essay #5 male/female ideals

Becoming that male or female ideal

Male and female ideal in the United States change throughout the years, as new generations of people start to like different “looks”. Most of these new looks that people start to really like are mostly set by the media that surrounds that population like in the United States. Looks now a day seem to be very important rather than people’s personalities or beliefs even. It seems as if people are shifting away for what truly matters most, like people’s personalities and they are becoming more focused on each other’s looks better. It seems as if our population is becoming very shallow. But are you truly happy when you meet your male or female ideal?
Time period plays a huge factor on how the male or female ideals change. From taking my art history class, all the sculptures that we looked at are all based on male and female ideals. You can really tell how it does change from one generation to another. In the times before written records even, we looked at a couple of female sculptures that showed that the ideal woman had to be rather chubby with very large breasts. Another sculpture was of a very skinny woman with a large neck. On that sculpture the artists emphasized on the facial area of the sculpture. All these different types of sculptures changed as we kept on looking at different types of cultures and as we kept on moving closer towards our time period. Also back before written records, the female ideal was supposed to be depicted as being fertile. The artists clearly emphasized his/her work of art mainly focusing on the woman’s vagina. Back then they didn’t really have male ideals that we looked at. All the sculptures were of all females and no males. As we progressed into later periods of times as in the Egyptian periods, the ideals changed from being females into just males. Obviously the pharaoh was depicted as the ideal male. Their depiction of the pharaoh was always having their faces painted entirely with long eyebrows. I can only imagine that millions of Egyptians wanted to look just like the pharaoh because he was their male ideal.
The male ideals are to have very well defined muscles especially in the arms region such as you biceps and triceps. The stronger you are the better it looks. They do several very risky drugs such as steroids in order to become stronger faster. Another male ideal body type is to have the “six pack” going on as well. You have to show off a very flat stomach with defined abs if you want to impress the females now a day. Most males are starving themselves in order to get leaner then doing a bunch of crunches in order to get that definition in their stomachs. Most of the methods they use are rather unhealthy and very harmful to their bodies but they are willing to take those risks in order to look perfect in everyone’s eyes. Males put so much pressure on themselves to look a certain way in order to be accepted by society. It’s rather sad to see this happening to our society.
The female ideals are more focused on looking very sexy and flashy. The female ideals are based on having rather large breasts and have a very skinny waist with nice legs. Before this became our society’s female ideals, it was for the female to be skinny all around. Females were starving themselves to death in order to look like the models doing runways. The most disturbing thing I’ve seen of a celebrity portraying these female ideals were the Olsen sisters wearing very small dresses. They became super skinny from one week to another, showing their ribs and showing how skinny they were. This was obviously becoming a problem in the fashion industry because it got to a point where people like me were looking at these girls thinking they had some sort of eating problems like bulimia. This was a major shock to the society, which got them into a better track and not allowing such skinny models to do runways unless they were a little more healthy looking (gaining weight). This worked out for quite a while until girls were back into the same track of getting a very skinny waist but now with a different style to them which was to have larger breasts. If you didn’t have large breasts, you wouldn’t really be considered beautiful.
Male and female ideals are based mainly on the higher class populations such as back in the day pharaohs but now a day it’s focused on celebrities and models. The media plays a huge role on what type of style of clothing you should wear or what type of body you should have. This has become a major problem especially in the United States. Like I’ve said before a major issue going on right now for girls and guys as well now, is that more and more people are becoming bulimic. People are using very unhealthy methods in order to reach their male/female ideals. It has become the cool thing also, to have surgeries in order to get bigger breasts or liposuctions so that you lose all that fat in your body in order to look skinny. High school girls now a day are asking their parents to pay for their breast surgery as a graduation present. I remember back when guys and girls used to asked their parents for a trip to Europe or a car as a graduation present. Now they are asking for breast implants or liposuctions even. This has become a very disturbing thing. I cannot believe how parents are even willing to pay for all these sorts of surgeries for their daughters knowing that they might have a risk to die from them. There are even shows on television that shows what teenagers go through in order to get their ideal body. One of those shows is called “I want a famous face”. This show was based purely on young people willing to spend thousands of dollars in order to look like their favorite celebrities. Most people when they went to see the plastic surgeon, they brought in with them a picture of the celebrity they wanted to look like. The costumers were expecting the surgeon to make them look exactly like their favorite celebrity. It showed how much pain and suffering they went through in these sick surgeries just in order to look like a celebrity. It was very disappointing to see how many people were doing this and how much suffering they were willing to take just to look like someone else because they think it’s a male/female ideal. Another show I watched was “true life: I want a perfect body”. It showed 2 different people either taking steroids or starving to death in order to reach their potential perfect figures. The people in the show, showed how taking steroids he felt almost “superhuman”, trying out way more weights than he would have ever be able to lift. He also showed how much acne he had in his back due to all the steroids he was taking but he was willing to pay the consequences. Then they showed a local baseball player actually from the Santa Rosa junior college that went on to play for USC. They interviewed the parents and they talked about how he was a very happy person how steroids ruined his life making him very depressed which caused him to commit suicide. Then in the other set of the show they showed a jockey trying to lose a certain amount of weight in order to become faster. He needed to lose weight so he could be faster in the race track. They showed him starving himself in order to reach his potential weight goal. Just to imagine how many people watched the show and told themselves they wanted to be like them is just disturbing.
In conclusion, is it really worth it risking yourself and your body in order to reach these so famous male/female ideals? Its shameful how places like hooters, in order to hire waitresses aren’t really allowed to hire females with small breasts just because they won’t attract that many costumers. It’s getting too out of hand. It’s very disappointing to see how people are becoming so shallow. It’s getting to the point where apparently kids think it’s better to not have a critical part of your body like an arm or a leg than to be fat. It’s very disappointing to see this because I think that we, as a society are better than this. I think our society has come a long way and we will soon realize that all these crazy methods to look perfect aren’t so perfect after all. People need to realize that you need to be your own self. Everyone is different which makes everyone have different senses of style. That is what makes everyone unique. By trying to become someone else look wise or style wise, you aren’t being unique. I think that is what makes someone beautiful, how unique they are. It’s not worth it trying to look like someone else because you are not going to be truly happy after that. You are becoming another tree in the forest.