By Samhita • 17 years ago

History of the Western ideal of beauty.

rubens.jpg
My friend sent this to me so I thought I would put it up. It is a series of pics of women from different periods in history and how body image has changed over the course of the last 300 years in the West. All the women depicted are white, but I still thought it was interesting to look at how industrialization and advertising have literally changed beauty and body standards. They even compare the models of today to holocaust victims, which is a little intense, but I think we get the point.
I would be interested in doing this with images of women of color from the West and looking at how the images relate images of white women. When I look at these pictures I don’t just see the construction of femininity as thin-ness, but also as constructed a white body, which is considered the norm for Western beauty.
Thoughts?
Sorry I forgot to add the link.

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