Summary Of A Woman's Beauty By Susan Sontag

Improved Essays
In the twenty-first century, women are brutally inspected from head to toe. Women are no longer seem as wholesome beings, but parts. A woman can have a flawless complexion or mesmerizing eyes, but she is not considered beautiful as a whole. Susan Sontag, an American writer, discusses this topic in her essay, “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?”.
Sontag wrote one of her most famous essays to influence the reader to think about whether women or men are the source of women’s efforts to be beautiful. She writes how the essence of beauty has differed from Greek to Christian times. The Greeks assumed a person was as beautiful as they were on the inside. In our times, women are solely judged on the way they look.
Susan uses many means

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Beauty from within is distinctly inconsequential and exterior beauty is all that matters in society. Privileges are given to those who possess appealing features and are denied to those who don’t. However, those beautiful individuals are also targeted solely for their alluring attributes and utilized as tools for satisfaction. Shelley ultimately attempts to stress the immorality…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Play Response: The Divine Fallacy The concept of beauty has long been debated in books, films, social networks, and religion. Like the word “love” beauty is jammed packed with hidden meanings and purpose. There is a common belief that in order for something or someone to be beautiful they must be “perfect.” In Tina Howe’s…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Throughout history there have been many ideals about a woman’s body – what an “attractive” woman should look like, act like, smell like, be like. A woman’s body has been appreciated for its beauty as well as objectified based on what that body can do for society --whether or not it is truly fruitful and multiplying; whether or not it is visually pleasing; whether or not it makes money. Women’s health has been at the mercy of male physicians and women’s minds kept as unexercised and out of shape as possible. The “why” behind this phenomenon of oppression has been hotly debated. The reality, however, is that, from the act of childbirth to eating disorders, a woman’s body is a social celebrity.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To counteract these offensive images and messages, the intention of my photographs is to not only make visible strong contrasts, but to invoke a new visual vocabulary for how women should be depicted externally, and how they should see themselves internally. My interest is to document authentic self-confident women, who exude intellect rather than a vacant expression, those that have embraced their aging with grace and pride, whose wrinkles reveal character and experience, and wear their "imperfections" as a timeless accessory. Rather than perpetuating the creation of these demeaning images as a photographer, regardless of critique, or continuously being besieged by them as a viewer, my hope instead is that by revealing the psychological damage that these images promote to the feminine psyche, especially adolescent young girls, there will be a campaign for acceptance of visual truths as defining feminine beauty and perfection, rather than encouraging hollow illusions or mutilation of the feminine body and…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction There have been different discussions concerning the beauty culture that have been discussed by different individuals over time. In this, different scholars have tried to study more about beauty to make readers and other beauty enthusiasts to get the right knowledge and facts about beauty as they engage in different activities that might alter what they may define as being beauty to them. One of the scholars who have put their efforts in helping people to understand the culture of beauty is Carla Rice through her article that she gave the title “Through the mirror of beauty culture”. In this article, Rice tries to make the reader understand different aspects of the beauty culture by making an in depth analysis of what different…

    • 1777 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “Be more by refusing to be defined by beauty,” Lindsay Kite, PhD, positive body image advocate and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Beauty Redefined, said. Body positivity is a great advocacy because people are telling women that they are all beautiful. However, Kite believes that women and girls are told to focus on the beauty that they have and obsess over their looks. This is another form of objectification in women because they are expected to follow the norms strictly. Kite mentioned that women are not suffering because they cannot attain the standards of beauty, but “They are suffering because they are being defined by beauty.”…

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beauty matters. Well, at least for some. From the clothes you choose to wear (and the ones you don’t) to the items you own, everything surrounding you changes how people perceive you, even things completely out of someone’s control. Pressures to adhere to societal norms can cause long-term harm for certain people, but others can take this concept in stride. Due to different upbringings, along with different environmental influences, it allows for a range of perspectives.…

    • 1601 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beauty Dbq

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People go through certain extent in order to achieve certain standards of society’s version of beauty. One gets addicted to the beauty products and starts to believe that it really works. A lot of these products give false advertisements and exaggerate it just to get you to buy it. Many of these beauty products are expensive and can cause damage to your skin, hair, nails, etc.…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A beautiful woman is the goal of almost every man on this planet. Without a beautiful woman, the man is seemed as “unimportant” to society. In order to validate themselves, they seek out for the young and beautiful girls without knowing that they are creating an environment for women that is a competition. Women are often pit against one another in finance, appearance, and success. A woman who has these qualities are seen as a rarity.…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history some, but not all women have placed an emphasis on physical beauty over all other forms of attractiveness, but this emphasis on physical beauty can cloud judgement and force an individual to perceive something as the complete opposite of what it truly is. A good example of this reasoning is illustrated in Joyce Carol Oates short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” which illustrates how the main character, Connie tries to create an adult persona using her attitude and appearance to attract boys. Oates opens this work by introducing Connie as a girl who is trying to discover herself as a woman and she believes that the only way she can do this is by being constantly concerned with her looks. For example, the…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People in life strive to be the best. Everyone wants nothing but to be number one. Although, in some situations people have no choice to be nothing but second. In Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s short story called, “The Other Women” is a direct analysis of what it feels like to be second. Characters involved in the stories were Marc (the husband), the first wife , and Alice (the second wife).…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Controversies on body image have been a prevalent issue throughout the world dating for centuries that predominantly target women. This contention branches out into the matters regarding body dysmorphic disorders which became the foundation for eating disorders. The motives for eating disorders are attributed to individualistic influences, as well as sociocultural and political-economic influences. Individualistic influences “reflect the differences in women’s psychosexual development” (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.173). Sociocultural and political-economic influences highlight the opposed view, while focusing on causations for eating disorders that are not credited to the individual, but rather concentrated in society (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.174).…

    • 1555 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Prompt title: “Seeing Eye to Body: The Literal Objectification of Women” Prompt authors: Nathan A. Heflick and Jamie L. Goldenberg The main point of this article is that women are often objectified due to having their bodies sexualized. This objectification leads to women acting sort of like objects because they self-objectify themselves, meaning that they are focused on changing themselves, or how they look, instead of focusing on how they are mentally. These objectifications can be due to the way they appear physically. Due to this objectification, women are perceived as being less human, meaning that they do not have the same characteristics as people such as: warmth, capability and ethics.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Look into Plastic Surgery The concept of beauty has changed a lot over the last few years. Today, it has the power to hurt people and sometimes lives. Our society is completely ruled by mass media, which is always showing perfect faces and perfect bodies, which are usually fake or created. Women and young people are especially affected by these kinds of stereotypes of perfection served almost everywhere.…

    • 1659 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This essay will summarize Susan Sontag’s ideas concerning how beauty is seen in today’s modern culture and the consequences that these views have toward women, by using Susan Sontag’s vivid examples and definitions found in both “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source” and “An Argument About Beauty”. Next, I will argue in support of most of her key points; however, I will also argue against some of the points presented in the essay. For example, I agree with her assertion that in todays modern culture women’s beauty is seen as parts and not as a whole and the effects of this distorted perspective. However, I disagree with her on how she believes that things will get better and how she blames Christianity for fostering one of the distorted perspectives of women’s beauty. Susan Sontag brings about a lot of key points that we as Christians should understand so as to bring about a better attitude and view towards women and beauty.…

    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays