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    Summary Ideal Beauty

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    Emilija Matjosaityte
    The document discusses how ideas of physical beauty vary across cultures and change over time. In some parts of Africa, being overweight signifies attractiveness, power and prosperity, yet Western media portrays slim, blond figures as beautiful. Historically, Egyptian art favored slender dark-haired women while Rubens painted plump pale women as beautiful. Different cultures modify bodies through practices like tattoos, piercings, or neck stretching, and what is normal in one culture may shock another. Ultimately, beauty standards are diverse and have changed throughout history.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Summary Ideal Beauty

    Uploaded by

    Emilija Matjosaityte
    36 views2 pages
    The document discusses how ideas of physical beauty vary across cultures and change over time. In some parts of Africa, being overweight signifies attractiveness, power and prosperity, yet Western media portrays slim, blond figures as beautiful. Historically, Egyptian art favored slender dark-haired women while Rubens painted plump pale women as beautiful. Different cultures modify bodies through practices like tattoos, piercings, or neck stretching, and what is normal in one culture may shock another. Ultimately, beauty standards are diverse and have changed throughout history.

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    Summary Ideal beauty

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    The document discusses how ideas of physical beauty vary across cultures and change over time. In some parts of Africa, being overweight signifies attractiveness, power and prosperity, yet Western media portrays slim, blond figures as beautiful. Historically, Egyptian art favored slender dark-haired women while Rubens painted plump pale women as beautiful. Different cultures modify bodies through practices like tattoos, piercings, or neck stretching, and what is normal in one culture may shock another. Ultimately, beauty standards are diverse and have changed throughout history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    36 views2 pages

    Summary Ideal Beauty

    Uploaded by

    Emilija Matjosaityte
    The document discusses how ideas of physical beauty vary across cultures and change over time. In some parts of Africa, being overweight signifies attractiveness, power and prosperity, yet Western media portrays slim, blond figures as beautiful. Historically, Egyptian art favored slender dark-haired women while Rubens painted plump pale women as beautiful. Different cultures modify bodies through practices like tattoos, piercings, or neck stretching, and what is normal in one culture may shock another. Ultimately, beauty standards are diverse and have changed throughout history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Nigerian teenager Happiness Eden had just one aim in life: to put on weight.

    So she spent six months


    in a 'fattening room' where her daily routine was to sleep, eat and grow fat. She went in a trim 60 kg,
    but came out weighing twice that. In some parts of Africa, being fat is desirable because it symbolizes
    attractiveness in woman and power and prosperity in men. However, in magazines and in the media
    we are bombarded with images of slim, blond-haired and sun-tanned women or handsome, blue-
    eyed and broad-shouldered young men. Where are the short-sighted, middle-aged models? Is one
    idea of physical beauty really more attractive than another?

    Ideas about physical beauty change over time and different periods of history reveal different view of
    beauty, particularly of women. Egyptian paintings often show slender dark-haired women as the
    norm, while one of the earliest representations of women in art in Europe is a caving of an
    overweight female. This is the Venus of Hohle Fels and it is more than 35,000 years old. In the early
    1600s, artists like Peter Paul Rubens also painted plump, pale-skinned women who were thought to
    be the most stunning examples of female beauty at that time. In Elizabethan England, pale skin was
    still fashionable, but in this period it was because it was a sign of wealth: the make-up to archive this
    look was expensive, so only rich people could afford it.

    Within different cultures around the world, there is a huge variation in what is considered beautiful.
    Traditional customs, like tattooing, head-shaving, piercing or other kinds of body modification can
    express status, identity or beliefs. In Borneo, for instance, tattoos are like a diary because they are a
    written record of all the important events and places a man has experienced in his life. For New
    Zealand’s Maoris the reflect the person’s position in society. In western society, where tattoos used
    to be considered a sign of rebellion, the culture is changing and they are now a very popular form of
    body art.

    For Europeans, the tradition of using metal rungs to stretch a girl’s a girl’s neck may be shocking, but
    the Myanmar people consider woman with long, thin necks more elegant. In Indonesia, the custom
    of sharpening girls’ teeth to points might seem strange to other cultures, but it is perfectly
    acceptable elsewhere to straighten children’s teeth with braces. Body piercing, dieting, cosmetic
    surgery or the use of fake tan might be seen as ugly and unattractive by some cultures, but they are
    commonplace in many others.

    It appears that through the ages and across different cultures, people have always changed their
    bodies and faces for a wide variety of reasons. Does this mean that underneath the tattoos, rings and
    piercings, we’re all beautiful in our own way?

    In some parts of Africa, being fat is desirable because it symbolizes attractiveness in woman and
    power and prosperity in men. However we are bombarded with images of slim, blond-haired and
    sun-tanned women or handsome, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered young men.

    Ideas about physical beauty change over time and different periods of history reveal different view of
    beauty, particularly of women.

    Within different cultures around the world, there is a huge variation in what is considered beautiful.
    Traditional customs, like tattooing, head-shaving, piercing or other kinds of body modification can
    express status, identity or beliefs.

    Body piercing, dieting, cosmetic surgery or the use of fake tan might be seen as ugly and unattractive
    by some cultures, but they are commonplace in many others.
    It appears that through the ages and across different cultures,
    people have always changed their bodies and faces for a wide
    variety of reasons.

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