Discussion for African American study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Discussion for African American study - Essay Example Today, beauty values, as well as white European features over the others especially on women’s appearances. I choose to discuss the constructs with skin color, as well as the beauty discourse of women, as beauty concepts are usually directed mostly to the women. A lingering question on my mind is â€Å"Are white women beautiful or is it the society that makes them?† According to Gilman (2001), beauty is an appearance created for women to use as a mechanism to boost their self-worth (p. 255). Dark women are particularly exposed to the effects of Europeans standards of beauty because the European ideals emphasize on skin color and hair texture. This automatically excludes the black women especially the one with the dark skin (Bryant, Para1). This is noted because mostly in the United States, the main stream beauty ideal is exclusively white, making it difficult for women with dark skin. Although there are women with dark skin who have made it in the United States for example; Jennifer Hudson, the media and the culture of these women have been ‘white washed’ with lighter colored, straight hair, lots of makeup, and artificial eye contacts among others so as they would resemble the white women (Admin, Para 5). Even though a woman is recognized for something else rather than their beauty, the magazines, or the media still feel that they need to white wash her in order to feature her image. Pecolas insanity and obsession with blue eyes still is pertinent in the United States. According to Valdivia (2000), the people of the United States consider individual with blue eyes as beautiful. The society has always believed in the idea that the white are better than the dark colored, thus preferring the blue-eyed individuals (p. 146). It is known that only the white people can acquire blue eyes naturally. The dark colored people often are