Josh GrayOn Body Image, Gender, and Race

In response to the first discussion question, women are encouraged to become thinner and daintier to align themselves with the images of other women they see in magazine advertisements, television commercials, music videos, etc. In general, this trend is acceptable and should be encouraged as it leads the majority of women to make wiser choices about their eating, exercise, or posture habits that in turn promote a rewarding, goal-oriented experience of life. Unfortunately, there are exceptions to this rule as some women become fixated with one aspect of their looks, be it a small waist, large buttocks, etc. These women may develop dangerous conditions such as eating disorders in an attempt to be more sexually appealing, however this occurs in the minutia of cases. Similarly, the encouragement of men to become stronger, or at least to develop defined musculature is overall positive since it encourages men to adopt healthier habits and builds the muscles of society, making potentially deadly physical altercations between men less dangerous (more body tissue to dissipate force of impact from such things as punches or bullets) and less likely to occur. Again, as in the case with women, there are some men who take bulking up to an extreme and develop painful and perhaps dangerous side effects of supplements such as steroids or excessive protein powder. Again, however, this occurs in the minutia of cases.

In response to the second discussion question, feminine qualities are in fact often devalued but only because they are expressed outside of their proper context. For example, a woman (or man) becoming emotionally distressed at the site of a dead animal is not a reaction to be praised since the life or death of an animal is something completely trivial and should not evoke the compassion or nurturing quality of a human being. As a further establishment of this point, consider the Greek city-state of Sparta. Here, the quality of nurturing was highly valued by all stations of society because it was only applied in its proper context, the raising of youth. The reason that the qualities of strength, assertiveness, and control appear to be valued to a greater extent is because the range of contexts in which these qualities can be appropriately expressed is much larger than the range in which feminine qualities can be appropriately expressed. Without loss of generality, if strength therefore is used in a given situation, it is more likely that it is being appropriately expressed in said situation, and so appears to be more valued across the totality of situations. The answer to the final question about the damage of these qualities is now clear. Both feminine and masculine qualities are good, it is just that proper expressions of masculine qualities are able to be more prevalent in society by their very nature and so therefore appear to be more valued by members of said society.

In response to the third discussion question, in countries of the world where Caucasians are not the majority there is no such thing as the white beauty standard affecting people of color. In the United States, there is an overwhelming majority of Caucasians and so people of color attempting to appeal to the majority choose to resemble Caucasians.