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Mayra Moran
Professor Corri Ditch
English 114A
November 6, 2014
The Unreachable Beauty Expectation
With the amount of media consumption in contemporary American society, there has
been a socially constructed definition of beauty in the female appearance advertised everywhere
from magazines, billboards, television, and the internet to young women across the country.
Many forms of advertisements involving women in it, contain women that are either tall, skinny,
flawless, colored eyed, or have some sort of sexual appearance. Victorias Secret is one of the
largest lingerie companies in America that has consistently been advertising the idea of a
womens perfect body as skinny, tan, and physically toned and this could possibly have an
effect in women in Western society. The media is creating a standard image for women that is
revolved around perfect self-image and sexuality and this could be crippling for many women.
These advertisements contain unrealistic super models that potentially encourage and enforce
women to perform in this feminine way that is being promoted. Companies like Victorias Secret,
should take into consideration other forms of advertising that empower the variation of womens
beauty because the gender roles the media is social constructing are unrealistic and potentially
lead to women changing their self-forms and dealing with self-esteem issues due to the pressure
to meet these expectations.

Victorias Secret is one of the many companies whose advertisements culturally define
womens beauty and create guidelines for feminine gender performance. Many of the Victorias

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Secrets ads, imply that femininity is about having societys definition of the perfect body, a
skinny, tall, tan, and physically toned body. Present studies made to examine the effect media
had on womens self-objectification demonstrate that, although these forms of advertisements
may not directly demand young women to be or want to be like Victorias Secret super models,
they are still displayed everywhere in the media and do have an effect on women emotionally (
Harper, 2007). With the amount of output the media has in modern society, these advertisements
make a huge impact on the reinforcement of gender expectations. As professor Ruth Hubbard
said, Our concept of ourselves is socially constructed and political because our societys
interpretation of what is and is not normal and natural affects what we do (Hubbard, 47). In
other words, the knowledge western society obtains from the media prescribes the gender
performance they must conform to. In this case of Victorias Secret, femininity is portrayed by
tall, skinny, sculpted-like, colored-eyed, big bottomed, and long haired women.

Many Victorias Secrets ads demonstrate the companys emphasis on a womans perfect
body and this is problematic because it is very limiting to the expectations of womens physical
appearance. A recent form of advertisement from Victorias Secret is an ad promoting the
companys One Body campaign. The image displays a collage of six different young women
posing confidently wearing different underwear and bras from the undergarment line. The ad is
split into six different rectangles, and each women is one of the rectangles posing and promoting
their undergarments. Although the women in each rectangle box seems to all have different
ethnicities, they are all still skinny, tall, and physically toned. The gender roles inscribed in this
ad encourage women to perform in this feminine way, which according to this image seem to be
related with being a tall, skinny, tan, and physically confident woman. The whole image is
combined together by a pink heart in the center of the ad with big black bold words inside of it.

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The words inside the hearts say, A BODY FOR EVERYBODY VICTORIAS SECRET,
which is a very strong claim aimed towards women. It seems as though the ad is more focused on
promoting the models perfect bodies than their actual underwear garments and this could be an
issue because the objectivity of womens bodies could lead to emotional or self-esteems
problems in women.

Victorias Secret has aimed to produce some of the most comfortable nightwear products
for females in the industry, but over time has seem to focus more on promoting the perfect body
then to promoting the perfect bra. Most of the young models in the Victorias Secrets ads are
representing what is suppose to be to a variation of different womens body figures, but actually
just focus one of the many types of body figures, which happens to be five foot ten models
weighing at an average of 122 pounds in this case. This could be limiting to all the young
women who look at these advertisements with extremely thin models and possibly see them as
potential standards. Results from studies made to investigate the effects on women with exposure
to thin model images, suggest that exposure to these images, have a small but consistent effect
in producing declines in mood and body satisfaction and in an increases in weight anxiety
(Harper, and Tiggemann, 2007). With the amount of output the media has, this problem becomes
a greater issue because it is almost impossible for young women to not come across these forms
of advertisement.

When young women comes across advertisements like the ones in Victorias Secrets
industry, they are not only exposed to potential physical expectations, but they are also exposed

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to feminine gender performances. Through the companys PINK clothing line, they have a made
a big impact on reinforcing feminine gender performances to young teenage girls by promoting
young women to like the color pink and act fun and girly, and if a young girl does meet these
standards then she is not performing in a feminine way and might be ridiculed. According to
Judith Lorber, this is due to the social order [that] constructs and holds individuals to strongly
gendered norms and expectations (Lorber, 255).

The transition the company made to focus on younger teenage girls demonstrates how
much gender performances are enforced at an early age and how much pressure the media puts
on young women to conform to these norms. In the film Miss Representation, Senior Scholar
Jean Kilbourne , mentions how girls get the message from very early on that whats most
important is how they look, that their value, their worth depends on that . The gender
performance these forms of advertisements are advocating could be problematic because many
young women possibly see them as potential standards and are willing to change their physical
form to meet these standards. Studies aimed to investigate the effect influences from the media,
family and peer pressure have on attitudes toward plastic surgery, suggest that these variables
are, significantly related to womens interest in plastic surgery( Nerini, Matera, and Stefanile,
2014). This is an issue because many of these undergoing surgical procedures, like breast
implantation and liposuction tend to be dangerous and have certain risk factors.

The socially constructed feminine gender performances that are being promoted by the
media are crippling and unrealistic for many young women and potentially lead to women
dealing with self-esteem issues and even changing their physical self-forms through surgical
procedures

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(Harper, and Tiggemann, 2007). Victorias Secret super models, also referred to the company as
Angels, are portrayed by the media as some of the most beautiful women in the world and
represent the epitome of what femininity is supposed to look like. Women who struggle with
body image or weight issues might look at these images and feel discouraged, and this could be
part of the reason why so many young women are turning to plastic surgery procedures in order
to meet the socially constructed standards. Studies suggest that, there is a greater desire to have
cosmetic surgery among women who perceive media messages as informative about physical
appearance and who internalize those messages (Swami, 2009).

This evidence supports how

forms of advertisements like Victorias Secret ads, socially construct the definition of beauty in
Western
society and could possibly have some negative consequences.

Although many of the supermodels in these advertisements contain physical traits that are
uncommon, I can definitely see how women who do fit into this modernized social definition of
beauty and perfect figure see this movement as progressive being that in the past
supermodels were known to be curvy and thicker than most models in present time. However
overtime this has changed and now the standards are being set so high that even supermodels
themselves often go through extreme measures to meet these expectations. There are
supermodels like Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston who have died as a result of
complication of anorexia (Soltis, 2009). This is just one of the many cases where models have
died due to issues related with eating disorders. The change that has been made in the modeling
industry is not enough and these images are still objectifying to women. The media should

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explore forms of advertisement that empower the variation of womens beauty instead of setting
up unrealistic standards.

The socially constructed definition of beauty that has been created in modern society can
lead to many problems in women like eating disorders or advocate the urge to have surgical
procedures to fix physical appearances. The femininity being portrayed in these ads are not only
crippling to women, but they are also limiting to the ways women perform gender. As Aaron
Devor said , society demands different gender performances from us and rewards, tolerates, or
punishes us differently for conformity to, or digression from social norms (Devor, 35). The
gender roles that the media promotes are constructed through society itself, so transgression can
only occur when society as whole decides to transgress against these norms. We need to take a
step back and look at society as a whole to reflect on the limiting gender role expectations that
have been created in modern society because only then can true progressive changes be made.

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Work Cited Page

Devor Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender."

Composing Gender. Groner, Rachael, and John F. O' Hara Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's,

2013. Print

Harper, Brit, and Tiggemann, Marika "The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on Womens
SelfObjectification, Mood, and Body Image." Sex roles 58.9/10 (2008):649-657. Print. Hubbard,
Ruth. "Rethinking Women's Biology. Composing Gender. Groner, Rachel, and John

F. O'

Hara. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print.

Lorber, Judith. "Night to His Day": The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender.

Groner, Rachel, and John F. O' Hara. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print.

Matera, Camilla, Nerini, Amanda, and Stefanile, Cristina. Psychosocial Predictors in

Consideration of Cosmetic Surgery Among Women. Aesthetic Plastic Surgery 38.2
(2014): 461-466. Print.

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Miss Representation. Dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Perf. Jean Kilbourne, Chritina Aguilara.
Girls Club Entertainment, 2014. Film.

Soltis, Cassandra A. Dying to be a Supermodel: Can Requiring a Healthy BMI Be

Fashionable. 26 J. Contemp. Health L. & Pol'y 49 (2009): 49. Print

Swami, Viren. Body appreciation, media influence, and weight status predict consideration of
cosmetic surgery among female undergraduates. Body Image 6.4 (2009): 315- 317.