Beauty

Beauty: Gendered Perspectives examines beauty as a social force that shapes bodies, identities, and everyday life. Taking a gendered approach, it explores how beauty norms are produced, enforced, and contested across contemporary culture.

From hair and dress to thinness, cosmetic surgery, and online beauty culture, this volume traces the historical and social forces that have made particular forms of appearance desirable, necessary, and valuable. It shows how beauty is expected of many, yet women and gender non-conforming people are often penalized most harshly for failing to meet dominant ideals. At the same time, it considers how beauty practices can function as forms of self-fashioning, resistance, and social change. Topics discussed include:

• The politics of “good hair” and body hair
• Clothing, modernity, and Western urban aesthetic norms
• Thinness, fitness, and the gendered regulation of bodies
• Cosmetic plastic surgery, self-making, and racialized beauty ideals
• Beauty influencers and the contested politics of digital beauty culture

Beauty: Gendered Perspectives is an invaluable resource for graduate and undergraduate students across philosophy, sociology, gender studies, feminist studies, media studies, and cultural studies.