What is normative discontent, and what are some of the consequences of not conforming to society’s version of attractiveness?
The objectifying gaze is not value neutral. It implies that there are good bodies and bad bodies, and that beauty matters. But inevitably, most women are unable to live up to society’s standards of beauty. Dove stated that it launched its Campaign for Real Beauty after commissioning a study in which only 2% of female respondents selected the word beautiful to describe themselves (Etcoff, Orbach, Scott, & D’Agostino, 2004; see Table 6.1). Because of research findings like this, women have been described as living in a continual state of body dissatisfaction, meaning that they don’t feel comfortable or satisfied with their physical appearance. Several studies have found that approximately half of girls and women are dissatisfied with their bodies, and most want to be thinner (Bearman, Presnell, Martinez, & Stice, 2006; Smolak, 2012; Tantleff-Dunn, Barnes, & Larose, 2011). In fact, a survey of over 9,000 women indicated that 89% of respondents were dissatisfied with their bodies in terms of weight, and 84% wanted to be thinner (Swami, Tran, Stieger, Voracek, & The YouBeauty.com Team, 2015).
TABLE 6.1 Adjectives Women Would Be Most Comfortable Using to Describe Their Appearance
Adjective
Endorsement Rate
natural
31%
average
25%
attractive
9%
feminine
8%
cute
7%
good-looking
7%
pretty
5%
beautiful
2%
sexy
1%
sophisticated
1%
stunning
1%
gorgeous
0%
Note. Data from Etcoff et al. (2004).
Body dissatisfaction has the potential to be a lifelong issue for women, as it has been found in girls as young as 5 years of age (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2005) and in women as old as 70 (Mangweth-Matzek et al., 2006). The phenomenon of girls and women being dissatisfied with their bodies has been referred to as a normative discontent (Rodin, Silberstein, & Streigel-Moore, 1984; Tantleff-Dunn et al., 2011), meaning that the normal state for girls and women with respect to their bodies is to feel unhappy or dissatisfied. Of course, normative discontent among women is essential to the bottom line of the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry. A huge part of that economic sector is driven by convincing women that they must be beautiful to be happy and by promoting standards of beauty that are almost impossible to achieve.
The popularity of the Dove campaign, and the fact that diet supplements, makeup, and other beauty products are multi-billion-dollar industries, reveal just how enormously beauty matters to girls and women in our society. However, it isn’t simply an issue of vanity. In our society, girls and women are constantly evaluated by the extent to which they meet beauty standards. For example, research shows that people assume that those who are beautiful are also good (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Langlois et al., 2000). Moreover, many girls and women assume that their lives will be better if they more closely conform to beauty standards (Engeln-Maddox, 2006). There may be some truth to this assumption: In one study, researchers found that attractive children and adults were treated more positively by others than unattractive ones were (Langlois et al., 2000). Other studies have shown that women who don’t conform to beauty ideals are often the targets of ridicule and shaming (e.g., Chrisler, 2012) and may have a more difficult time getting hired and promoted at work (Fiske, Bersoff, Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991).
Being overweight, in particular, can be problematic, as higher-weight individuals are more likely to face discrimination in many contexts, including education, health-care settings, employment, and relationships (e.g., Burmeister, Kiefner, Carels, & Musher-Eizenman, 2013; Carr & Friedman, 2005; Chen & Brown, 2005; Han, Norton, & Stearns, 2009). Women, more so than men, are likely to be targets of fat shaming (Chrisler, 2012). It’s also important to recognize that fatness can be related to poverty (Rothblum, 2011). Whereas eating healthy meals and staying fit often involve spending a fair amount of money, high-caloric, processed foods with low nutritional value are cheap (Drewnowski & Specter, 2004). A dollar can buy 1,200 calories of potato chips, for example, as compared to only 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit (Townsend, Grant, Monsivais, Keim, & Drewnowski, 2009). Gym memberships and workout videos are also costly, and even informal exercising requires time and a space to do it in.
spotlight on . . .
The Selfie
What is the potential effect of social media on young women’s tendency to engage in self-objectification? For many individuals, a large part of interacting on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is the taking and posting of selfies. This practice illustrates how young women tend to view their bodies from an observer’s perspective. Instead of wondering how they look or having to catch a glimpse of themselves in a mirror, they can take a selfie and immediately go from inhabiting their body to observing it. While there’s not yet a lot of research on this topic, some studies indicate that higher levels of selfie posting are related to higher levels of body dissatisfaction and greater internalization of the thin ideal among girls (Cohen, Newton-John, & Slater, 2018; McLean, Paxton, Wertheim, & Masters, 2015). Moreover, body concerns are greater for those who edit their selfies before posting in an effort to “improve” their appearance. In contrast, other research has shown that high body satisfaction is actually related to selfie posting, in part so girls and women can show how satisfied they are with their appearance (Ridgway & Clayton, 2016).
No matter what your gender identification is, do you take selfies? How often, and in what situations? Do you ever edit your selfies? If so, in what ways—and why? If not, why not? How do you feel about selfies in general and yours in particular?
Further, while poverty may cause fatness, there’s evidence that the opposite may also be true (Ernsberger, 2009). In contemporary society, size discrimination is so great that fatness can actually lead to downward social mobility (Rothblum, 2011). In most places in the United States, for example, it is legal to discriminate based on weight. Law professor Paul Campos (2004) has argued that fat prejudice is just a modern way to discriminate without being openly sexist, racist, or classist. This type of discrimination perpetuates the myth of transformation—the widespread belief that weight loss will result in increased economic and interpersonal gains (Striegel-Moore & Franco, 2002).
Beyond norms of thinness, violations of any beauty norms can be problematic. In one study, when researchers showed participants a picture of a woman with leg and underarm hair, the participants rated her not only as less attractive but also as less intelligent, less happy, and less sociable than the same woman pictured without body hair (Basow & Braman, 1998). Women of color face the added expectation that they conform to White standards of beauty. For example, sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) noted that Black women may encounter barriers in the workforce if they wear their hair “natural” (i.e., not straightened). We’ll return to the topic of racialized standards of beauty in the next section.
To complicate matters, beauty is a double-edged sword because women can also be judged negatively if they seem too beautiful or focus too much on their appearance (Heilman & Stopeck, 1985; Vaillancourt & Sharma, 2011). In fact, women have been legally fired for being too beautiful. For example, a dental assistant in Iowa was fired because her boss felt she was attractive enough to be a threat to his marriage, as he was tempted to have an affair with her (Kimmel, 2013). When denying her appeal, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that she could “be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction” (para. 3).
So there are negative consequences for not conforming to beauty norms, but there are also negative consequences for conforming to those norms. This double bind means that some women are likely to spend a great deal of time thinking about how they look, evaluating their bodies, and feeling depressed if they decide their bodies don’t live up to society’s standards. Furthermore, to the extent that women spend time, money, and energy enhancing their beauty, they don’t have that time, money, or energy to do other things.