Collectable cigarette cards once depicted ‘exotic’ beauties, classified by the colonial eye. And today’s beauty contests still present women as exotic representatives of their nation.
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Articles on Beauty
Displaying 41 - 60 of 70 articles
For centuries, women with dwarfism were depicted in art as comic or grotesque fairytale beings. But artists are challenging these portrayals and notions of beauty and physical difference.
The history of dangerous cosmetics shows us the harms that women have suffered to meet expectations of what is beautiful.
In New York City, hair salons are one of the few cultural spaces for Dominican women to bond. But they also perpetuate legacies of racism and colonialism.
Why is Cher, 71, celebrated when she wears a near-nude costume while Madonna, 58, receives revulsion? 19th century women’s magazines reveal how the double standards of beauty for older women came about.
The pressures of perfection.
YouTube is awash with videos on beauty and fashion, and young girls are avidly watching, creating powerful social media figures in the process.
Few would argue that exchanging cultural ideas could be construed negatively. But what happens when the influence and origins of that culture go unacknowledged and ignored?
For those with facial conditions and injuries, makeup can be the difference between living and having a life.
By getting young women hooked before they’ve even formed wrinkles, Botox peddlers have realized they can enlist them in a lifetime of treatment.
A sociologist wanted to know how simply self-identifying as ‘multiracial’ – regardless of how you actually looked – would influence your attractiveness.
Women’s privates have moved to the front and centre of popular entertainment. And they’re not always pretty.
The proliferation of mass media has helped to create a standardisation of beauty ideals, making them harder to cope with. But there are encouraging signs that things could change.
For decades, the Miss America pageant had excluded minorities while celebrating a very narrow definition of womanhood. Then two separate protests – a women’s liberation picket and the lesser-known Miss Black America pageant – said ‘enough is enough.’
Your makeup can make all the difference on your path to success.
Magnolia Maymuru, the Northern Territory’s representative at the Miss World national finals, is a trailblazer. But will she escape the racialised exoticism that has long plagued Indigenous women?
Surgical makeovers might seem a modern phenomenon but they have a long and disturbing history: from 16th century skin grafts done without anaesthesia to reductions of “primitive” large breasts.
After years of plastic surgery and progressive skin-bleaching, Lil’ Kim is not black any more.
On international Pi Day it’s time to look at Pi’s position in unique formula that’s praised much for its beauty in uniting several mathematical constants.
Dressing like a Black Panther at the Super Bowl was always going to raise a few eyebrows – and that was the point.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Lecturer in Psychology, Swansea University
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Associate Professor of Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross
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Lecturer, University of Leicester
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Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Digital Marketing, Royal Holloway University of London
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Professor of Social Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University
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Professor of Dermatology, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne
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Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW's Grand Challenges Program, UNSW Sydney
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Consultant Dermatologist, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
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John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham
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Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies, The Open University
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Assistant Professor of Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Associate Professor in American Literature, University of Leeds
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PhD candidate, School of Psychology, University of Sydney
