What are beauty norms?

Answer 1

These are the culturally accepted notions of beauty. What is normal in one culture may be foreign or treated with disdain in another.

For instance, the ancient Chinese practiced foot-binding on women, since that was what the men back then liked. But the Communists who took over saw it as a violation of human rights and an impediment. In the modern, Western world, the closest thing to this practice is high heel shoes. Doctors give warnings against such footwear, yet it is firmly ingrained in culture that high heels are beautiful, and that a woman is not completely dressed for a formal occasion unless she is wearing them.

Beauty norms for women often involve pain or body modification of some sort. While foot binding, female circumcision, neck rings, and so on are not accepted in modern Western society, cosmetic surgery is.

The roots for beauty norms are psychological and relative to the time, place, and the values of society in general. For instance, women with fair skin were considered the most attractive. The message behind fair skin was that the women grew up pampered and were of high enough of a social class that they didn't have to work. That is similar to the message behind bound feet in ancient Chinese society. Women who worked in fields were probably more tomboyish or butch, and helplessness in women has always been a turn-on for men. Some women even ingested small amounts of poison in an attempt to become more pale. But as the Western world because more industrialized and less agrarian, getting in the sun was seen as more of a luxury. More well to do women had the time to go outside and get a tan than those tied down to factory work. Plus with the invention of the tanning bed, you had to not only spend time to tan, but pay for it as well. So the underlying foundation is the same - that women who have less work experience and thus leave "real power" to men are more attractive, but with opposite standards of beauty.

The beauty norms for men have traditionally been opposite to those of women, but we see that changing. In Western culture, jewelry on men was once considered a turn-off, and a lot of that had to do with the New Testament teachings of Paul and organized Christianity, along with anti-gay sentiments. In the 1980's, some of the wardrobe taboos for men began to crumble. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see men with both ears pierced, just like what you pretty much only saw in women and girls in the 1970's. The few men who wore earrings in those days were connected to various groups assumed to be criminal or antisocial in nature such as pirates, gangsters, drug dealers, and so on, or members of marginalized groups. But that reputation has changed.