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“You have the most marvelous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having. Someday
when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines
and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it. You will feel it terribly.
Now, wherever you go you charm the world. Will it always be so? You have a wonderfully
beautiful face, Mr. Gray.…And beauty is a form of genius-is higher, indeed, than genius, as it
needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight or springtime or the
reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the Moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its
divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile-ah, when you have
lost it you won't smile. People say sometimes that beauty is only superficial. That may be so, but
at least it is not so superficial as thought is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only
shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible,
not the invisible.”
invisible.”
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

This quote embodies the obsession that all of us have with beauty. We strive to look our

best; some of us go to the most extreme of measures to achieve it. It is precious and rare, and

given so much importance, probably more so than intelligence as the quote states. For one cannot

easily see genius, but beauty is universal and recognizable.

Since man has developed the ability of higher thought, he has had the ability to perceive

beauty as well. Beauty has been pondered, envied and written about for centuries by nobles,

poets, and authors. To have it is to be blessed, to be divinely favored—if one has nothing else to

boast, well they are beautiful, so why should it matter? Societies of every time and place have

chosen a set of characteristics that a woman must have to be considered beautiful—from bone

structure, to the fairness of her skin and even the redness of her lips. Men, yes men, place these

standards of beauty a top a pedestal so that women may spend their time working to achieve it;

for a woman’s duty above all else is to attract a husband. Modern times have shown the

desperation of women to achieve beauty. Contraptions have been made to lift, separate and
enhance, make-up is manufactured so that all women may have full, red lips and a youthful

glow, and the media perpetuates these standards. So when a woman gets up in the morning and

looks in her wardrobe, is she picking an outfit based on her own thoughts and feelings, or is it the

outfit of outfits that will attract her a mate?

The reason I wrote of beauty in so much detail to begin with is to stress the importance

that is placed upon it. Physical beauty goes hand in hand with attraction and attracting a mate—

be it a husband, boyfriend, or “friends with benefits”. The human race has evolved to mate under

any of these circumstances because it is conducive to the continuation of the human race and is

much more effective than just the yearly mating rituals of other animals(Buss, 2007). Males have

it hard wired into the minds of what is the most “effective” mate, in other words the most fertile

or the one more likely to carry on their traits. Women with full breasts, full pink lips and wide,

child-bearing hips are thought to be the most fertile. Also a young looking woman is thought to

be more fertile than an older woman—which has been scientifically proven to be true. So

neoteny goes along with physical attraction as well. Neoteny is the “retention of juvenile

characteristics into adulthood… Adult women, for example, usually have higher voices like

children. Men and women agree that attractive women have the large eyes and lips and small

noses and chins of children. Attractive women's faces have the proportions of 11-to-14-year-old

children.” (David Brin, 1996) The way women dress and make themselves up is for the purpose

of enhancing these features.

The basic, primal instinct of man is to plant his seed for the continuation of his genes; to

have many offspring as a male means power and that he is the alpha-male in the animal

kingdom. What is interesting is that in the animal kingdom, 80% of mating is initiated by the

female and in the cases of a “less worthy” male, that hasn’t been approached by any females,
these males go for the most attractive females. Translating this to human behavior, if one is an

attractive female, she has had her fair share of losers that none of the other females wanted—this

could be seen as a curse of beauty. So it is true that attractive women receive more attention, but

it is more attention from contemptible males instead of worthwhile males that can have long term

relationships. Going along with that, a study also showed that when males choose a very

attractive female it is to feel empowerment knowing that other men envy his ability to obtain

such a female. This being said, the male feels empowerment and his cerebral cortex lights up;

this part of the brain just basic consciousness and learning. Their brains do not light up in the

limbic region with an attractive woman; the limbic region is sometimes referred to as the

“emotional brain” and lights up when someone has a deep, emotional connection to the person

they are with. So when men or women are acting shallow they are simply stuck in their cerebral

cortex, so to speak. So if a woman is dressing to enhance or show off her “fertility

characteristics” to attract a male, they must know that it isn’t an emotional attraction, it is just a

superficial, physical attraction.

Society has placed such and importance on physical attractiveness that most women take

more time to exploit or enhance their looks rather than developing personalities that will attract

mates that they can have an emotional connection to. As a woman, I do this as well. I straighten

my hair so it looks lustrous and long, wear v-neck shirts and hip-hugger jeans to accentuate my

curves. I notice if I look one way I get a reaction in accordance with that dress. When I wear my

hair curly and thrown up in a ponytail with sweatpants on, I hardly get a passing glance. When

my hair is down, my make-up is done, and I’m wearing a cute outfit, I am approached more and

in turn feel more confident. I however do not expose myself like other women like to. My

midriff is always covered and my neckline covers up my breasts fully. I believe that dressing
cute will get me attention from guys that actually want to get to know me, as opposed to if I

dressed provocatively which will get me attention but from the wrong type of guy. Society and

the media perpetuate this idea of attractiveness, that someone has to dress a certain way to get

this attention, young men are groomed to look for certain characteristics and therefore give

positive affirmation to females who look that way—meaning they give attention to those

attractive females then those attractive females pick up on that affirmation and keep dressing that

way in order to feel wanted and in turn confident. We are groomed to dress so that our male

counterparts will notice and approve. How a woman dresses greatly influences how people react

to her and perceive her character.

Bibliography
Anonymous. "How Men Select Women." eioba.com (2007):
http://www.eioba.com/a70149/how_men_select_women.

Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology. Allyn & Bacon, 1999.

—. The Evolution of Human Mating. Acta Psychologica Sinica. Austin: University of


Texas, 2007.

David Brin, Ph.D. "Neoteny and Two-way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution."
Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18 (1996): 257-276.

Khoo, Charlie. "Perceptions of Beauty in a Western Society." Essay Contest. 2009.

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