Recent feminist theory has attempted to bring considerations of women’s agency into analyses of the meaning and consequence of beauty norms in women’s lives. This article argues that these works have often been limited by their use of individualist frameworks or by their neglect of considerations of race and class. In this article I draw upon examples of African-American utilization of beauty discourse and practices in collective efforts to resist racism. I argue that there is no singular beauty standard enforced (...) by a unified male gaze. Instead, we should conceive of fields in which differently located individuals and groups invest in and promote particular ways of seeing beauty, producing both penalties and pleasures in women’s lives. (shrink)

This paper explores the conditions under which feminine beautification constitutes a feminist practice. Distinguishing between the process and product of beautification allows us to isolate those aesthetic, interapos;Subjective, and embodied elements that empower rather than disempower women. The empowering characteristics of beautification, however, are difficult and perhaps impossible to represent in a sexist context; therefore, while beautifying may be a positive experience for women, being viewed as a beautified object in current Western society is almost always opposed to women's equality (...) and autonomy. (shrink)

In this article I argue the need for a reflexive use of photographic images in research, mainly in the publication and dissemination phase and specifically when the topic investigated relates to issues of visibility, in this case racism and understandings of beauty. This analysis draws on my work on contemporary practices of racism in Mexico, where personal photographs were used as research tools in life-story interviews, creating a sense of shared intimacy. Inspired by Barthes' refusal in Camera Lucida (2000) to (...) reproduce a photograph of his mother, in this article I focus on the dynamics between seeing and looking and suggest that `looking emotionally' at both participants' accounts and their photographic images, is a way to address the complexities of the gaze and discuss the specificity of different `ways of looking'. The notion of `looking emotionally' refers to an engagement, of researchers and audiences of research, with participants' lived emotional experiences that explicitly confronts the historical and social legacies of the visible. Here, photographs are understood not only as illustrative platforms from where experiences are organized, but also as `traps' that both inform and ensnare (Gell, 1999). As such, the argument aims to problematize the intimate relationship between gaze and photographic image in a context where racism is constrained to the visible, both in its reproduction and also in its pressing ongoing critique. (shrink)

Beauty has captured human interest since before Plato, but how, why, and to whom does beauty matter in today's world? Whose standard of beauty motivates African Americans to straighten their hair? What inspires beauty queens to measure up as flawless objects for the male gaze? Why does a French performance artist use cosmetic surgery to remake her face into a composite of the master painters' version of beauty? How does beauty culture perceive the disabled body? Is the constant effort to (...) remain young and thin, often at considerable economic and emotional expense, ethically justifiable? Provocative essays by an international group of scholars discuss aesthetics in the arts, the tools of fashion, the materials of decoration, and the big business of beautification -- beauty matters -- to reveal the ways gender, race, and sexual orientation have informed the concept of beauty and driven us to become more beautiful. Here, Kant rubs shoulders with Calvin Klein. Beauty Matters draws from visual art, dance, cultural history, and literary and feminist theory to explore the values and politics of beauty. Various philosophical perspectives on ethics and aesthetics emerge from this penetrating book to reveal that beauty is never disinterested. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery. By Kathy Davis.