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Women's Learning Partnership
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Beauty and body image across cultures
October 3, 2007 - 04:22 PM
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I want to talk about the ways in which various cultures conceive of beauty and body image. How do these ideas form? And most importantly, what are their effects on women and girls? It seems that many are destructive. Are there any that are positive?
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Women's Learning Partnership
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 3, 2007 - 04:30 PM
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I read a New York Times article about women and girls in Mauritania. It is beautiful and sexy to be fat, so girls are overfed. Sometimes they throw up. Some have even died from too much food. There are even medicines one can take to speed up the weight gain. Although only 2 in 5 Mauritanian women are overweight (less than in the US) in a Sub-Saharan Africa country, this is remarkable. Is it because being fat means that you are wealthy enough to have a lot of food? Some say it’s because men can’t see anything under the loose-fitting clothes Mauritanian women wear unless they are fat and curvaceous. But being fat is very unhealthy. It increases the likelihood of diabetes and heart problems. What do you think of this??
For the full story: In Mauritania, Seeking to End an Overfed Ideal
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Iris Lea
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 5, 2007 - 05:06 PM
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i watch a documentary about mauritania, almost like what u said about food etc
wonder why among the 1000000000 documentaries medias in france could i have shown us, they have shown us this one... do all medias belong to the same comagny?
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Becky
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 7, 2007 - 09:23 PM
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I think that almost any time a single standard of beauty is created with rigid boundaries, it can be detrimental. In the US, being thin and tall is considered beautiful. However, even if the opposite (short and fat) was the beauty norm, there would still be problems. The issue is that there is NO way that one standard of beauty can be possibly be attainable for everyone. So, no matter what that single standard is, there will be emotional and psychological effects on women and girls. Unless a time comes when a single standard of beauty is eliminated and beauty is recognized more as an amorphous, free-flowing, ever-changing ideal, then there will be negative consequences.
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Chika
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 8, 2007 - 07:11 PM
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i love this topic.
well, in nigeria, india, the caribbean, and south africa light skinned is preferred, so women/men bleach their skin with all kinds of crap.
throughout africa, men prefer woman who are a little chubby. weight shows that you can AFFORD to buy food everyday.
in america, black men loves girls with hips, like beyonce. but in nigeria, men do not like big hips. white american women like their butts to be small. black american women want their butts to be big, because black men love big butts.
in certain ethnic groups in north africa, people prefer slim noses, thin lips, and long limbs. for example, the berber tribe likes this. so a berber mother will pull the arms of her young children to make them grow.
in east and west africa, people LOVE gapped teeth for males and females. gapped teeth is when you have a space between your two front teeth. this is considered a sign of beauty.
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Chelsea
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 9, 2007 - 02:43 PM
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wlp wrote:
I want to talk about the ways in which various cultures conceive of beauty and body image. How do these ideas form? And most importantly, what are their effects on women and girls? It seems that many are destructive. Are there any that are positive?
I think it varies from cultures to what is beauty and what body image means to them, I think the more education the easier it is, to realize that you define beauty and that your body image is what you see in yourself. I'm not saying education will solve anything, but might make some answers more clear. I think that there are many few positive aspects to beauty and body image since so many problems especially for pre-teen girls and even women have occured, but without it..........nothing would be the same, for example the typles of media you like and are involved with.
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jennifer okhianosen osuide
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 03:15 PM
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This topic is a wonderful one cuz many young people have a common idea of what beauty should be but it is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.i think this influences the way different cultures view thi subject.for instance bigger women are more likely to be preffered in africa than in the western world,it's obviously a culture thing because culture whether we like it or not is imprinted in almost all our minds.i still believe however that a beautiful person is of a heart that is pure.
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jennifer okhianosen osuide
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 03:15 PM
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This topic is a wonderful one cuz many young people have a common idea of what beauty should be but it is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.i think this influences the way different cultures view thi subject.for instance bigger women are more likely to be preffered in africa than in the western world,it's obviously a culture thing because culture whether we like it or not is imprinted in almost all our minds.i still believe however that a beautiful person is of a heart that is pure.
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jennifer okhianosen osuide
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 03:15 PM
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This topic is a wonderful one cuz many young people have a common idea of what beauty should be but it is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.i think this influences the way different cultures view thi subject.for instance bigger women are more likely to be preffered in africa than in the western world,it's obviously a culture thing because culture whether we like it or not is imprinted in almost all our minds.i still believe however that a beautiful person is of a heart that is pure.
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jennifer okhianosen osuide
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 03:16 PM
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This topic is a wonderful one cuz many young people have a common idea of what beauty should be but it is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.i think this influences the way different cultures view thi subject.for instance bigger women are more likely to be preffered in africa than in the western world,it's obviously a culture thing because culture whether we like it or not is imprinted in almost all our minds.i still believe however that a beautiful person is born of a heart that is pure.
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Women's Learning Partnership
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 03:44 PM
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What about Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting?
Can this practice be justified as a cultural conception of beauty and sexuality? What about breast augmentations and other forms of plastic surgery performed in the United States? Can we justify these any more than FGM can be justified?
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Brynne Odioso
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 17, 2007 - 04:46 PM
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can you talk more about this practice and where it is happening? I think this topic is nice to talk about sice there are so many ideas of beauty out there. Now a days in America it is almost normal to weigh under 100 lbs and look weak. It is important for young girls to get an idea of what good health is. I hope that many girls get the proper nutrition. It is a hard idea to grasp because so many people are telling others to lose weight or they see the celebrities on the TV but then they know that you also have to be healthy too. I wish that I lived in a world where it was beautiful to be overweight because I would eat whatever I wanted haha. On the contrary though, different people have a different idea of what is beautiful
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Mike Ter.Songu
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 19, 2007 - 05:30 PM
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It is a hard idea to grasp because so many people are telling others to lose weight or they see the celebrities on the TV but then they know that you also have to be healthy too
Brynne, I think u are right. It baffles me why people model their lives after societal trends. I really dont care when it comes to my body image. I try to look my best and the way it suits me and dont particularly care how people feel about it. By the way it is my body.
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Saladin
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 23, 2007 - 08:33 AM
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I think that the real beauty is one that transcends physical appearance....it's a beauty of the soul...
This post was edited on: 2007-10-23 at 08:34 AM by: HAKE3 07
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marian cox
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Re: Beauty and body image across cultures
October 23, 2007 - 02:59 PM
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culturally beauty and body image were very different in my family.
my mother being brought up in germany often instilled the perception of fitness that came with beauty. But later on when she raised us she would stray to the western "eat healthy, be thin, stay thin" attitude. I think cultures collide especially in families that have mixed heritages.
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