White ideas of female beauty have had a strange history over the past hundred years, at least in North America.
Speaking in general, here is what white people in North America in 2008 seem to think is beautiful in a woman (and when each element seemed to take root):
- long hair that is yellow, almost white (1950s)
- blue, empty eyes (2000s)
- a thin body even to the point of being stick thin and not having much of female figure (1970s)
- large breasts (1950s) – even on a thin body (1990s), but not for fashion models (1960s)
- white, tanned skin (1950s)
This look is now everywhere, yet it is new. God – or Evolution – did not wire it into the brains of white people. You do not see it in the Italian paintings of the 1400s. You do not see it in the old American films of the 1940s. It is as strange, in its way, as Chinese foot binding or African lip plates.
Yet because of the powerful position that white North Americans have in world fashion, film and television it affects everyone. So black men in North America and the Caribbean prefer light-skinned women, while the Chinese increasingly prefer thin women.
Looking back there are five women who stand as signposts along the way to this idea of beauty:
1953: Marilyn Monroe
Before Marilyn Monroe the beauties of Hollywood tended to be thin with dark hair and beautiful legs. After her they become increasing light-haired with large breasts and an hourglass figure. Monroe appeared in the first issue of Playboy. In the 1950s and 1960s Playboy only showed naked breasts for the most part. That helped to make breasts, especially large ones, the thing that white men desired most.
1967: Twiggy
She was stick thin and had no female figure to speak of. White people of the time were shocked, but Vogue loved her look and so did fashion designers: she was a walking coat hanger. Thin became in and by the 1970s anorexia began to appear among girls in increasing numbers.
1979: Bo Derek
She starred in the film “10” where a middle-aged man pursues her as the perfect beauty. What makes this surprising is how thin she was for the time. It marked the death of the hourglass figure.
1992: Anna Nicole Smith
When one of the richest men in Texas fell in love with her she could become anything money could buy. And she did: she made her hair yellow and her breasts huge. They were out of proportion to her body but her breasts-on-a-stick look would become so common that it no longer looked strange.
2004: Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan has the makings of a true beauty, but it is undermined by her empty eyes: there does not seem to be anything serious behind them. That has become common now. It used to be that a woman’s eyes were the most beautiful thing about her. Look at Botticelli’s paintings or Elizabeth Taylor. Not any more.
See also:
Though thin, Bo Derek had little curves in all the right places. Of all of those above, I consider Marilyn and Bo beautiful.
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I agree except that Bo is too thin for my tastes.
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Before 1950s, voluptious brunette White women were common along with voluptuous blonds and redheads. Then, in response to white ethnic demands on the wasp elite, the movie and fashion industries moved toward the blond nordic ideal yet still kept the idea of voluptuousness.
Fast forward to today, sad to say, most affluent upper middle class white men are being brainwashed toward the thin nordic blond ideal in white women. They may prefer Asian and American Indian women as well because of the petite thin, straighten haired preference. Black women and black latina women are being shut out of the fashion and entertainment industries in order to promote the upper crust thin nordic ideal.
What say you?
Stephanie B.
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I never thought of it that way: that the Nordic look came in just as Jewish men were trying to break into the top of American society. Was it that Jewish men wanted to marry Nordic women to show that they have “arrived”, thus driving up their value? Interesting idea.
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Abagond,
This is mainly true. Once Jewish and some Meditteranean men make it to the top echelon, they tend to select Northern European women as wives. Failing in that, they select the more nordic women of their ethnicity.
Today, we are witnessing the erasure of Black women in the media and entertainment industries. The media today shows Black men with nonblack women or mixed race Black women. Upper class white men with thin Asian and Nordic white women.
The pressure for White women to be thin and blond to distinguish from Black, multiracial Black women, and Black Latina women. White women are depicted in various roles whereas Black women are depicted as oversexed (think video girls or rare IR flavor of the month/prostitute in Hollywood movies), welfare mothers, mammies, and sapphire roles.
The industry does this on purpose in order to make whiteness profitable and ideal.
That’s my take on this one.
Stephanie B.
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The Unbearable Whiteness of Fashion by Stephanie
Each year, Black women contribute to fashion and beauty industries in the amount of 40 billion dollars. We go to malls outside our communities to buy the latest in fashion. Are we going to believe the oft-repeated lie in the fashion industry that they can’t hire a Black model because we’re not profitable to the world?
The fashion and beauty industries are 75 years behind when it comes to race. People of Color make up 33% of America’s population. Yet the fashion industry’s runway and ad campaigns remained lily-white.
What about modeling agencies? Most of the modeling agencies are located in relatively affluent white areas and often dispatch modeling scouts to mainly white shopping centers and malls instead of cities and neighborhoods of Color to recruit models. What the industry wants to project is a false lily-white image of America to the world and most people fall for it.
The faux idea that white women are the epitome of beauty, virtue, and affluence is being exported to the far corners of the earth along with hateful images of Black women. This racist/misogynistic duality of women has harmed women in America and the world. The fashion industry wants to project the image of white models so that brainwashed and gullible public buy into the peculiarly American notion of the cult of white womanhood.
This is what the industry wants and prefer and want it to continue because the industry, like everything else is soak completely in the oil of racism/classism.
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It is sickening. There is no hard-headed business reason not to have more models of colour. It is just out and out racism.
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Yar i totally agree!
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I think Lindsay Lohan’s “empty eyes” have a lot to do with her drug/alcohol/health issues.
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LOL: you are probably right about her.
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I am writing thesis on white domination over black . my thesis is particularly on beauty.the term beauty used to be skin deep but in this case racialised buty has penetrated our bone and it has become bone deep now a days.Every one wants to be white and as in toni morrison’s novel “The bluest eye”, where pecola breed love keeps desire to have blue eyes and blond hair.This concept of beauty is in fact the definition of white and our eurocentric thought .actually beauty is beauty itself it cannot be defined in terms of color.
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I agree from a business sense, there ought to be more “representation” connected to buying statistics (ie: black women buy a certain percentage, so there should be proportional models) but let’s face it, Western Civilization is the culture of “standards and measures”..no other culture can compare, it makes sense that they should apply it to their sense of “physical beauty” and “physical culture” too. The White Male Type is also largely “preferred”.
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watching TV i noticed – the dukes of hazard movie remake.
The went from catherine bach – black haired curvy half mexican half german women to Jessica Simpson – skinny, blonde haired blued eyed women. So wrong and she reall didnt do daisy justice.
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Catherine Bach was way better looking than Jessica Simpson. But the shift from Bach to Simpson would follow what I say in the post – the move from hourglass figures to a thin body.
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i got one!!! big boobs…1 outta 5 though….must mean I am not beautiful – sigh
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I LOVE what Stephanie B. wrote,so much so that I copied it into an email and I intend to forward it to some of my friends I think on the day of Barak Obama’s inauguration it is trully and wholly appropriate. I could not agree more with the views written here. It is trully a shame and I think that as a young intelligent black woman I ( and people like myself have the power to change these views.)
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I somewhat agree with stephanie…but I am a white women and the fashion industry doesnt represent me – or even most white women. They have this very odd sense of “white women” – that few real women of any race can obtain. Where I live in california I actually feel as if the fashion is targeted at small asian women…because they are the only ones who look good in most of the clothes out there. Everything I buy must be tailored for me. I buy a size to large and then have it tailored to fit me…I have breast and hips folks…and a big butt. But if I buy to fit my breasts, hips and butt…then I look HUGE…because no one can see my waist. so I spend lots and lots of money having my clothes tailored to fit me.
Discussing models with my fellow assistants last week, we decided they are not white women or any other race that you know…They are aliens. If you compare them to a normal women of a healthy weight..they look inhuman. I was watching tyra yesterday and she looks weird. I really wish she would ditch the blonde hair
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Davida, I am with you. The fashion industry doesn’t represent you as a WW any more than it appeals to my taste as a WM. I usually find the models have beautiful faces, whether they are white women or otherwise. However, they are ridiculously thin, like Twiggy. I don’t find that appealing at all. As you said, the fashion industry has a very odd sense of what real women are like. I don’t know who decided anorexic women are more appealing than women with hourglass figures, because they got it all wrong.
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that is because if you are ridiculously thin – people notice the sweater. If you are shaped like me you notice…well whats IN the sweater and how its filled out.
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Right: the fashion industry’s idea of beauty is strange and unnatural even when it comes to white women. Most white women look nothing like that – or even could if they wanted to. Anorexia is a measure of just how unnatural it is.
Most white people’s idea of female beauty is not as extreme as Twiggy, but even so their ideas of beauty have been affected by the stick-figure beauty of the fashion world. It is how they moved from Raquel Welch to Bo Derek to Gwyneth Paltrow.
More on this in my post on waist-to-hip ratio:
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Annaleisha: which comment of Stephaie’s do you mean? Number 8? Or are you talking about all of them together?
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Virgin Atlantic Airlines has a huge add next the freeway I see everyday on my way home.
It says “Beautiful new planes” and has a picture of this thin women in a business suite blow-drying her long straight blonde hair. Every day I drive past it and go – what the heck does that women have to do with new planes. You couldnt find a better barbie look alike. It doesnt make sense at all as an add campagin. The model looks like a high school cheer leader playing dress up in mommys pink mary kay suit.
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No 8.
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In Figi the did not have cable until like 1990’s. The honoreda fuller figure. But after they got cable girls started to wanted to look thinner. Anorexic rates went up
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“There is no hard-headed business reason not to have more models of colour. It is just out and out racism.”
Yes, it is.
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Shawn said:
In Figi the did not have cable until like 1990’s. The honoreda fuller figure. But after they got cable girls started to wanted to look thinner. Anorexic rates went up
The same sort of thing is going on in Nigeria too.
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Wow, Stephanie B. hit the nail right on the head.
“Today, we are witnessing the erasure of Black women in the media and entertainment industries. The media today shows Black men with nonblack women or mixed race Black women. Upper class white men with thin Asian and Nordic white women.”
My boyfriend and I have countless discussions on this, hes actually pretty upset about some of this as his preference is just straightup unfooled around with thickness (darker the better)he can’t stand weaves/relaxed hair etc etc. We’re both very aware of the self image issues that plague black communities but we just can’t help ourselves from being appalled that the image of the black woman is either being white washed or just kicked to the side. As two black people, even though we don’t have kids yet, we’re actually talking about finding a different environment in which to raise children(atleast for the formative years) we do believe that self image affects every-single-thing you do in life.
No more black women= no more black men, sugar coated ethnic cleansing maybe? And quite frankly, this may make some people uncomfortable but I don’t think that’s such an outlandish possibility, history is a testament to that.
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So blue eyes are empty. OK, you’re not even tryig to hide your bias.
So you hate (or probably envy) blue eyed blondes (thin or fat). Got it. Just say you’re politically correct and have a chip on your shoulder, and save us some time.
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I’m also wondering how the modern preference for huge lips and straight hair reflects this “tyrany” of white beauty. Noticed you left that trend out.
I agree with the poster above that we’re almost moving to an asian standard of beauty. But where would all you blame whitey-I’m a noble victim types be then?
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I never said I thought blue eyes were empty or that I hate blondes.
True, I do not go for thin, blonde women in general and I do not get what other men see in them. But please note that that is a very different thing than hating them.
There are signs that white people are starting to go for fuller lips and a fuller figure, but the sort of female beauty pushed on American television and in magazines is still almost completely white. It is so white, in fact, it is white than most white people.
What I do hate is having a particular idea of beauty shoved down my throat, but I have no reason to hate the women who follow it. And why envy them when I do not even see them as beautiful?
I am hardly looking for pity (play the “noble victim”) since I do not expect to receive it. My position causes people to hate me, some of them, not pity me, and I know that.
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Abagond – you did say I believe on the post about white womens eyes (I believe Lyndsey lohan was on the page) that they looked empty…I discussed that it was an issue of light reflection or absorbtion… but as you well know _ i dont have an issue with your prefrence. I dot need to be your ideal beauty – just my husbands.
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I did remark that Megan Fox’s blue eyes sometimes look washed out and strange – and that is because of how the light hits them sometimes.
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not sure we can call this history…history would need to include people like Ruben etc…this is only the last 60 years…one person life time.
Historically speaking thin and blonde ment prone to illness and weak – therefore not diserable.
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I limited it on purpose like that to make it more manageable.
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White women with blonde hair and blue eyes were not seen as the prime figure of beauty until AFTER WWII. (something i learned).
before then, it was only white women with “Black Features” who were seen as beautiful.
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I love your comment about the weight expectations of american society “It is as strange, in its way, as Chinese foot binding or African lip plates.” This is true, to have women torture themselves and not embrace their true shapes is just wrong, as long as you are healthy you should be able to look as God intended. But I still think your posts are racist by combining wholr races into one thought rather than individual groups.
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Like what kind of groups?
This post only talks about white Americans since 1950 and not whites in general. You can look at that as a culture instead of a race, if you wish, but in the case of female beauty I am not sure whether some of those ideas are hard-wired or inborn.
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That’s straight BS… Nobody’s isolating the black women at all…
As I can see there are all sorts of women in the movies and entertainment industry – white, blond, blue-eyed, dark-eyed, black, dark-haired, asian, latin, too thin, too thick, with curves, with no curves, with ass, with no ass, beautiful, just plain and even somewhat not very good looking…
And you just can’t deny beauty when you see it – no matter what the fashion and entertainment industry shows you – a man just knows what he wants… And all have their own preferences – some like skinny women, others like curvy, some want lighter skin, others want darker… There’s nothing more to it…
Of course, when women watch TV and see a good looking toned and fit woman they would do something about it and try to get a better looking healthy body like that. The same goes with men.
Isn’t that good? Cuz nowadays so many people eat all that junk food and sit all day at work and use cars all the time and I see that it’s not good for the looks of the mankind. We don’t wanna get to the point that humans start to look like some jellyfish, do we? 🙂 And the same is with this anorexic look.
But people have brains and know what is healthy and what’s not. But tv is good. So if there weren’t those tv shows and commercials and entertainment industry then could anybody tell me what would we all look like? Would we care that much about looks then? Would we have those hairstyles, those make-ups and lipsticks? Or would we all just look almost the same, stop caring and slowly go back to the cave-look? 🙂
Sure, nobody’s perfect and nobody looks like a star, even the stars themselves, but there has to be something there that keeps you taking care of how you look… People are always trying to achieve and to get something, cuz when they stop, they simply don’t have a reason for living anymore…
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There are all kinds of women in Hollywood films, but Hollywood does push one particular kind of beauty over the others. It affects how black women are seen. And it does affect men. Men are not as independent-minded as you like to think.
For example, because Playboy dutifully records the measurements of its centrefold women every month we know they have become thinner and thinner over time. In the 1960s they had hourglass figures. Now they do not. That is a huge change. It started with the fashion industry, which in turn affected Hollywood.
Playboy makes money by appealing to men’s preferences in women. They would not have changed unless men’s preferences had changed.
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White beauty is amazing. 🙂
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Anthony Says:
White beauty is amazing
laromana says,
ALL beauty, REGARDLESS OF RACE, is amazing.
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Well… So many things to negate here… I’ll just start by saying there’s a great demand for black models and a lot of them on the market. Watch some seasons of America’s Next Top Models, which is too popular for its own good… It’s almost half and half.
Lindsay Lohan was never a portrayal of white beauty anyway… she was just a popular tween actress…
And the hourglass figure is still very popular! Only issue here is I think you’re getting your “hourglass figure” mixed up with black women who are built like snorlaxes and whose asses look like cottage cheese.
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No, the fashion industry is still quite racist:
Any woman built like a snorlax, white or black, I would readily call fat (and have got in trouble with some commenters and bloggers for doing so):
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I agree with this post. In general, white men tend to prefer breasts over bottoms. White men claim they like when a woman has a “nice figure”. Which means they don’t really like Twiggy’s body.
But “nice figure” to them is not really “thick” (in a true means of hourglass or pear figure). It’s always Gisele Bündchen’s type of nice figure, not Kim Kardashian’s.
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To be fair, I don’t see many white men lusting over Gisele’s body. It’s usually white women who lust over it.
It’s social conditioning by the media; chiefly fashion mags.
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@Francesca:
I’m also wondering how the modern preference for huge lips and straight hair reflects this “tyrany” of white beauty. Noticed you left that trend out.
I agree with the poster above that we’re almost moving to an asian standard of beauty. But where would all you blame whitey-I’m a noble victim types be then?
Please clarify what you mean by “almost moving to an asian standard of beauty?” The younger generation of Asians (particularly those born in the West) desire big, creased eyes, fuller lips, high-bridged nose, and big breasts.
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Mell,
To be fair, I don’t see many white men lusting over Gisele’s body. It’s usually white women who lust over it.
Really? I know many white men who go crazy over Giselle. In fact, it’s the women who say she isn’t anything special.
Aaron,
Well… So many things to negate here… I’ll just start by saying there’s a great demand for black models and a lot of them on the market. Watch some seasons of America’s Next Top Models, which is too popular for its own good… It’s almost half and half.
Tyra began the show partly to portray different types of beauty because she felt the modeling industry was only depicting a certain kind of look. ANTM is in no way indicative of the industry standard.
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I know many men who find Giselle extremely beautiful and attractive. However, they find Adriana Lima more attractive, but Giselle is definitely on many “top 5” lists.
Also, I agree with Natasha W: Women are those who don’t find Giselle beautiful. And not because of jealousy- many women do want to look like a famous model, to be skinny, etc, but their choice of “top 5” models would be different. I am not sure Giselle would made that list.
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Personally, I think Giselle is overrated in the looks and figure department. That’s not her real nose, and that body isn’t all that.
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Lol, poor woman, we’re talking about her behind her back! I hate to sound mean, but she has no figure. No waist. That’s not a crime, of course, but I did hear men praising her figure and her curves. What curves?
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She looks like death eating crackers!
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Poor woman is right!lol I think she is gorgeous, eyecatching. And how many women in the world can say that they are/were Victoria’s Secret models. That brand is the epitome of sexy.:)
However, I think Adrianna is more beautiful.
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@Mira:
Exactly. I’m always boggled that many men find her hot.
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I don’t find Giselle gorgeous. If we’re going to objectify her (where’s Thad, btw?), I must say there’s nothing special about her face. And face is, after all, the most important (isn’t it?)
Also, nothing wrong with her body- it’s obvious she’s not anorexic. But those are not curves. I know guys who mention her curves. What curves? If that’s their idea of a woman with curves, no wonder they consider fat any woman with a waist.
If they say something like: “I love thin women, Giselle is beautiful”, that would be ok. But “I like her curves?” If she has curves, then, what does “skinny” women look like?
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Herneith,
That is so mean-spirited. Wow.
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From neck up and the neck down Adriana Lima is way better looking than Giselle Bundchen. It is not even close:
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So, are you saying Giselle’s neck looks better than Adriana’s? 😛 Oh, just admit it, Abagond! You dislike her because she’s blonde!
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Mira, lol.
I can’t say I’m a fan of Adriana’s either. Sometimes she looks beautiful, but then sometimes her teeth stick out in a way I find unappealing. I guess if she got braces, she’d be all set.
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@Islandgirl:
Sorry if you took it that way, but she is very thin and has no curves. I have seen many slender women who are curvaceous so it is not the fact that she is thin per se. You can see her ribs! I doubt many of these models are naturally slender. From articles I have read there seems to be a problem with anorexia and other eating disorders. They are even imposing weight limitations on some European runway shows on how thin or not so thin one should be because of these problems. The average slender women in every day life I have seen, look nothing like this. Again, I apologize if you took offence.
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Herneith,
No problem. I just feel that sometimes these women/girls get judged harshly. You never know if it’s natural or a disorder. If it’s natural, some comments has to hurt.
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You are absolutely right!
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I agree with Mira on Giselle. What curves indeed? She looks no more curvier than any other model. She’s cute, but nothing special. Now who is gorgeous is Kim Kardasian. Gorgeous face, incredible curvacious body. Brings to mind Sophia Loren, Gina Lola Brigida, Bardot, Monroe, Rachel Welch, Beyonce, Halle Berry, Tyra, now these are women with curves.
Curves for anyone that doesn’t know is not a plus size woman, not a scrawny woman, not a pudgy woman, but a woman with an hour glass shape, nice size breasts, and a shapely behind. 36-24-36 or a hip to waist ratio of 0.7
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I don’t like white beauty.Blonde hair reminds me of piss,white skin is not cute which is why white ppl tan,but usually come out looking orange.
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Tiktak,
That’s really mean! Natural blonde hair can be quite lovely as can very fair skin. I don’t know why white people want to brown up their skin. You’re white! Be proud of your creamy skin. I know I love my cocoa colored skin.
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For sure , poetess . You hit the nail on the head .
We have to love who we are before we can ever deal on a real leval with anyone else.
And that aplies to everything, not just skin color
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long hair that is yellow, almost white (1950s)
blue, empty eyes (2000s)
a thin body even to the point of being stick thin and not having much of female figure (1970s)
large breasts (1950s) – even on a thin body (1990s), but not for fashion models (1960s)
white, tanned skin (1950s)
that’s my apprehension of ‘white’ north america (whose entertainment industry obv goes out all over the world) too and it’s soo weird from an nordic perspective! We dont have THAT many younger people here yet with a bmi over 27 and except for the extreme thinness that just sounds quite like the average suburb girl here lol. I think it would be so good if America could change this ideal into something more eclectic and representive as you have medial powers all over the world and a large population. something for everybody.
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I meant that here, that description is like your average uninteresting girl in a mall, who just looks like anyone else and wouldnt be cared about more than any other. it’s not an ideal here. for an ideal to appear you need to have something that stans out from all the rest.
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am I the only one finding the overhyped Victoria’s Secret-models kind of bleh? Not to be rude but they sure get a lot of money when another (not as skinny) broad could handle it much better..
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Good points, ylvi! As a teen I sometimes liked those Victoria’s Secret models, but grew out of it. Too skinny for my tastes and you just don’t see that type of female everywhere, especially if you don’t have money!
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The problem with white beauty, at least how its portrayed in the media, is it seems to be fake and manufactured. It’s bleached blonde hair, insanely thin body, huge (fake breasts). Or just bone thin with blonde hair and blue eyes. blonde hair and blue eyes seem to figure most predominately in white people’s ideal of beauty. Is it the rareness of it? If so, why aren’t redheads given such esteem? This obsession with blondness makes me think of color struck black folks who think everyone with light skin, eyes and/or “good” hair is just the epitome of beauty.
The color of your skin, hair or eyes by themselves do not make a person beautiful. You either have a nice face and body or you don’t.
Facial features + nice bod = beauty.
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Yvli & CDF,
The Fredericks of Hollywood models have it going on. They sizzle on the page. I am completely straight, but those women are smoking hot. I don’t like getting that magazine at home because I don’t want my husband to see it. LOL.
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Like many impressionable teens, me and my friends read Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Vogue, tabloids, etc. The first particularly is truly hypocritical, smilingly pushing “all” types of beauty while using predominantly blond-haired blue-eyed teens as models.
Recently there has been a quick shift to all-white models and covergirls (white celebs on fashion covers) almost like a knee-jerk reaction. This isn’t just my imagination; on covers, for the past few months, there have been very few “ethnic” women, much less than before. Why? Perhaps because the industry is now realizing more than ever that blond-haired blue-eyed genetics are a dying breed and “ethnic” women, or at least, brunettes of varying skin tones, are the future. And perhaps the media is now desperately clinging to the standards it has created and enforced, hoping to keep the whiter-than-snow image alive.
Frankly, I find some of Abagond’s physical standards racist–I appreciate his honesty in a politically correct society, but he plays fair too much in some standards and too partial in others.
I do appreciate him bringing out the beauty of Black and Asian women. I find so many surgically untouched minority women more beautiful than celebs like Diane Kruger, Drew Barrymore, Amanda Seyfried, Gisele Bundchen, Blake Lively, Heidi Klum, etc., at least five of which have gone under the knife several times. *Does Kim Kardashian truly count as a beauty under any terms, ethnic, full figured, or otherwise, having gone through so much surgery?* There are of course beautiful white women, but these standards are sick. And I find inner beauty the most important of all. HOW COULD SO MANY PEOPLE LOSE SIGHT OF IT?
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I laugh everytime I see kim kardasian on how one tape can get you a reality show and millions of Dollars.
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Wow…you really have it all wrong.
95% of all men and all women, of any race, at any time in history would find Bo Derek attractive. It has to do with symmetry and proportion. 95% of everybody, everywhere either looks no where near as physically attractive, or never had at chance of being with such symmetrical being.
Twiggy was never considered attractive. She was an oddity. She was the thinnest model of all time–this made her famous. It was purely capitalistically driven by the fashion industry which still prefers to model its clothing off human hangers. 95% of everybody though she was too skinny.
Marilyn Monroe was too much woman for most men. She had a gimmick…dumb blonde sexual bomb shell. People went along with it just as they did with Bob Hope’s jokes. The censors controlling the movie industry still hadn’t allowed viewers a choice of sexuality–it was taboo. Thus women in movies were either dressed plainly, smartly or like vixens. At the time, men were much more attracted to Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, Liz Taylor, Ava Gardner or Audrey Hepburn.
Anna Nicole Smith was a breast anomaly who didn’t have the kind of attractiveness to get a decent modeling job. She she had to sell herself to the skin mags and be used like a special effect in the last Naked Gun film. After that, she looks became a joke and this began to ruin her life.
Abagond…it is clear that you’ve no idea how attractiveness works on minds of male or females of any race, in any period of history. You, without realizing it, have bought entirely into what has been sold to you by capitalists of any color. You are also guilty of having formulated an opinion and then gone about carefully selecting the very few examples which support your opinion. Stating fact however is a matter of research, study, analysis and then recognizing the end result objectively and accepting that whether it fit your prior notions or not.
p.s. Nobody has ever been attracted to ’empty eyes’ regardless of their color. White men do not look for blue eyes, green eyes or brown eyes. They look for eyes which have something in them…mainly a soul which finds that man attractive. Regardless of looks, there is nothing more attractive than mutual attraction.
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@ Woody Brown
Symmetry and proportion are traits that are mainly attractive to white men. Usually used to demean the looks of black women. Don’t delude yourself into thinking otherwise while trying to claim that these traits (that are nothing short of nonsense in my book) are the global norm.
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“So black men in North America and the Caribbean prefer light-skinned women”
Well this is generalizing. I have heard this statement a lot with out any proof(polls?) behind it. My entire life I have only heard ONE Black guy I know voice his color preference(actually he just said something about uptight pretty light skin girls). Most color-struck folks I know have been women. Whether they preferred light or dark skin. In fact, it seems as though most Caribbean Black women prefer lighter skin mixed looking boys.
I went on to ask some of my male friends if they had any color preferences and they all said no(I need to widen that poll). People use the media to support this thesis that all BM will die for a light skin women, which doesn’t always represent a population accurately. I fail to see how rappers and ballers make up the mentality ALL Black guys.
And btw I don’t think light skin preferences among Blacks has ANYTHING to do with the White/Jewish dominated media. I believe ppl perceive lighter skin as having more advantages in the Black community from all the way back to slavery days(house slave vs field slave). If it had more to do with wanting to emulate Europeans than Black folks would have phrases like “good nose” or “good lips”(the mixed or LS house slave usually had an Afro nose & lips bc those are dominant traits, therefore they are okay to have) When is the last time you heard a BW say she wished she had a flatter behind like a White woman?
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Woody Brown is right, its all to do with symmetry and proportions, because of biology. Mostly.
I liked this article and think it’s food for thought, however it can all be explained by science and social reasons/media influence, not some conspiracy (ok, maybe some parts). Also, some of the things you selected it down to were much much too narrow- empty eyes? I have never heard of that trends? LIGHT eyes on the other hand, yes there’s a reason for this though…. because this topic has caught my eye a few years ago too and I read up on it to find out why. You should always do that before saying Its a mystery when biology can explain most of it. The other bit (big breasts for example) is purely driven by media, and when you said Playboy was involved in the influence, you had that one correct I’m sure. However it’s pretty complicated and i’ll explain;
LIGHT EYES: Biological reasons. Green, blue, hazel and light brown eyes are better than dark (of any shade). You can see the pupil dilate easier- a way to tell how a person is feeling (if you look at someone you love it enlarges, fear shrinks it) so thats a very animalistic thing, its got nothing to do with media. Besides eye colour doesn’t mean much- if someone is hot they are hot. Hotter with light eyes yes they are, and now you know why- however it’s a MINOR thing. that’s not very racial because blondes (britney) often have brown eyes, and asian/indian girls have green and hazel sometimes.
BIG BOOBS: this is not even racial (same as skinnyness, why is that lumped in here?!) , the history of breasts changes all the time- right now big is out of fashion, because excess is very unfashionable now due to economic reasons. I’m white and I don’t have big boobs, why is this called a “white trait?”
WHITE SKIN: um… in Australia where I live, tanned skin is IN!! everyone wants to be dark!! the darker the better, seriously, so it’s not like that everywhere. im very white like Amanda Seyfried (its very hard to find makeup that is light enough, i’m fairer than kirsten dunst) and only in the past few months Ivé stopped using fake tan all together because of fashion mags, the “alternative trend” and also because white skin is very rare, I should be proud of it! but I wouldn’t of braved it without the influence of the media. Only the a minority of Aussies sport Pale skin- arty cultured people, and in Australia that’s a small percentage. They accept white skin as Beautiful- however the majority LOVE tans and ethnic looking women ..and watch jersey shore. I dyed my hair and skin dark for years and years. So like in Aus, white skin in asia etc, skin colour is about trends and what “group” your friends belong to, how you identify etc.
I get made fun of for being pale (less now, than in school). If I was in asia i’d be honored though!
BLONDE HAIR: is a sign of YOUTH. If you are of european descent like I am, you’ll have noticed you and all your pals had blonde hair as children, and it gradually got darker as you aged.SO, It’s not really a sign of fertility which is a little perverse- however it is a sign of youth.
Second to that it’s a way of “standing out” because blonde is RARE. KEY WORD IS RARITY. it’s also a sign of recessive genes which means if you had kids your genes would be more predominate- that’s another theory.
But you know what? Even more complicated which debunks the Blonde Hair myth is that BLONDES PREFER BRUNETTES. I am a blonde and I love dark haired, dark eyed men- because our genes are different and that means we have a higher chance at having a healthy baby. I dyed my hair black for 7 years because I think brunette girls are far hotter. All this talk about white, blonde chicks makes me wonder wtf are people talking about?? I thought black was the trend. I am jealous of dark people, not the other way around lol.
SKINNY BODIES: This is not white, but skinny bodies in the catwalks are to hang the clothes- my partner is a photographer and he thinks the models are too thin and its gross- whenever I wanna lose weight he thinks Im crazy. (I’m 46 kilos and 5ft1, which is slim but nowhere near model skinny). So being super skinny is not something normal people find hot. Being healthy (muscular and just enough body fat) is universally hot because it means strong genes, and strong offspring. As for the trends, in starving countries fat is beautiful, and in obese countries thin is becoming more and more coveted, because it’s going against the norm and means you have time to work out, and can afford to be delicate and thin (this is a sociological fact). I think skinny is beautiful (I mean skinny, not fucking sick and anorexic, gross) and I think chubby girls can be hot too. But thats the culture I grew up in. My parents and grandparents both instilled in me and fat is not hot from a young age- my mum always made sure I never got fat and my dad would complain if he gained weight. I subconciously believe fit is beautiful. In some families they advocate stuffing your face everyday, mine doesn’t.
What you prefer in weight is one which is incredibly fickle, more so than the rest because its ENTIRELY influence by culture and the economic state of where you live.
BIG LIPS (not mentioned on your list): now this is something that cannot be argued, big lips have always been, and will always be favoured over thin ones. Yes , ok, they are very envied Negro trait as someone mentioned above, so this isn’t a famous white trait is it? No. Big lips aren’t racist- all races (Negros, Asian and Caucasian.. latin people are caucasian/classed as european race to avoid confusion) are, guess what- a BIOLOGICALLY coveted trait!
Like Large hips for child bearing, light eyes, women with round faces etc, big lips are a sign of estrogen and men love that stuff, just like we love broad shoulders and tiny hips on men. Its got nothing to do with the media or race, its about biology.
FYI, andro-bodies have never been craved or saught after. Although they have been depicted in media throughout the years, that doesn’t change the fact that we are biologically wired to want a woman with big hips so she doesn’t die in childbirth. That is something that can’t be altered because its so important for evolutionary reasons. Fat however can be altered, because being slim or chubby doesn’t say squat about your dna or child rearing abilities. You can tell alot about a persons health by what they look like, because all the hormones are being shown on their faces and bodies. Thats how we select our partners, and thats why every generation is becoming more beautiful- greater variation of genes.
The hour glass figure may have gone out “fashion”because fashion is a business, but it has NEVER gone out of style. A woman with an hourglass figure has never gone unnoticed because biology and our sexual instincts will ALWAYS override trends. Always. Like I said, even people who work in the fashion industry still prefer a sexually fertile woman or man over a stick- because we are wired to choose the strongest genes to support our babies. Anorexic looking women don’t make strong mothers. so now you know that it’s all scientific, and as for skin colour and hair colour, that’s entirely cultural and media influenced.
The reason white people are everywhere in ads is because Europe owns every fucking fashion house, and America is the king of the media. Ever since tv existed America and Europe have been the super powers. Also, during the second world war France (who was allied with the Nazis) were told to make propaganda so the world knew that French women were refined, classy, elegant- superior. Sound familiar? They wanted everyone to know that the Nazis were superior (The Nazi allies included Italy and France who were considered the most beautiful people in the world, haha making sense yet?) and to THIS DAY it carries on!! Milan and Paris are still the capitals of Fashion, and most fashion designers are actually racist and always classist. John Galliano himself stated that Jews are ugly and he hates badly dressed, lower class people, but you will find most white aristocrats are like this, because they grew up in a snobby fashion world. They are born into it, look at the Versace family. This is why I don’t like high fashion, so don’t ever listen to it and remember what I said about universal beauty, that will never change.
This should cover almost every facet of the subject. any questions I can answer them. oh and go to my new blog; youfromtheinsideout.wordpress.com its new as im trying to figure blogging out but my head is jam packed with useful stuff you can pick at 🙂
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what is all this shit about a “white womans butt”?” Im a white, WHITE WHITE girl and I have the same Hip to Waist ratio as fucking Jlo, literally. 0.67. I have a 24 inch waist and a 36 inch hip/butt. and I’m thin and have a muscular stomach- if I was chubby id have an even smaller waist (no muscles) and larger hips from the fat. So shut the fuck up about black womens butts everyone.
Maybe I am the exception and just got lucky- the black booty (which everyone comments on, all the time it gets so old) and the straight nose/blue eyes/cheekbones. So ok maybe I am an exception to the rule but I have friends of all races and some of my “white” girlfriends (some of them are caucasian but are tanned/mixed so define white please) have round butts too- and they are swedish.
Also in australia we have aboriginies who refer to themselves as black because of their skin colour (which Im sure they are technically Asian according to the experts, they look the same as Malays and we are next to asia, lol) and they are all apple shaped, due to genetics. They have no butts at all and they are “black” and a couple of my white friends have slim waists and rounder butts than negros, so can you just shutup with all these stereotypes??
Some of us are lucky, some of us aren’t. In every race you get the blessed, hot people, and sometimes you get ugly ones. Negros have girls with small butts and big butts, caucasians have big butts and small, and asians are the same. You get a mix of both, no race is superior- there are only superior individuals who are healthy and have less chance of having a deformed child, that’s the facts. all races have the same chances of having ugly babies ok.
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I don’t know what all this is about, but I do know I wanna see youfromtheinsideout‘s butt.
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I disagree with the idea that light eyes are better (oh how I hate that word used in this context) than darker ones because it allows you to interpret certain biological “cues” from people. Because you can also argue from the opposite end – that darker eye colours permit the wearer to hide/mask their emotions – thus retaining a sense of mystery about them. While it may seem like you would want to know who is attracted to you using such a physical cue (i.e. pupil dilation) that’s not how attraction necessarily works. And there is definitely a selective advantage to keeping your feelings to yourself or not making your thoughts known (especially for men).
I also think that people are missing something here. Generalisations are just that. They don’t aim to address specific individuals, they are just attempting to round out averages. They most certainly can be inaccurate. But even where they are accurate, they DON’T speak to select people of the group being generalised (which may be a large number of people).
But that doesn’t mean they are totally invalid. If I say the average Chinese (in China) person is shorter than the average American, this generalisation is probably true even though it doesn’t address specific cases where a Chinese person is taller than their American counterpart.
Oh, and WHR (waist-to-hip ratio) doesn’t necessarily account for flatness of butts. A woman may have a low WHR (wide hips with respect to her waist) but still have a “flat butt”. The easiest way to think about it is the difference between a woman viewed from the front or in profile. A woman with a large butt in profile may have relatively narrow hips in front-view, and vice versa.
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@Jubayer – Generally speaking, women with the classic hour glass figure don’t have flat butts. It would be an exception. Apple shaped women with skinny legs, little waist definition and typically large bust are the ones who generally have flat butts.
@you from the inside out. Generally speaking white women tend not to have large butts. You are an exception.
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@Walter
Sorry, but you are categorically wrong.
Symmetry and proportion do not apply more to one race over another. They are exactly equal between races. All human beings have proportions and share the same percentage of well-proportioned people to not; the same is true of symmetry.
That’s really all I can say without just plain insulting you.
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I think Bo Derek is not ugly, but a bit plain to my taste. Perhaps with fuller lips or bigger eyes she’d be beter looking, because her face would have more character. I do like her tan and her braids and her shape of face and her jawline. Tho
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You are completely insane…
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