Allure: The Beauty Expert

While I was doing a project about images that promote and enhance the beauty myth, I found a magazine called Allure which I believe embodies the beauty myth culture itself.

This is the definition for allure from dictionary.com:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/allure

Allure [uh-loor]
noun

verb (used with object)
1. to attract or tempt by something flattering or desirable
2. to fascinate; charm

verb (used without object)
3. to be attractive or tempting


Allure magazine, even through its name, targets and tempts women. The magazine, like many others of this nature, pushes the boundaries of beauty and enhances the beauty myth. This magazine not only sells products and fashion trends to women, but it also sends lifestyle messages and beauty norms. These norms, such as being skinny, white, and sexy, urge women to experiment with their own sense of identity as they become increasingly dependent on magazines and the mass media to provide them with new cultural and gender norms.

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1280&bih=643&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=WqNhGpqsUhLyBM:&imgrefurl=http://www.popcrunch.com/taylor-swift-allure-april-2009-pictures/&docid=BQ-1FFrS3GQ3rM&imgurl=http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/taylor-swift-allure-cover-april-2009.jpg&w=442&h=600&ei=SHWrT_m4M6i80QWfy7AE&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=499&vpy=268&dur=301&hovh=262&hovw=193&tx=101&ty=155&sig=100272548258877551950&page=1&tbnh=126&tbnw=93&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:164

In the last chapter of Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth, she expresses her ideas for how we as a society could go about fighting the injustice of the beauty myth. In my opinion, this chapter truly stressed the importance of a noncompetitive approach to beauty. Wolf stressed the importance of the relationship with the other woman. The other woman represents women who may be seen as competitors or obstacles in the way of another woman's happiness/achievement of fulfilling the beauty myth. "The 'other woman' is represented through the myth as an unknown danger" (Wolf, 287). When speaking of the other woman and competition fostered by the beauty myth, Wolf says, "By changing our prejudgments of one another, we have the means for the beginning of a noncompetitive experience of beauty" (Wolf, 289). Women immediately see other beautiful women as competition, as the enemy. Wolf seems desperate to change this state of mind, "We have to stop reading each others' appearances as if appearance were language, political allegiance, worthiness, or aggression" (Wolf, 287). As women  work towards lessening the amount of judgments made simply from looking at a woman, real connections will be more easily made and competition in beauty will be a far more futile ordeal.

This chapter is also a call to action, exemplified in the last pages of the book when Wolf writes, "The earth can no longer afford a consumer ideology based on insatiable wastefulness of sexual and material discontent" (Wolf, 289). I think it is time to change the direction advertising is heading. There has already been much damage to the view of females in the advertising industry, highlighted by the way in which their bodies are used to sell and tempt an infinite consumer base. First, women need to stop obsessing over beauty. It may be difficult, but women need to be comfortable in their own bodies and accept themselves as they are. In an extremely opinionated paragraph on page 290, Wolf discusses how women can achieve true freedom from the beauty myth, "A woman wins by giving herself and other women permission - to eat; to be sexual; to age; to wear overalls, a paste tiara, a Balenciaga gown, a second-hand opera cloak, or combat boots; to cover up or to go practically naked; to do whatever we choose in following - or ignoring - our own aesthetic".

The problem is not simply competition in beauty, it is the unrealistic standard of beauty set by magazines like Allure. There are hundreds of magazines just like Allure, targeting and subconsciously influencing young women and men alike throughout the world. Our culture will never truly change, it is too late, the beauty myth is too deeply intertwined with the values of our culture. Men naturally see a woman in magazines and deem them as beautiful. They have seen these images all their lives. They are desensitized. Boobs, cleavage, bare legs, what is the difference, we have seen it all. We need to save girls while we can, for they are the most vulnerable and susceptible to the influence of the beauty myth. The beauty myth has perpetrated our mass culture. Our only chance to defeat this monster myth is artfully conveyed on the last page of the The Beauty Myth. I believe this passage is the most important idea in the entire novel; it is an inspiring message:


"A woman wins who calls herself beautiful and challenges the world to change to truly see her" (Wolf, 290).