Almost half of 9- to 11-year-olds are
on diets; by college the percentage has nearly doubled (Gimlin, 2002).
Just as the gap between rich and poor has been growing, so too has the bifurca-
tion between the embodied haves and have-nots. For example, Europeans are getting
taller—but Americans are not. Dutch men now average over six feet tall; women aver-
age about 5' 8". (American men average 5' 10" and women 5' 4"). Researchers believe
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE BODY 523The first Miss America pageant was held in
1920—the year U.S. women obtained the
right to vote.Didyouknow
?White or Wrong?
Over the past decade, a whiter skin industry has been
flourishing across Asia. Women believe that the whiter
your skin, the more beautiful you are. In the Philip-
pines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea,
4 in every 10 women use a whitening cream daily. One
cream is called “White Perfect.” An ad for another
asks, “White or Wrong?”
And the whitening does not stop at the face. Also crowding
the shelves of pharmacies and supermarkets are creams that
whiten darker patches of skin in the armpits and “pink nipple”
lotions that bleach away brown pigment. Some of the most
effective bleaching agents may be risky to one’s health.Small groups of women in Asia are bucking the trend. In
Japan, for example, some young women have been regulars at
tanning salons for a decade.
Why would Asians, who are divided by language, ethnicity,
and religion, share a cultural preference for ever-whiter skin?
Social class may play a role. Lighter complexion may be asso-
ciated with wealth and higher education levels because those
from lower classes—laborers, farmers—are tanned from expo-
sure to the sun. Another hypothesis is that waves of lighter-
skinned conquerors and colonizers reset the standard for beauty.
More recently, films and advertising have clearly played a role
(Fuller, 2006).Sociologyand ourWorld