From country to country and culture to culture, most agree that youth and symmetry represent beauty. But specific beauty standards differ immensely. For a moment, imagine an ideal American woman. An image of Megan Fox or Katrina Bowden may come to mind. They could both be described as thin, tall, and breathtakingly pretty by the average American's standards. And do take note, that these beauty standards are the ones that often pressure women to go to sickening lengths of plastic surgery, implants, fake teeth, fake hair and fake tans. Is this what beauty is all about? If beauty can really be held to a single standard than by all means, go on a diet, get your hair done and spend all your money on the latest fashion trends.
To me, however, beauty is more than a single aspect, and I encourage you to explore standards around the world. In Mauritania, being curvy is being beautiful. Girls are fattened up in order to become more desirable to their future husbands. In the Middle East, beauty isn't all about appearance but sometimes what meets the nose, or just a glimpse of the dark eyes under the head to toe black covering that most women there sport. For members of a tribe near Thailand, long necks are considered ideal, and they wear rings around their necks in order for them to appear more elongated. These examples are ones that show while some simple beauty standards are consistent around the world, many more vary. So be yourself and you'll be beautiful.
For more photos of beauty ideals throughout the world, click here
Beauty in the eye of the Beholder
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I don't think there's any question that beauty differs from person to person. Environmental influences obviously play a large role in beauty standards around the world. Given the support for the mere-exposure effect it's no wonder why people's perceptions of beauty differ. The findings that people find "average" faces more attractive also supports culturally differing beauty standards.
Beauty obviously varies wildly from person to person, and while we can draw some general consensus about beautiful people, there will always be a huge amount of variation between people's taste in beauty.
I agree with your thoughts here. No one on this Earth has an exact standard of what beautiful is. People may talk to each other about how beautiful someone is, but chances are they are attracted by different things. It was very interesting reading about what beautiful means to some cultures across the world. What seems very attractive to them, only seems as strange to us. However, I do believe that as other countries continue to westernize, there will be a much more standardized "beautiful" across the world.
This is an interesting topic and I agree with you that beauty varies from person to person. I can culture is a great factors. People enjoy different kind of beauty when they are from different countries and have different culture experiences.
Good examples of differing ideals of beauty.
This is a very intriguing topic and I completely agree with you that no one is the exact same. Everyone is beautiful in their own skin and shouldn't be self-conscious about them-self. It is very interesting to me that different cultures have different opinions on what beautiful means to them. Very interesting blog!
I fully agree with what you said in this post. I find it so saddening to see what women put themselves through in our culture to appear "beautiful." I am curious if other cultures that have different ideals for beauty have women who go to such extreme lengths to appear beautiful like our culture.
I really liked your blog because it opens your eyes to see beauty in different cultures and aspects other than just the westernized culture.
Your posting is very interesting! I agree that simple beauty standards are consistent around the world, however there are many differences. I really liked how you said "So be yourself and you'll be beautiful." I hope we realize that we are beautiful as we are.
I loved your post! Beauty truly does vary based on the person and the culture! I found it so interesting to read about what beauty is in different cultues, I love that. But its sad to see that beauty for us in the United States is unfortunately all of the "fake" stuff people do to their bodies to make one beautiful. It should not be that way. You should be happy to be the way you are and how you look and that should be all that matters, rather than wasting your time and money becoming someone you are not.
It is so interesting to think that the definition of beauty differs across cultures. I think that it is so important that we as humans remember that just because we are not all "perfect" in the eyes of some, we are beautiful just the way that we are. Thank you for writing this to help remind us all that we are beautiful and need to keep in mind how special we are.
First off, I must disagree with your examples. Beauty begins and ends with Zooey Deschanel. Yum.
Next, I agree that the subjective aspect of beauty that has been perceived since Shakespeare. The difference between a harmonious representation of reality and an aesthetic instant is quite strange. There's obviously beauty in the curves of a women's figure or a human skeleton being nearly identical to complex or trigonometric functions.
Cool read.