Emancipation

Teacher Coordinator:Ionescu Violeta

ContentsNormative and Descriptive Components- 5 -Feminist Perspectives on Class and Work- 8 -The stereotype of video games being for boys- 9 -POWER OF MARKETING- 10 -THE '90S SHIFT- 11 -THE EXCEPTIONS, THE PROBLEM- 12 -A FUTURE FOR EVERYONE- 12 -BEAUTY STANDARDS- 13 -A BRIEF HISTORY- 13 -Renaissance: From the 1400s to the early 16thcentury- 17 -Victorian Era: From 1837 to 1901 (named after BritainsQueen Victoria)- 17 -The 1950s: Mid-Century Conservative- 19 -The 1960s: The era that brought us hippies, mods, andTwiggy- 19 -The 1970s: Enter the disco era.- 20 -The 1980s:The decade of big hair, big shoulders, and the Material Girl.- 20 -The 1990s:The era that brought us grunge, minimalism, Beverly Hills, 90210,and Saved by the Bell.- 21 -The New Millennium:2000 to present, an era of choice and expression- 21 -ECHOES TODAY- 22 -The Beauty Ideal: The Effects of European Standards of Beauty on Black Women- 22 - Memorable women throughout history.-23-Conclusion-29-Bibliography-30-

forewordThe human being is believed to be a creature designed with intellect which is the capacity to reason, soul which is the capacity to feel and also this mysterious instinct called empathy which represents our capacity to resonate with each other. However, if we give a closer look to our intricate history we find that there were times when our ancestors were not using any of them. I am, of course, not referring to those moments when people started wars or killed innocents but rather to those matters of common sense which remain problematic to this very day: the matter of social and political equality, the matter of integrity and respect for each other. Although they seem to be fundamental, they rise quite controversial attitudes among people.Feminism, contrary to the popular, ignorant and misled conception, does not state that women are superior to men, it does not say that women are better than men, not even that women are as good as men in any particular field, yet it claims that women and men have the same amount of potential and things such as sex should not be taken into account when it comes to topics unrelated to it such as cooking or teaching. At a certain moment, for a certain position, a man may be better prepared that a woman applying for the same job but this is due to his hard work, talent or experience, not to the fact that he was born a male. Also, some other time, a woman turns out to be better suited for a job and she should be entitled to the same treatment and respect as a male applicant. It fills me with outrage, it infuriates me greatly the mere thought of such an injustice, this is why I chose to write about this topic, because in spite of all the centuries of struggle and incessant fight, discrimination is still a matter of actuality. I pride myself to be a powerful and open-minded person, with a progressive way of thinking, therefore I cannot dwell in prejudice. I believe that everyone carries the burden, the task of ending ignorance, of making this world a place freed from sexism. I am here to march and shout and grip tightly onto my right of being treated like a human being because I, just like anyone else on the planet, am worthy of respect.This certificate presents rather briefly the history of feminism and womens struggle through time, but focuses on up to date issues that affect women everywhere at this very moment. Everyone knows that women have had a tough time, we were not allowed to vote and so on, but things have changed ever since, have they not? We, women, can vote now, we just cannot vote for a woman. I invite you to do a little exercise: picture the image of a president. You see a man, dont you? Now, imagine a CEO. I bet the image in your head is that of a white male. A woman prime-minister is such an extraordinary occurrence that they become remarkable, although their deeds were not so out of the ordinary. Their greatest asset is that they are women. What about men in the position of prime-ministers? This is common, ordinary, normal. My quest is, therefore, to banish this reluctance with which women are embraced in fields like politics. It is time we woke up from this inertia and put an end to prejudice, to start an era where being born a woman does not deprive you of fundamental human rights. This can be possible both through reasoning and education but also through common sense, therefore, we have no valid excuse. All we need to do is open our eyes and learn that there is no such thing like a male-mind or a male-perspective because we might as well talk about a male-pancreas or a male-liver. As a feminist myself, I wrote this certificate for all the women out there, slowly, silently but surely making history and turning the world into a place much more female-friendly.

To all the women who silently made history

What is feminism? Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. However, there are many different kinds of feminism. Motivated by the quest for social justice, feminist inquiry provides a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, economic, and political phenomena. Important topics for feminist theory and politics include: the body, class and work, disability, the family, globalization, human rights, popular culture, race and racism, reproduction, science, the self and human trafficking. The term feminism has many different uses and its meanings are often contested. For example, some writers use the term feminism to refer to a historically specific political movement in the US and Europe; other writers use it to refer to the belief that there are injustices against women, though there is no consensus on the exact list of these injustices. Although the term feminism has a history in English linked with women's activism from the late 19th century to the present, it is useful to distinguish feminist ideas or beliefs from feminist political movements, for even in periods where there has been no significant political activism around women's subordination, individuals have been concerned with and theorized about justice for women. One strategy for solving these problems would be to identify feminism in terms of a set of ideas or beliefs rather than participation in any particular political movement. Although most feminists would probably agree that there is some sense of rights on which achieving equal rights for women is a necessary condition for feminism to succeed, most would also argue that this would not be sufficient. This is because women's oppression under male domination rarely, if ever, consists solely in depriving women of political and legal rights, but also extends into the structure of our society and the content of our culture, and permeates our consciousness. (E.g. Bartky 1990).Normative and Descriptive Components In many of its forms, feminism seems to involve at least two groups of claims, one normative and the other descriptive. The normative claims concern how women ought (or ought not) to be viewed and treated and draw on a background conception of justice or broad moral position; the descriptive claims concern how women are, as a matter of fact, viewed and treated, alleging that they are not being treated in accordance with the standards of justice or morality invoked in the normative claims. Together the normative and descriptive claims provide reasons for working to change the way things are; hence, feminism is not just an intellectual but also a political movement.We might define feminism (rather simplistically here) in terms of two claims:1. (Normative) Men and women are entitled to equal rights and respect.1. (Descriptive) Women are currently disadvantaged with respect to rights and respect, compared with men [in such and such respects and due to such and such conditions].On this account, that women and men ought to have equal rights and respect is the normative claim; and that women are denied equal rights and respect functions here as the descriptive claim.Some might prefer to define feminism in terms of a normative claim alone: feminists are those who believe that women are entitled to equal rights, or equal respect, or (Fill in the blank with one's preferred account of injustice), and one is not required to believe that women are currently being treated unjustly. Feminists are not simply those who are committed in principle to justice for women; feminists take themselves to have reasons to bring about social change on women's behalf. THE history of feminismIn the mid-1800s the term feminism was used to refer to the qualities of females, and it was not until after the First International Women's Conference in Paris in 1892 that the term, following the French term fministe, was used regularly in English for a belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women based on the idea of the equality of the sexes. Although the term feminism in English is rooted in the mobilization for woman suffrage in Europe and the US during the late 19th and early 20th century, of course efforts to obtain justice for women did not begin or end with this period of activism. So, some have found it useful to think of the women's movement in the US as occurring in waves. On the wave model, the struggle to achieve basic political rights during the period from the mid-19th century until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 counts as First Wave feminism. Feminism waned between the two world wars, to be revived in the late 1960's and early 1970's as Second Wave feminism.

Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labour Party teach other women how to vote, 1935In this second wave, feminists pushed beyond the early quest for political rights to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home. More recent transformations of feminism have resulted in a Third Wave. Third Wave feminists often critique Second Wave feminism for its lack of attention to the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion and emphasize identity as a site of gender struggle. However, some feminist scholars object to identifying feminism with these particular moments of political activism, on the grounds that doing so eclipses the fact that there has been resistance to male domination that should be considered feminist throughout history and across cultures: i.e., feminism is not confined to a few (White) women in the West over the past century or so. Moreover, even considering only relatively recent efforts to resist male domination in Europe and the US, the emphasis on First and Second Wave feminism ignores the ongoing resistance to male domination between the 1920's and 1960's and the resistance outside mainstream politics, particularly by women of colour and working class women (Cott 1987).Feminist Suffrage Parade in New York City, May 6, 1912

ISSUES THAT HAVE PERSISSTED UNTIL PRESENTFeminist Perspectives on Class and WorkUntil modern times, legal and cultural practices, combined with the inertia of longstanding religious and educational conventions, restricted women's entry and participation in the workforce. Economic dependency upon men, and consequently the poorsocio-economic statusof women, have had the same impact, particularly as occupations have becomeprofessionalizedover the 19th and 20th centuries.Women's lack of access tohigher educationhad effectively excluded them from the practice of well-paid and high status occupations. Entry of women into the higher professions likelawandmedicinewas delayed in most countries due to women being denied entry to universities and qualification for degrees; for example,Cambridge Universityonly fully validated degrees for women late in 1947, and even then only after much opposition and acrimonious debate.[1]Women were largely limited to low-paid and poor status occupations for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, or earned less pay than men for doing the same work. However, through the 20th century, public perceptions of paid work shifted as the workforce increasingly moved to office jobs that do not require heavy labour, and women increasingly acquired the higher education that led to better-compensated, longer-termcareersrather than lower-skilled, shorter-term jobs.Women make up 40% of the global workforce, yet make less than their male counterparts in every country on Earth.Women make up a vital part of the economic and social fabrics that hold their communities together, yet that work is rarely valued at the same level as is mens work. Much of this has to do with what opportunities are available to them. Women are disproportionately likely to be poor, under-educated, employed in low-wage or unpaid work, and subject to dismissal for getting married or having children. In many industries, female workers are systematically denied their rights to regular pay and regular working hours; equal pay for equal work; permanent contracts; safe and non-hazardous work environments; and freedom of association. Egregious abuses, including sexual violence, harassment and forced pregnancy tests, are all too common. Moreover, the social status of women has not opened up at the same pace at which women have been brought into the workplace. They may have increasing opportunities at work, but they are prone to domestic violence and unequal expectations at home. It has become a mantra at development organizations, including the World Bank and United Nations, that investing in women is the best way to improve a range of societal concerns and that womens full participation in society is a critical factor in economic development. But more importantly, womens rights groups have long recognized that full equality is not possible unless women can speak out for themselves.the stereotype of video games being for boysFour-year-old Riley Maida stands in a toy aisle of a department store in Newburgh, N.Y. The backdrop is pink. The shelves behind her are stacked with plastic babies in pink onesies. To her left are hair-and-makeup dolls with exaggerated heads attached to truncated shoulders. The shelf above has rows of little dresses and pastel pink slippers. The shelf above has more pink dolls in more pink dresses.In the next aisle, there's a distinct absence of pink. This is the "boys aisle", lined with Nerf guns, G.I. Joes, superhero figures, building blocks and toy cars, it has a diverse colour palette of blues, greens, oranges and reds.

Would it be fair for all the girls to buy princesses and the boys to buy superheroes? she says. Girls want superheroes AND the boys want superheroes! Boys and girls can both like pink she says. Why do all the girls have to buy princesses? Some girls like superheroes; some girls like princesses. Some boys like superheroes; some boys like princesses. So why do all the girls have to buy princesses and all the boys have to buy different-coloured stuff? Why do companies have to make boys and girls think that they can only like certain things?A few aisles over, in the video game section, there is a similar marketing story that Maida has yet to learn. Unlike in the toy aisles, she won't find an expansive selection of video games for boys and an equally expansive selection for girls. Most girls' sections, if they exist, are lined with fitness titles and Ubisoft's simplified career simulation series, Imagine, which lets players pretend they're doctors, teachers, gymnasts and babysitters.As for the boys section there isn't one.Everything elseis for boys.If the selection at the average retailer is anything to go by, girls don't play video games. If cultural stereotypes are anything to go by, video games are for males. They're the makers, the buyers and the players.There is often truth to stereotypes. But whatever truth there may be, the stereotype does not show the long and complicated path taken to formulate it, spread it and have it come back to shape societal views.Toy aisles are explicit in their gender divide. Clear signage indicates which toys are for boys, and which are for girls. In the video game section, there is little overt exclusion. It's a slower moulding of our expectations over time.POWER OF MARKETINGNot every 4-year-old is as critical as Riley Maida. Most adults don't give a second thought to the way their local department stores are laid out or how things are sold to them. But there are few marketing accidents in retail. The aisle Maida stood in was not accidentally saturated in pink. It's no accident that most video game retailers plaster their walls with promotional posters for action games, shooters and war games. Marketers have advertising down to a science, according to Rodger Roeser, president of marketing firm the Eisen Agency. They research and analyse consumer behaviour: what colours make people want to eat more, what colours make people want to buy more and how people react to different imagery. He says that, whether we like it or not, we're conditioned from an early age to pay attention to these messages. "Very smart, creative, crafty people are tweaking your brain to get you to want something or buy something" Roeser says. "And while you might think you're arriving at the conclusion completely on your own, I promise you, marketing played a role in some way. It appeals to a certain gender or category of the population and it makes sense from a marketing perspective to go after it.President of the marketing firm A Squared Group, Amy Cotteleer says that marketing is so powerful that it can shape our values and beliefs, and we're often not even aware that it's happening. You do the math, find the insight, and you figure, 'What's the biggest population we can sell this to?' That's who you need to target. That's how it breaks into a gender story.Marketing a product as being superior to its competition is one way of defining it and securing customers. Gendering a product is another. Roeser explains that focusing on one audience, whether it be young men, young women, children or the older population allows the marketer to focus their resources on one demographic and increase their likelihood for success. If a company wants to direct the product at men, then its marketing department can focus its limited resources on winning over that demographic, rather than trying to reach too many people and risk failing altogether."You don't want to water down your brand," Roeser says. "You want to know specifically who you're targeting and go after that, because there are very few products that have a mass appeal. There's really only two Coca-Cola and Pepsi and inside those there are massive subsets like Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Pepsi Max etc."According to Roeser, it makes sense from a marketing perspective for the video game industry to have pursued a male audience, which is exactly what it did starting in the early '90s.THE '90S SHIFTIn a magazine advertisement for the Atari gameMillipede (1982), a young girl stands in front of the arcade machine with her hands on the buttons, her face visibly excited by the action on the screen. An older woman, presumably her mother, stands beside her, hand on her shoulder, equally excited, a little bit awkward. In the 1990s, the messaging of video game advertisements takes a different turn. Television commercials for the Game Boy feature only young boys and teenagers. There is nothing in any of the ads that indicate that the consoles and games are for anyone other than young men.Even leading up to the '90s, the marketing had started changing and iconic video game box covers started to emerge. Like the cover of the gameBarbarian which featured a scantily clad, buxom woman at the feet of a barely clothed man. She's not a playable character in the game, of course. Her pixelated curves can be seen watching the game's action from the grandstand in the background. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, video games appeared to be growing up alongside the young players who had latched onto the medium at the time of the Game Boy.The video game industry created something of a chicken-and-egg situation. When it conducted market research during the '80s and '90s, it found that more boys than girls played video games. Boys were more likely to be involved with new technology, more willing to be early adopters and more encouraged by their teachers and families to pursue science, technology, engineering and math in school. Girls have always played video games, but they weren't the majority. In wake of the video game crash, the game industry's pursuit of a safe and reliable market led to it homing in on the young male. And so the advertising campaigns began. Video games were heavily marketed as products for men, and the message was clear: No girls allowed.The ads made no distinction between different genres of games being for different people. Even nonviolent games like Tetriswere painted with the same masculine brush when they appeared in ads for the Game Boy. It was, after all, the GameBoy, not the Game Girl.Game designerBrenda Laurelstarted her career at Atari and Activision as a programmer and producer. She later founded Purple Moon, a studio dedicated to making games for girls, before it was bought out by Mattel. She says the studios she worked for assumed a male audience, even though there was no demographic subtlety."Generally speaking, it did not occur to any of the companies I worked for that they should be looking at female audiences for games," she says. "It was always, 'Oh of course girls don't play games.' I got that so many times. 'Of course girls don't play games why are we going to waste money on this audience that doesn't exist?'THE EXCEPTIONS, THE PROBLEM"I've always known there were some games and genres that attracted a heavier male audience than others, like shooters for instance," saysBrenda Romero, a developer who has worked in the game industry since the early '80s and has been credited on titles such asWizardry,Jagged Allianceand Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes. "With the popularity of shooters, maybe we say, 'Well, men play shooters and then shooters are the most popular game,' then we can take this logical leap to say 'Men play video games it's predominantly men."'But Romero points out that if we go back to fall 1993, two significant things happened in gaming. One is the release of Doom, which heralded the start of the male-dominated first-person shooter genre. The other, in the same year, is the launch ofMyst, which had an overwhelmingly female player base. "Mystdominated the charts, and we don't say games are dominated by women," Romero says. "So I've never felt that way.The Simshas more female players than it has male players, but I don't use those statistics to paint all of games.""Maybe our perception of the problem is the problem, rather than there actually being a problem," says Ian Bogost. "We're not looking at diversity in the marketplace. We're looking at where there isn't diversity and we're saying those games are the most valid games."Bogost points to games likeFarm Ville,Candy Crush Sagaand Words With Friends hugely successful games that have enormous male and female player bases but they're rarely acknowledged as being the same thing as what is traditionally thought of as a video game. "Those games somehow get the technology industry stories about the rise of these big companies, whereas something likeCall of Dutyis talked about as an example of gaming, and probably a negative example."Part of the problem, he explains, is when people think about video games, they thinkDoom,Mortal KombatandCall of Duty. Meanwhile,Farm VilleandAngry Birdsare considered something else entirely and associated with a different domain. This can be attributed to a different kind of marketing.A FUTURE FOR EVERYONEWhen Romero's daughter Maezza was 8, she returned home from school with a story for her mother. Maezza had told her classmates that when she grows up, she wants to be a game designer. She was a level 90 inWorld of Warcraft. She loved wearing her Blizzard T-shirt to school. She wanted to learn how to code and make games. A kid in her class turned around. "Girls don't play games," he said. "Fortunately, my daughter had a great response," Romero says. "She said to the boy, 'My mommy makes games.' She owned him entirely."That the concept of "girls don't play games" exists even among children in schoolyards today has less to do with the actual numbers of players as much as it has to do with an idea that was heavily circulated from the '90s through television commercials, magazine ads, video game box art and the media. After all, a person who grew up in the '90s would have little or even no reference for what came before. Their first game marketing experiences would have sold a very black-and-white picture about which video games are for. But this idea is starting to break down.According to Cotteleer, industries tend to look beyond their existing target demographic only when the market has become totally saturated. It can take a while sometimes more than a decade. And when that happens, they ask, "whos next?" She says Nintendo mastered this with the launch of the Wii console, which went on to break records in console sales and introduce video gaming to audiences who had previously never bought a console or played a video game. Its advertising also deliberately targets a different audience, using celebrity spokespeople like Beyonc, Penelope Cruz and Robin Williams and his daughter Zelda.But the process of breaking down the widely held stereotype of games being for boys doesn't end with game-makers targeting diverse audiences, Bogost says. In fact, he doesn't believe that is the right approach, in the same way he doesn't believe that the industry going after the male audience was a smart idea. "It seems to me an enormously stupid idea, actually," Bogost says. "All you have to do is look at the most successful games to see that it's only been possible for them to be massively successful if they don't systematically exclude half the population."In order for video games to overcome their existing stereotype, they have to be sold to us as general purpose products. Bogost uses bookstores as an example. No one is surprised when they go into a bookstore and find that there are books for children, books about gardening or books about cooking. It's accepted that books are a general purpose medium that can address lots of interests. The same applies to television it doesn't surprise people that there are channels dedicated to cooking, sports, animals or news. Bogost says that games are already there in terms of there being a diverse variety that can do different things it just hasn't effectively gotten the message out there yet.When the message gets out there when video games are seen as a general purpose medium and a person who plays Angry Birdscan associate that with playing games on a PlayStation 4 then perhaps the stereotype will begin to fade. It would be a big marketing challenge, but it's not impossible.

BEAUTY STANDARDSA BRIEF HISTORYIn the two decades of radicalaction that followed the rebirth of feminism in the early 1970s, Western women gained legal and reproductive rights, pursued higher education, entered the trades and the professions, and overturned ancient and revered beliefs about their social role. A generation on, do women feel free!The affluent, educated, liberated women of the First World, who can enjoy freedoms unavailable to any women ever before, do not feel as free as they want to. And they can no longer restrict to the subconscious their sense that this lack of freedom has something to do with-with apparently frivolous issues, things that really should not matter. Many are ashamed to admit that such trivial concerns-to do with physical appearance, bodies, faces, hair, and clothes - matter so much. But in spite of shame, guilt, and denial, more and more women are wondering if it isn't that they are entirely neurotic and alone but rather that something important is indeed at stake that has to do with the relationship between female liberation and female beauty.The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us. Many women sense that women's collective progress has stalled; compared with the heady momentum of earlier days, there is a dispiriting climate of confusion, division, cynicism, and above all, exhaustion. After years of much struggle and little recognition, many older women feel burned out; after years of taking its light for granted, many younger women show little interest in touching new fire to the torch.During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical specialty. More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers. Recent research consistently shows that inside the majority of the West's controlled, attractive, successful working women, there is a secret "underlife" poisoning our freedom; infused with notions of beauty, it is a dark vein of self-hatred, physical obsessions, terror of aging, and dread of lost control.It is no accident that so many potentially powerful women feel this way. We are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women's advancement: the beauty myth. It is the modem version of a social reflex that has been in force since the Industrial Revolution.The contemporary backlash is so violent because the ideology of beauty is the last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women whom second wave feminism would have otherwise made relatively uncontrollable. It has grown stronger to take over the work of social coercion that myths about motherhood, domestic,chastity, and passivity, no longer can manage. It is seeking right now to undo psychologically and covertly all the good things that feminism did for women materially and overtly.Every generation since about 1830 has had to fight its version of the beauty myth. It isvery little to me said the suffragist Lucy Stone in 1855, to have the right to vote, to own property, etcetera, if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right. Eighty years later, afterwomen had won the vote, and the first wave of the organized womens movement had subsided, Virginia Woolf wrote thatit would still be decades before womencould tell the truth about their bodies. The beauty myth tells a story: The quality called beauty, objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. Thisembodiment is an imperative for women and not for men, which situation is necessary and natural because it is biological, sexual, and evolutionary: strong men battle for beautiful women, and beautiful women are more reproductively successful. Women's beauty must correlate to their fertility, and since this system is based on sexual selection, it is inevitable and changeless.None of this is true. .."Beauty" is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the west it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact. Among the Nigerian Woda-abes, the women hold economic power and the tribe is obsessed with male beauty; Wodaabe men spend hours together in elaborate makeup sessions, and competeprovocatively painted and dressed, with swaying hips and seductive expressions--in beauty contests judged by women. There is no legitimate historical or biological justification for the beauty myth; what it is doing to women today is a result of nothing more exalted than the need of today's power structure, economy, and culture to mount a counteroffensive against women.If the beauty myth is not based on evolution, sex, gender, aesthetics, or God, on what is it based? The beauty myth is not about women at all, it is about men's institutions and institutional power. The qualities that a given period calls beautiful in women are merely symbols of the female behaviour that that period considers desirable; the beauty myth is always actually proscribing behaviour andnot appearance. Competition between women has been made part of the myth so that women will be divided from one another. Aging in women is unbeautiful; since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be newly broken: Older women fear young ones,young women fear old, and the beauty myth truncates for all thefemale life span. Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our "beauty" so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the viral sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.The beauty myth in its modern form gained ground afterthe upheavals of industrialization, as the work unit of the family was destroyed, and urbanization and the emerging factory system demanded what social engineers of the time termed the "separate sphere" of domesticity, which supported the new labour category of the "breadwinner" who left home for the workplace during the day. The middle class expanded, the standards of living and of literacy rose, the size of families shrank; a new class of literate, idle women developed, on whose submission to enforced domesticity the evolving system of industrial capitalism depended. Most of our assumptions about the way women have always thought about "beauty" date from no earlier than the 1830s, when the cult of domesticity was first consolidated and the beauty index invented.As the economy, religion, sexual mores, education, and culture were forcibly opened up to include women more fairly, a private reality colonized female consciousness. By using ideas about beauty, it reconstructed an alternative female world with its own laws, economy, religion, sexuality, education, and culture, each element asrepressive as any that had gone before.Since middle-class western women can best be weakened psychologically now that we are stronger materially, the beauty myth, as it has resurfaced in the last generation, has had to draw on more technological sophistication and reactionary fervour than ever before. The modern arsenal of the myth is a dissemination of millions of images of the current ideal; although this barrage is generally seen as a collective sexual fantasy, there is in fact little that is sexual about it. It is summoned out of political fear on the part of male-dominated institutions threatened by womens freedom, and it exploits female guilt and apprehension about our own liberation--latent fears that we might be going too far. This frantic aggregation of imagery is a collective reactionary hallucination willed into being by both men and women stunned and disoriented by the rapidity with which gender relations have beentransformed: a bulwark of reassurance against the flood of change. The mass depiction of the modern woman as a beauty is a contradiction: Where modern women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality, as the myth has it, "beauty" is by definition inert, timeless, and generic. That this hallucination is necessary and deliberate is evident in the way "beauty" so directly contradicts women's real situation.Why does the social order feel the need to defend itself by evading the fact of real women, our faces and voices and bodies, and reducing the meaning of women to these formulaic and endlessly reproduced "beautiful" images? Though unconscious personal anxieties can be a powerful force in the creation of a vital lie, economic necessity practically guarantees it. An economy that depends on slavery needs to promote images of slaves that justify" the institution of slavery. Over the centuries, women have mauled and manipulated just about every body part - lips, eyes, ears, waists, skulls, foreheads, stomachs, breasts and feet - that did not fit into the cookie-cutter ideal of a particular era's ideal of beauty and perfection.What woman doesn't want to be beautiful? Women want to please and will go to extreme measures to achieve the beauty ideal. Over the centuries, women have mauled and manipulated just about every body part - lips, eyes, ears, waists, skulls, foreheads, stomachs, breasts and feet - that did not fit into the cookie-cutter ideal of a particular era's ideal of beauty and perfection. Women have suffered, sacrificed and punished themselves under the tyranny of beauty.In China, right up until World War II, upper-class girls had their feet bound, crippling them for life but ensuring the three or four inch long feet were prized as exquisitely feminine. Beginning at about the age of five, a girl's foot was virtually folded in two and a 10 foot long bandage was wrapped tightly around it to force the toes down toward the heel as far as possible. The child could not move without doubling over into a graceless and largely futile effort to walk without putting any weight on her feet. Many women put up with the agony of this procedure convinced that no one would want to marry a woman with "big feet."In central Africa, the Mangbetu tightly wrapped the heads of female infants in pieces of giraffe hide, to attain the elongated cone-shaped heads that were taken to be a sign of beauty and intelligence.Just as painful as stunting the worth of one part of the body is exaggerating the growth of another, a practice that has been widespread in Asia and Africa. Many African tribes have inserted plates into young women's lips to enlarge them, or weigh down their earlobes with heavy hoops so that the lobes eventually brush the shoulders.Among the Padaung people of Burma earlier this century, the ideal of female beauty was a greatly elongated neck, preferably 15 inches or more. This was accomplished by fitting girls with a series of brass neck rings. At a very young age, girls began with five rings - by the time they were full grown, they were wearying as many as 24. Even today, Burmese refugees in northern Thailand continue to stretch their daughters' necks.

Renaissance: From the 1400s to the early 16thcenturyBody Type:The ideal Renaissance woman was more voluptuous than any other time in history. Paintings from this era depict women who likely would be considered overweight by todays standard, but at that time thesefull-figured ladieswere the epitome of sexy.Beauty:The termblondes have more funmay have stemmed from the Renaissance, because they believed that the lighter the hair colour, the better. As for makeup, pale ivory skin was considered sexy, and vermillion was used to tint the lips to a deep red colour.

Victorian Era: From 1837 to 1901 (named after BritainsQueen Victoria)Body Type:Unlike Renaissance women, Victorian women were highlybody conscious. Sexy meant having the smallest waistline humanly possible, and in order to achieve this look, women worecorsets.Some were wound so tight that women could hardly breathe, to the point where sitting down was completely out of the question (and many women would even

break ribs trying to get their waistlines down to an inconceivable 12 inches.) Layered petticoats, hoops, and bustles became popular, all of which magnified the derriere.Beauty: Modesty was the operative word when it came to Victorian makeup. High-class women were expected to use makeup sparingly.Bold colourswere considered uncouth, and reserved for prostitutes. Some religions at the time even proclaimed beauty products to be the look of the devil.

The Roaring 20s: The era that brought usCoco Chanel, shorter hemlines, and flappers.Body Type:The 1920s were a time when women aimed to hide their curves. In fact, some would even bind their chests with strips of cloth to achieve a boyish look. The loose silhouette of the short and swingy flapper dress was a stark contrast to the corseted waist of Victorian era gowns, while elastic webbed girdles replaced corsets and gave off the look of a flat abdomen.Beauty:Going right along with the boyish look,the hair bobor finger wave was a big trend. Bold makeup, which had once been considered trashy, was now considered sexy. Powder was applied to make the skin look as pale as possible andeyebrows were liftedand pencilled in to appear thin and bold. Kohl was used to line the eye and achieve an overall dramatic look.

The 1930s and 1940s: Hollywoods Golden AgeBody Type:As they became more body conscious, women started to really pay attention to what they ate. Fashion accented the arms and legs, so women lifted light weights tobuild muscle tone. The new padded stretch cotton bra was introduced, and designers likeChanel(credited as the originator of the little black dress),Dior, andElsa Schiaparellistarted designing fitted, glamorous, siren-ready attire.Beauty:Hairstyles became more feminine than they had been in the 1920s.Hair colour varieddepending on which movie star one was trying to emulate.Jean Harlowmade platinum blond a trend, meanwhile,Rita Hayworth(above) madebeing a redheadpopular. Last, but not least,Marlene Dietrichrepresented for all the brunettes out there. Makeup became a little less drag, and more girl-next-door than in the 20s. The pasty white skin trend was finally pass, and women started opting for foundations closer to their natural complexions.

The 1950s: Mid-Century ConservativeBody Type:The desired shape in the mid-century was the hourglass figure popularized by movie stars likeMarilyn MonroeandGrace Kelly(above). Women were told that their primary goal was to catch a man and have a family, so they were taught to dress to allure, but rarely showed a great deal of skin. Rule number one was that women were never supposed to leave the house looking sloppy. Three-quarter-sleeve coats, full belted skirts, button-downs, and prim sweaters were the standard.Beauty:Hair was usually kept short at just below the shoulders, and was worn insoft, curly, or wavy styles. Straight styles were considered undesirable, so rollers became a girls best friend. Women also began to focus more onhaving flawless skinthan anything else. The goal was a peaches and cream complexion.

The 1960s: The era that brought us hippies, mods, andTwiggyBody Type:Mimicking the popular skinny models of the day, women became obsessed with being rail thin. In terms of fashion and beauty, two polar opposites emerged:the hippie flower child and the modern swinging 60s woman. The hippies put more of an emphasis on casual staples like bell-bottoms, tunics, and platform shoes, while the super-mod Twiggy-girl put time into her appearance and favoured things like high boots, miniskirts, and short shift dresses.Beauty:Hippies went for long no-maintenance hairstyles and typically avoided makeup. More modern 60s girls, conversely, opted for short pixie cuts and dramatic eyes.Fake eyelasheswere a must-have, and mascara was applied to achieve the popular tarantula lashes.

The 1970s: Enter the disco era.Body Type:The freewheeling 1960s forever changed the way women viewed their bodies, and by the 1970s, the thinking-thin phenomenon was in full force. Clothing was sexy and disco-ready, with lots of wrap-style dresses, oversize sunglasses, and high-waist jeans, and most women aspired to emulate the ultra-glam Studio 54 look popularized byBianca Jagger.Beauty:The lateFarrah Fawcettrevolutionized the way women styled their hair. Her long, layered, feathery haircut became the look that every woman wanted tohave. Thisdecade also marked the beginning of the bronzed beach look and with it, the populartanning boothtrend. Women began relying onbronzers and self-tanners, things many women (and some men) still cant do without.

The 1980s:The decade of big hair, big shoulders, and the Material Girl.Body Type:The aerobics exercise crazeof the 80s further emphasized fitness for women. Women were expected to maintain a certain weight, but still appear toned, all without being too muscular. With all these body stipulations, its no wonder that the prevalence of eating disorders skyrocketed throughout the decade. The 80s also epitomized over-the-top fashion neon, suits with football player-sized shoulder pads, and spandex were just a few of the quintessential trends of the decade that were considered sexy.Beauty:There are only two words to describe80s hair:big and bigger. The mantra of the decade was the bigger the better, and with all those aerosol cans of hairspray, were sure the ozone took a pretty big hit right around this decade. Over-the-top makeup wasde rigeurjust check outMadonnaabove. Women opted for brighter colours, like the infamousblue eye shadowsand liners, and shiny pink pouts. Also, thanks toBrooke Shields,bushy eyebrowswere also considered very sexysomethings come back around in recent years.

The 1990s:The era that brought us grunge, minimalism, Beverly Hills, 90210,and Saved by the Bell. Body Type: Models likeKate Mossfurther perpetuated standards of extreme thinness. The heroin chic trend came about in the 90sa strung-out and emaciated appearance was the coveted look. Thanks to a few rebellious kids in Seattle,the 90salso gave rise tothe popular grunge movement, characterizedbyflannel shirts,Doc Martens, and an overall unkempt look. On the other side of the spectrum, the spandex and fluorescent colour trends of the 80s stuck around for the early part of the decade (as evidenced by the wardrobes in Beverly Hills, 90210,and Saved by the Bell.)Lycrawas introduced, and midriff-bearing tops also became fashionable which coincided with the rise of pierced belly buttons and toned tummies.Beauty:One of the most popular 90s hairstyles was the Rachel cut, named forJennifer Anistonscharacter on Friends. Other popular hair trends included the bob, bangs (a laBrenda Walsh), and bleach blond colour. Kate Moss epitomized the androgynous ideal, which led many women to take a minimalist approach to makeup.

The New Millennium:2000 to present, an era of choice and expressionBody Type:Although were currently in an age where women have more choice than ever before,women are still expected to live up to an impossibly thin body shape. The fact is that now, more than ever,the price of beautyis extremely high. This is evident in the hugesurge in plastic surgeriesthat have taken place in the last decade. Were also seeing a re-emergence of almost every major fashion trend of decades past, from shoulder pads to cinched waists. We arent all copy-cats though, the emergence ofsuper-low-risejeans,Juicy sweat suits, and trucker hatsis unique to the early Aught (and, thankfully, faded out soon after.)Beauty:Todaysdefinition of beauty doesnt seem to be particularly concrete. Were seeing both long hair and chic pixie cuts make the rounds, and makeup typically emphasizes fresh, dewy skin.

ECHOES TODAYToday, women continue to engage in extreme measures to achieve the beauty ideal. In addition to contributing to the booming cosmetic, diet, and exercise and fashion industry - more and more women are having surgical procedures to obtain that perfect look. In the past, liposuction and breast augmentation were the most sought after procedures. Today women are getting face, neck and eyelid lifts, nose reshaping, chin augmentations, brow lifts, thigh lifts and tummy tucks. Some go so far as to have injections of fat to have shapelier bums and calves. Others have their toes removed to be able to wear ultra-pointed shoes.

The Beauty Ideal: The Effects of European Standards of Beauty on Black WomenBlack women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of European standards of beauty, because these standards emphasize skin colours and hair types that exclude many black women, especially those of darker skin. Using a social work lens, this article explores the black womans internalization of European beauty standards through family, peers, the media, and society, and the related outcomes of this internalization on self-perception, academic achievement, sexual behaviour, employment, marital status, and mental health. A review of the research indicates that European standards s of beauty can have damaging effects on the life trajectories of black women, especially those with dark skin, primarily in the form of internalized self-hatred. Suggestions are made for social work practitioners to address the effects of these internalized European beauty standards among black women through programming and clinical practice. What shall I tell my children who are black? Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin. What shall I tell my dear ones fruit of my womb, of how beautiful they are where everywhere they are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black...? Margaret Burroughs, 1968If young black women stand in contrast to what society dictates as attractive, they may find it difficult to grow to accept themselves. As a result, the internalization of radicalized beauty standards can perpetuate into a lifelong, intergenerational culture of self-hatred (Hunter, 1998). Clark and Clark (1947) conducted an experiment with 253 black children between the ages of three and seven at nursery and public schools in Arkansas and Massachusetts. The children were shown two identical dolls, one black and one white. Approximately two-thirds of the children indicated that they liked the white doll better, in spite of their own skin colour (Clark & Clark, 1947). When Kiri Davis recreated this experiment in 2005, her results showed that 16 of the 21 preschool-aged black children involved in the experiment still chose the white doll (ABC News, 2006). When asked to show the doll that looks bad (ABC News, 2006, para. 12), one subjecta black girlchose the black doll, but when asked for the doll that looked like her, the girl first touched the white doll and then reluctantly chose the black doll (ABC News, 2006).

MEMOROABLE WOMEN THROUGH HISTORY

EstherHebrew queen and heroine. Prevented a genocide, then turned around and slaughtered the would-be killers. Set an example.

Joan of ArcLed an army, saved a people, died stoically, sainted rightfully.

Queen Elizabeth ILed a people, saved a nation, governed wisely, respected globally.

Marie CurieConducted pioneering research on radioactivity. Won two Nobel prizes.

Eleanor RooseveltCo-president of the United States, 1933-1945.

The Supremes"Where Did Our Love Go," "Come See About Me," "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Baby Love," "You Can't Hurry Love." Julia ChildIt's true: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. If the trail happens to pass through the kitchen of an urbane, ebullient of French cuisine who also happened to serve in the OSS during the war en route, well, now we're speaking the language of love.

Margaret Thatcher(1925 - 2013) The first female Prime minister of Great Britain, Mrs Thatcher defined a decade. In particular she is remembered for her emphasis on individual responsibility and belief in free markets. Developed close relationships with R. Reagan, but was more sceptical of European integration.

Golda Meir Golda Meir was an Israeli teacher, kibbutzim, politician and the fourth Prime Minister of Israel. Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel on March 17, 1969, after serving as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister.

Indira GandhiYou don't lead a country from crushing poverty to emerging power without making a few enemies. Richard Nixon considered her "an old witch," which can only fall in her favour.

Joan Jett"I Love Rock 'n Roll" changed the way we thought about music especially how we thought about women making rock music.

Jacqueline CochranPioneer pilot who had more than 200 aviation records, firsts, and awards. She was the first woman to break the sound barrier.Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto was the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. She helped to move Pakistan from a dictatorship to democracy becoming Prime Minister in 1988. She sought to implement social reforms, in particular helping women and the poor.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Jacqueline "Jackie" Joyner-Kersee is a retired American athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump.

Madeleine AlbrightThe first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State

Simone de Beauvoir Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, commonly known as Simone de Beauvoir, was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, and political activist, feminist and social theorist.

Frida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House

Shirley JacksonYou know "The Lottery," the short story every writer studies at some point in his life? It only took her an afternoon to write. (The Haunting of Hill House, The Lottery, The Sundial, Life Among the Savages)

Serena WilliamsSerena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her World No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions.

Hillary Rodham Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is a former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and First Lady of the United States. From 2009 to 2013, she was the 67th Secretary of State, serving under President Barack Obama.

Malala YousafzaiPakistani schoolgirl who defied threats of the Taliban to campaign for the right to education. She survived being shot in the head by the Taliban and has become a global advocate for womens rights, especially the right to education.

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963.

Ada lovelaceEnglish mathematician Ada Lovelace is widely considered the world's first computer programmer for her invention of the computer algorithm. Born in 1815 to the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Byron, Lovelace's mathematical talents led to an ongoing collaboration with mathematician Charles Babbage, who called Lovelace the "Enchantress of Numbers." While translating an article by an Italian engineer on Babbage's Analytical Engine, a proposed early version of a mechanical general-purpose computer, Ada added her own set of notes which contained a tremendous breakthrough -- the first computer program or algorithm. Lovelace is also credited with making the conceptual leap to develop a vision of the potential of computers to go beyond simply running calculations; in her notes, she raised questions about the possibility of individuals and society using technology as a collaborative tool. For example, in 1843, she speculated on the potential use of computers in music composition, writing: "Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."

Joan DidionFor fifty years of not letting America get away with its own self-delusions. If we have a national conscience, she is it. (The Year of Magical Thinking, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Where I Was From, Play It as It Lays)

Mother TeresaDevoting her life to the service of the poor and dispossessed Mother Teresa became a global icon for selfless service to others. Through her Missionary of Charities organisation she personally cared for 1000s of sick and dying people in Calcutta. She was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1979.

ConclusionFrom a certain point of view, life is a play. The process of becoming an adult seems to include mastering some basic gender roles. People enjoy playing the roles assigned to them, but apparently very few of us know we are actresses and actors. We behave as we think we are expected to behave. We think as we think we are expected to think. Playing games can be fun so it is not the roles themselves that may cause problems but rather the very realisation that they are just roles. Some roles are traditionally assigned to females and others are assigned to males. Boys want to be men and girls want to be women. Boys learn what they should look like and how they should behave and girls learn their own set of roles too. And they can hardly wait for the curtains to rise. Then at long last boys can prove they are strong, brave, clever and aggressive and girls can show they are fragile, silly, weak, and seductive. And no deviation please! Gender roles, and various assumptions stemming from them, have left traces on nearly all facets of our society and culture. In magazines for the young, for instance, adolescent people are advised on how to set up a new relationship: it is suggested that females should give indirect signs of affection to the male target but they must not on any accounts seem active. In other words, it is crucial to keep up the pretence of males being active and females being passive. "Just make him believe it was him who picked you and conquered your heart" as it is often counselled. Another piece of advice for females: "Make him believe you are weak and fragile and that you need his protection". All this is tantamount to saying "Just make him feel superior". Many women - and consequently men too - surmise males need evidence of their masculinity, viz. their strength, superiority, ultimate control over a relationship, and aggression.Males, on the other hand, also share some misconcepts about the other sex. The ideal woman is similar to fashion in that both of them are prescribed rather than described. Today many people know and accept that women were suppressed and discriminated in many fields. Some say this unequality does not exists now, Wmen may be right in complaining about their inferior status. However, solutions are by no means easy to find, especially because even making a diagnosis seems to border on impossibility, let alone constructive ways to cure the problem. People are still arguing whether or not women are really at a disadvantage over men in our modern society and if so, to what extent the disparity exists. I wonder if an official verdict will ever be made. It is also in the literature that first we must change our language in order to change our views (the world). Here again we find the covert objective to take the easy way out, viz. it is the easiest to exclude some words from our dictionary and change or adopt others. No doubt this is useful and may create a feeling of male-female equality in language, but would it really change our thinking and judgement? So the ultimate question is the classic "the chicken and the egg" one: is language a mould with which to give a shape to the world, and in this sense language is a cause, or is it a symptom that reflects society? Or both?So very much depends on the point of view one takes. A person wearing clothes can be called "a dressed-up person" or "a naked person in clothes". But the point of view we tend to take when it comes to judging ourselves is usually such that we can be sure we are on the right side and if there is any problem, it is always some other people who are to blame. We credulously believe ourselves and our own judgements. Doubt is thought to be a defect of the mind.Nevertheless, it may be the only tool that can help us see the problems so that we can solve them and create something better, something of which we can really be proud.

The very first step towards wisdom is uncertainty.No doubt about it.

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