Insane standards of beauty

“I hate the beauty industry. It is a monster selling unattainable dreams. It lies. It cheats. It exploits women,” says Anita Roddick, founder of the first Body Shop in 1974. The exploitation of women by the beauty industry (and our culture as a whole) isn’t new. Dostoyevsky observed that beauty is the “battlefield where God and the Devil are warring for the soul of man.”

Unfortunately for women, the dominance of male motivation spans the globe. As a result, men define the perfect norm against which women are measured and found lacking. Women's bodies are the blank screens upon which men's standards of beauty are projected (including other women involved in the beauty industry).

Risk from internalized standards

Women are at risk if they internalize these standards. Surveys by the Kinsey Institute revealed American women have more negative feelings about their bodies than women in any other culture studied. The beauty industry exploits these feelings to boost profits. During the late Victorian era, the beauty industry glorified a cult of invalidism and profited from it. The wasting-away look fueled America's first dieting mania and caused fatal eating disorders in many young women.

Profit from abuse

The beauty industry reaps billions of dollars annually by inflicting physical and psychological abuse upon millions of women. How many precious women-hours (remaining after a hectic day of work and child care) are wasted obsessing about body image – trying to match the computer-enhanced image of an already extreme and pitifully-young body type? A growing body of research documents the damage done by increasingly unattainable physical ideals on the self-esteem of young girls and adult women alike.

Suicide and despondency among young American women is at a new high.The punishing comparisons with perfection help to trigger anorexia in those predisposed to it and health professionals are clear that commercial media images are significant contributing factors to depression, bulimia and the skyrocketing increase in cosmetic surgery procedures.

Enhancement of Joy and the Appreciation of Life

In an attempt to give back, Rolf Lohse Global is dedicated to the intelligence of women—providing information, products, and opportunities that enhance a woman’s joy and appreciation of life.