Ideals of beauty

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I was reading today about what males and females find to be attractive. Specifically, National Geographic cited that men find a .7 waist to hip ratio to be attractive (nothing new when it comes to knowledge). But, it made me think. Several thoughts came to mind all at once. First: What do I find attractive in women? Second: The ideal of beauty in the US today, the waify, tan blonde, does not conform with this aspect of what men find to be attractive. Third: Rather, is the ideal of beauty is aimed at women and shaped by women? Most women will agree that they do not dress for men, and often not even for themselves, but for other women. Women's appearances are created with other women in mind. Interestingly enough, the waist to hip ratio that is seen on the waify models is one that women would find attractive on men. Additionally, when it comes to model proportions, not only are they in part created by women, but they are the images which influence women's ideas of beauty. It's cyclical. Women create an ideal of beauty, women are affected by the ideal of beauty, women push the ideal of beauty even further to the extreme? If so, when is the breaking point? This is just a thought; I'm not partial to it, nor am I really sure that it has a bit of truth to it. I would love thoughts on it, though.

Mendon and I have pets. With all of this crime in Oxford, it seems like pets would be fabulous, but I'm not sure that we invested as wisely as we could have...
pets.jpg
Should have gotten a cactus to fight off intruders?... I call the large one Abstract Aloe, and the other is just Rosemary.

And a picture of our flat, our living room specifically, now that we have curtains and it appears to be habitable.
Happy flat.jpg

5 Comments

Yay, plants! I've heard that people who have a plant to tend have reduced rates of stress - or something like that :-)

Plants - the first step toward responsibility for another life!

Mara, I think that you and Mark need to get new plants then. Cause your plants have already died from your stress.

Can't really argue with that.

I think that there are many more beautiful women than women think that there are. I feel relatively impartial about the physical appearance of women. I think that it becomes easier to see beauty when you stop and remember that the person that you are evaluating ("is this person beautiful or not?") is a person. She (or he for that matter) has emotions, dignity, and personality that is unique to her/him.

It's so true. We have a girl staying with us. She cleaned the counter just to be nice and I felt guilted into going on a cleaning spree. It's much cleaner but I didn't really do it for me or Eric!