What is a beautiful woman?

The female body has undergone many changes in its representations, both literary and pictorial, as well as in its social, cultural and sexual realities... Since antiquity, women have been considered inferior to men. Excluded from all political life, they were confined to the tasks of ‘mother’ and ‘wife’. The image of the woman as a mother whose time is mainly devoted to domestic tasks persists since the early 1960s. After the role of the housewife, the "sexual revolution"; of the late 1960s imposed a new image: the woman considered as an item or an object of desire. Of course, the imposition of models that both men and women should follow is not new. And for good reason, the constitution of an ideal physical model reflects the values of a society and the body reflects a social image that must be controlled.  There is a need to be recognized, not for one's skills or human qualities, but by the image reflected by one's body. It is the means to exist in the gaze of the other.

In Ancient Egypt (1292-1069 B.C.), women had to be thin, with narrow shoulders, high waist and symmetrical face, and in Egyptian civilization, the idea of the ideal woman was relatively stable. Ahmes-Nefertari is a symbol of this beauty. The statues depict her as a slender, slim and muscular woman with long legs, a rounded buttock, small breasts and a large waist. Her skin should be yellow ochre in color and a line of kohl should underline her gaze in order to intensify it. But above all, the ideal Egyptian woman must be eternally young.

During Ancient Greece (500-300 BC), the ideal woman was pulpy, corpulent, with a fair skin tone. She was in fact simply considered a "disfigured"; version of men. Women should have an athletic appearance just like men. Indeed, at this time, the beauty lies in the harmony of the body and not in any artifice: only physical exercise can obtain the adequate muscular body. It was the sculptor Praxiteles who sculpted the first naked woman. He represents an erotic and feminine image of the woman, and is inspired, for his sculptures of Aphrodite, by the curves and faces of Phryne, the famous courtesan of the time.

In the Middle Ages, make-up, under the pretext that it disguised the work of God, was forbidden by the Church. The only color tolerated was red. The Virgin Mary is then generally represented as a statue without any femininity. The perfect Woman must have a very pale skin tone, symbolizing purity but also wealth and idleness (still present in Asia today). Women must also wax their foreheads in order to keep a face as youthful as possible but also to enhance the look.  At this time, the body must obey very particular standards despite being hidden under loose clothing: The woman must be broad-shouldered and have small, firm and wide breasts, as well as a wasp waist, narrow hips and a plump belly. Blond hair is also highly sought after.

The Italian Renaissance (1400-1700 years old), on the other hand, idealized a more evanescent woman with a generous chest, a rounded belly, full hips and fair skin. During the Renaissance, the female body reappears in non-religious art. It is once again idealized. For example, Botticelli's Venus, represents a woman who has everything from a statue: ivory white, without the slightest hair or bulge, she is the archetype of the beauty of marble. The artists of the time thus transformed reality in order to get closer to their conception of the feminine ideal, but the aristocrats and patrons who greatly appreciated Botticelli's cold beauties also liked the roundness of the women in Rubens. Their plump thighs, heavy breasts and stoutness are also much appreciated.

In Victorian England (1837 to 1901), however, women's bodies had to be wrapped as tightly as possible, with a curved waist. Women wore corsets to perfect the line of this ideal silhouette. During the classical century, beauty corresponded to very precise canons. Women were asked to have a milky skin tone, a very slim waist, an imposing bust, chubby arms and hands. Women were shaded in red, a symbol of love and sensuality, and even accentuated their veins to underline their delicacy and high lineage. The body is enclosed in a corset that mercilessly embraces the waist and brings out the deep décolleté, pale skin and deep red lips.

After the Second World War, thinness is a sign of poor health. Hollywood creates a new female model: Blonde, sensual. How not to mentioned Marilyn Monroe. And the big screens reveal young and pulpy stars like Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren. In commercials, pin-up girls are from everyone’s dreams. Indeed, they are sensual and maternal, their bodies are those of abundance and good health. It is also the end of the pale skin tone; the tanned face is now the norm.

But what about now? Indeed, the beauty standard have never ceased to evolve over the centuries. Would Marilyn Monroe have been successful in the XXI century? How has social media helped shape the new women’s body standard? What does this tell about the society of today?

(Emma Lunte)

Indeed how the body is portrayed, and the attractiveness it represents has varied quite a lot throughout history. Starting with Marilyn Monroe, the standards of a thin waist and wide hips was already accustomed. But beauty standards have evolved massively throughout the 21 st century. When the corset disappeared, our body itself became the corset. Today, we wear very little clothes compared to Renaissance times for instance, the body is then in front row for the eyes to devour. It’s scary to see, year by year, young girls wear less and less clothing in summer. I, myself, am astonished sometimes when I see middle school girls in the metro and I see the way they are dresses! Their unique goal is to portray their body for the eyes of everyone to see. We are not wearing corsets anymore, but this doesn’t mean the media has stopped forcing an “ideal” body type.

Garments were replaced with diets and anorexia, while the girls on TV were promoting a sickening thin waist. In the 90’s the rise of supermodel promoted a new way of taking care of yourself. Now girls were looking to change their bodies not because of health, but because they wanted to be pretty. The “ideal” body image slowly installed itself in magazines, TV, singers… everyone looked or is trying to look the same. This created a born anxiety in girls that did not look like supermodels, which is most of the human population, in which they felt as if they were simply ugly if they weren’t a size 0. Women were now expected to maintain an extremely thin waist while keeping large breasts as popularly depicted by Pamela Anderson in “Baywatch” (1989). Meanwhile, fashion had started taking an important role in the functioning of society. Every women looked up to actresses and models, and everyone was yearning for the ‘Jet-Set life”. Drugs became extremely popular in the 90’s due to the status that came with it. Drugs made you skinny, even more so, anorexic. The more thin you were, the more bones were showing, the more attractive you were. A series of Calvin Klein print ads (the ones that made Kate Moss so famous) was credited for starting what came to be known as “heroin chic” look. In these ads, the models were so thin that they looked like extremely unhealthy drug addicts. This had an astonishing effect on teenage girl’s minds’, the way they portrayed themselves, and the terrifying increase in anorexia and bulimia. The weight and proportion of popular female icons such as Penelope Cruz or Victoria Beckham has remained consistently below that of the average American woman. The 1990, the average fashion model weighed 23% less than the average American woman. A greater number of women fell short of the ideal being depicted in fashion magazines, TV, or movies. In response, there was an increased emphasis placed on accepting one’s body for what it was. People started acknowledging that the media image was only a standard of beauty, an unattainable standard of beauty. With the arrival of social media, things only got worse. Much has been made over the years about how mainstream media presents unrealistic beauty standards. Now that social media has arrived, everyone is able to twitch and alter their body image on their own personal profile. In a survey of 227 female university students, women reported that they tend to compare their own appearance negatively with their peer group and with celebrities, but not with family members, while browsing Facebook. The comparison group that had the strongest link to body image concerns was distant peers, or acquaintances. We all know people present a one-sided version of their life online. According to the  social displacement theory , for example, the more time we spend socializing online, the less time we’re likely to spend socializing in the offline world. This obviously leads in one’s decrease in mental wellbeing. While being on social media, people easily compare themselves to others, even while being aware that what one portrays on media is half the reality to the life they are living. When we compare ourselves to others, this affects the valuation of ourselves. We really need to educate young people on how social media use could be making them feel about themselves and how this could even be linked to stringent dieting, eating disorders, or excessive exercise. There are people who may be triggered by social media and who are especially vulnerable.

(Ninon Barou)

Woman liberate themselves and take power through the Internet and social networks. Through their share of influence on female communities around the world our voices become stronger. Nowadays Social Media tries to break the typical cliché of the thin tall girl with great reinforcements of hashtags like #loveyourself (more than 44 million occurrences on Instagram), #bodypositive (more than 10 million) or #effyourbeautystandards (more than 4 million), the message sent on social networks is clear: throw away your complex and love yourself. One of the ambassadors of the Body Positive movement is the signer Rihanna, who launched her lingerie collection Savage x Fenty. She was of a great influence for this movement, as she has 2.7 millions followers. After the lingerie show in the backstage, Rihanna said: "No matter the morphology, size, religion or race, I just want all women to have confidence in themselves, especially those who are not generally highlighted in the field of fashion and give women the opportunity to feel sexy." Coming from a really known artist who inspires so many people, she really impacted the life of many teenagers who look up to her and who gained in confidence.

Thanks to Social Media, it only took a few days for real protest movement to be born, raising the alarm and drawing the attention to the media and the brands who share publicity of girls so thin that it should be denounced as it is not a healthy normal body! Many brands retouch the photo model’s pictures for their brand that it doesn’t look natural and it is shocking! Social media is changing things, giving means of expression to breaks these clichés. Actually, woman took over the Web very early on and are very active on social media – more than man, they make up 65% of Snapchat users and 52% on Twitter. Little by little, with the help of movements like this one and Social Media, all the beauty clichés like Kendal Jenner or even Victoria Secret Models will be broken. Showing diversity is what matters. Teenagers spend on average 3 hours per day on Social Media, scrolling through white, thin, typical girls which then impact them in their perception of beauty and in their self-confidence. At this stage in life, your body changes, some complex begin to appear, and watching all these same clichés of girls makes it even worse. These pictures are an example they shouldn’t follow. Even for boys, a pretty girls with a sexy body is not girl size 32! With movement like Body Positive and with the power of Social Media, it needs to change boys and girls mindset about the “perfect” body.

To conclude, Body Positive is not a social movement in favor of the acceptance and appreciation of “rounder” bodies, it’s about the assertion that all people deserve to have a positive body image, regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape size, and appearance. Some of the goals of the Body Positive movement include helping people build confidence, showing diversity on Internet and building acceptance no matter if the person has some differences, like birthmarks, skin problems or whatever. It’s about loving yourself.

(Alexia Driol)

SPECIAL INTERVIEW

The idea to illustrate this article was to interview a sociologist in order to understand better the world of sociology. We had a lot of questions and a sociologist, Benoit Lelong answered the them for us. He is a sociologist and teacher at univeristé Paris 8. The interesting point is that he gave us also good advice if you want to learn more about sociology.

The first idea was to question him only about the body positiv movement but we realized that it was kind of a chance to have the opportunity to interview a specialist. 

So we asked him more questions about his job and sociology in general. 

Hope you will enjoy it! 

As we are not sociologists  Is it correct to define sociology as "the study of the phenomena of society"? Can you give us two examples of "movement or phenomena" that sociologists believe have positively and negatively affected society (and the world)? 

The study of "social phenomena" is an acceptable definition. But other sociologists prefer to name what they study differently: social behaviours, social groups, social identities, social structures, etc. All of this might be appropriate as long as one does not make the usual mistake of saying that sociology only considers collective phenomena. This is false, because you can study the sociology of a single individual, and it certainly doesn't mean making him the puppet of social forces that is beyond it.

• (Focus on the profession of sociologist), how does a study take place (team work, surveys on the "field if necessary", study of documents, study of archives (to compare)? Who chooses the subject you are going to study? 

A wide variety of methods exist in sociology, leading to working alone or in a team, studying a single individual or thousands, completing a study in two months or ten years. Recently, sociologists have been interested in the traces left on the internet, in posts on a Facebook account for example, to deepen this new way of communicating at a distance. Documentation produced by today's actors, or archives by those of the past, are less often used but are nevertheless legitimate data.

• What's the point of sociology?

 To know society in order to be able to change it. Since sociology has existed, it has been financed by governments and companies that have understood very well what they can get out of it. They are not the only ones. Activists, creators make sociology by putting it at the service of the critical spirit to bring to light aspects of social reality that they wish to improve.

• (focus on the body positiv movement and other "internet support groups"). 

Have studies been able to answer the following questions (Why does man need the opinion of others / why is the opinion of others so important to him? Why is a human being not born with self-confidence)? 

Have studies been able to answer the following questions (Why does a man need the opinion of others / why is the opinion of others so important to him? Why is a human being not born with self-confidence)? an be said that a profound rupture took place from the 1960s to the 1980s. the individual in society has been taken care of by well-organized structures (family, school, religion, army, work...) less and less. It is also less and less possible to hide behind predefined roles (child, student, employee, parent...) Much more than before, one has to build one's life and identity. This may require a lot of confirmation from others, and leads to greater inner uncertainty.

•  What do you think are the most interesting current or historical phenomena to study in sociology? 

I am convinced that all social phenomena, even those that seem a priori insignificant, have to teach us about the societies that surround us and in which we participate. But some transformations, large or small, are recent and still very poorly known. This is the case of political developments: how can we explain the rise, in a large number of countries in the world, of movements that are awkwardly described as "populist"? The "gilets jaunes" in France are still very poorly known. The same can be said of our social life with natural beings. With the health crisis, all the editorialists tell us that we're going to have to learn to "live with the virus". But do we really know what it means to live with a virus?

•  Sociologist's opinion: what can a sociologist think about screen addiction (being absorbed by useless content, taking "brain time" = are we not indirectly stupid? If yes, who is controlling us? The GAFA?

According to you, what are the positive and negative impacts of social networks on sociology? 

In the humanities and social sciences, a very interesting current has emerged behind an imperfect name: "the economy attention". We are leaving a society where what was scarce was information. It was held by rare experts and, to obtain it, it was often necessary to pay for it (a book, a specialized journal, a consultation with a professional). With smartphones, Wikipedia, and the multiplication of digital screens, information is now omnipresent. What is becoming rare is the attention we can devote to it. We lack it, and designers and advertisers are doing everything they can to capture it more and more. So we're moving from an information economy to an attention economy. The GAFAs are indeed very active in this fundamental change, but they are not the only players involved, far from it. Critical thinking has not had the last word either. There are now many militant associations that want to give us back control of our attention.

•  What do you recommend to students who wish to become interested in sociology or to learn more about it?  (books, films?) 

First of all, it is necessary to get rid of certain prejudices that consider sociology as an opaque, boring discipline, without any concrete effect. Engineering schools and digital companies have sociology laboratories. If this is the case, it is because they believe that sociology multiplies their possibilities of understanding and intervention in the social world. Then, all you have to do is find the right media, those that address non-specialists by betting on intelligence: the magazine "Sciences Humaines", Baptiste Coulmont's and Pierre Mercklé's blogs, the little books from collections 128 at Armand Colin's and “Repères à La Découverte”.

(Camille Gaultier)