by Lynette Alice

Created on: June 21, 2009

The media constantly changes our perception of what beauty is because we as a society allow it to. While the media has changed what we consider beautiful regarding men to some degree over the years as yes, men can be viewed as beautiful, it is mainly in regards to women that this phenomena has been most noticeable. It is hardly anything new, nor does it appear to show the slightest inclination as to having any end in sight.

Years ago the ideal standard for beauty in a woman was someone that had a full voluptuous body. Curves in any form were a good thing, and a woman that had some meat on her bones was seen as both a sign of health and fertility, but sexually desirable. Likewise during this era a woman was to have long hair to be beautiful. Sure she could pin back or wear it in a bun, but to be truly beautiful she had to be able to let it hang down when necessary cascading at least to her shoulders. As a whole this ideal was bought into because in the limited print advertising at the time this what how women were portrayed, therefore it must be correct was the general thinking.

As the era of the flappers and motion pictures made its entrance to the world, the standards for beauty changed yet again. A woman should still have a full figure, but not quite as full as her mothers era. A buxom woman was still in vogue and the curves were good, but they were to be limited more to the hips and bust. Short hair suddenly became a sign of desirability as the women often appearing in films chose this still as it conveyed a liberated woman that was breaking with the norm and standing on her two feet. As odd as it sounds a woman that smoked was even seen as beautiful as this had been a taboo in early years. None of this ever would have caught most likely had Hollywood not fed everyone a steady diet of it.

Jumping ahead past the eras of Rosie the Riveter in which the tough by day soft by night woman serving both country and her man was the near the pinnacle of beauty with her rugged exterior which cleaned up instantly to sheer femininity, to the hippies of the 60's when the media became conflicted as to what beauty is, we reach the 1970's. The 70's are when we really see the media dictating what beauty is at the speed of light so to speak. As opposed to earlier generations where televisions where more of a privilege than a "necessity" and movies where far fewer, beauty was being redefined subtly on a constant basis.

One day women were being told that being large was no

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