quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi everyone how are you? i've always been fascinated by how standards of beauty differ from country to country. in egypt, a beautiful woman or man for that matter, would be, white, have blonde hair, blue or green eyes, although blue gets more points. as for the body egyptians like curvy bodies. in the lower class even being overweight is good. although i'm noticing that in the upper class people are becoming more and more obsessed with being thin.
whenver i travel though i find that what makes a person beautiful is completely different. im very thin, with olive skin, black hair and brown eyes. ofcourse in egypt this is very average. but when i go to europe people always comment on my tan, and my dark hair. when i visited australia specifically i was surprised at how obsessed people are with the tan. for them being tanned means being gorgous. and i was thinking my god the egyptians are born with a bloody tan but instead of being proud of it, they keep applying crappy creams like fair and lovely to whiten their skin. and instead of being proud of their dark hair and eyes, they dye their hair blond and wear contacts. as for my weight, although most egyptians tell me girl eat something! when i travel people seem to be pretty much ok with my thiness.
just a few days ago one of my relatives saw me and said oh yasmine look at you, you've put on some weight, and your skin is whiter you are becoming so pretty. and i was like whats wrong with having tanned skin? another friend of mine tells me that her grandmother chides her whenever she sits in the sun, and tell her to go and shower quickly and rub her skin really hard to get the tan off. (as if scrubbing the skin will make it whiter!)
so i just find it really strange how being beautiful differs from place to place. and since there are so many different nationalities here, i would be very interested to know what makes an ideal beauty in each country.

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Hi, 7aya,

Funny you should mention that -- the aspect of beauty has intrigued me most of my life, probably because I am *not* beautiful. I am very blond, very blue-eyed, and slightly overweight, but grew up in an era where that tan was the idea of perfection. And definitely skinniness is highly prized here in the US, and I've never been that.

Even now, people don't roast themselves in the sun so much here in the US, but tanning creams are all the rage and darker is still considered prettier. And yes, while I was in Egypt, 38 years old and well past my prime, people thought I was gorgeous and told me so (well, women told me this and men told my boyfriend).

When I was over my boyfriend's parents' house, meeting all his siblings and neices and nephews, his 8 year old neice came up and asked if I really had blue eyes. She was so adorable. I said yes, and so do my mother and grandmother, but my father's side of the family has gorgeous brown eyes just like yours. Her mom translated for her and Salma (little girl) clung to my side for the rest of the trip. She had the darkest skin in the family, and it was obvious that this was at least a minor drawback for a girl, but I thought she was beautiful. My boyfriend told her she was my favorite of all the kids, and she specifically asked to say good bye to me on the phone before I came back home. I was so touched!

I wish there was no one ideal version of beauty, because I think beauty can be found in everyone -- skinny fat tall short curvy muscular old young dark fair. In everyone. :-)

And thanks god its like that otherwise you would have many more single and frustrated people around that globe.

The more important aspect is the so-called "inner beauty" (= character) of the other one which I believe is much more important and relevant in a relationship.

Here in Germany we say what good is it if you eat from a nice bowl and the food is distasteful?

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Originally posted by Tigerlily:
Hi all, I need to agree with Valerie's short but very valid comment. Its about each individual's personal taste what he/she likes as the appearance of the other person.

And thanks god its like that otherwise you would have many more single and frustrated people around that globe.

The more important aspect is the so-called "inner beauty" (= character) of the other one which I believe is much more important and relevant in a relationship.

Here in Germany we say what good is it if you eat from a nice bowl and the food is distasteful?

But I guess thats another topic.....

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Originally posted by epose:
expecting men to prefer "inner-beauty" is an idealistic expectation to say the least. I wonder how many of you females who claim to favor "inner-beauty" are willing to ignore the size of a man's "inner-wallet."
furthermore, beauty is no longer the most important factor in a man choosing a woman. if it was, then we'd fall in love everytime we leave our homes. unfortunately, we have become more cautious when dealing with beautiful women, for they tend to have narcissistic and histrionic personality disorders. furthermore, in general, it's difficult to find a women who is both beautiful and intellectual/spiritual. there seems to be a trade-off, mainly b/c in these materialistic times, women tend to value themselves in quantitative terms ($).

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Wow, that's pretty cynical. And most women *I* know don't value men for their money. In fact, in all the married couples I socialize with, the wives are all making more than their husbands...

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Originally posted by Snoozin:
Wow, that's pretty cynical. And most women *I* know don't value men for their money. In fact, in all the married couples I socialize with, the wives are all making more than their husbands...

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quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi everyone how are you? i've always been fascinated by how standards of beauty differ from country to country. in egypt, a beautiful woman or man for that matter, would be, white, have blonde hair, blue or green eyes, although blue gets more points. as for the body egyptians like curvy bodies. in the lower class even being overweight is good. although i'm noticing that in the upper class people are becoming more and more obsessed with being thin.
whenver i travel though i find that what makes a person beautiful is completely different. im very thin, with olive skin, black hair and brown eyes. ofcourse in egypt this is very average. but when i go to europe people always comment on my tan, and my dark hair. when i visited australia specifically i was surprised at how obsessed people are with the tan. for them being tanned means being gorgous. and i was thinking my god the egyptians are born with a bloody tan but instead of being proud of it, they keep applying crappy creams like fair and lovely to whiten their skin. and instead of being proud of their dark hair and eyes, they dye their hair blond and wear contacts. as for my weight, although most egyptians tell me girl eat something! when i travel people seem to be pretty much ok with my thiness.
just a few days ago one of my relatives saw me and said oh yasmine look at you, you've put on some weight, and your skin is whiter you are becoming so pretty. and i was like whats wrong with having tanned skin? another friend of mine tells me that her grandmother chides her whenever she sits in the sun, and tell her to go and shower quickly and rub her skin really hard to get the tan off. (as if scrubbing the skin will make it whiter!)
so i just find it really strange how being beautiful differs from place to place. and since there are so many different nationalities here, i would be very interested to know what makes an ideal beauty in each country.

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If you are talking about beauty in terms of physical alone, I would say that simply having blonde hair and blue eyes alone doesnt make one beautiful, at least not in the American culture where they are plentiful. And they do bleach there hair and wear contacts as well, trying to buy this discount store beauty standard that most in the industry see right thru.

We have a reality TV show in the USA, called America's Next Top Model, and I listen as the judges critique the prospects criticizing everthing from her neck, jawline, down to her lips. They are looking for a specific look, maybe it could be high cheekbones one year, full lips the next. One year slanted eyes are in, the next it's round eyes. One year its the Black girl with the copper tone skin, all the top designers and beauty companies are after, the next it's the White girl with alabaster skin. So there is no set standard, actually it just depends "what's in".

But I would say overall in the USA, thin lips are definitely "out", Botox injections are becoming more popular than breast implants in these parts. All the fashion magazines are giving tips on how to apply your lipstick to make your lips look fuller. Rarely will you pick up a high fashion magazine off the shelves and find a single model with thin lips.

The key words I kept hearing those judges say are things like "she's not edgy enough, she's too safe, or too commercial".

So it's safe to say in our society, beauty standards (physical) are determined by the media, particulary the fashion/modeling industry.

But on an international scale, obviously the blonde hair/blue eyes is a thing of the past, as the country that is supposed to have the most beautiful women in the world, according to the 'experts' is Venezuela, closely followed by India as these countries have won more Miss Universe, and Miss World titles than any other countries in the world. And most of them are 'women of color' with dark hair and dark eyes. Even many of the recent Miss America winners have been women of color.

I've seen some of those tacky bleach jobs in Egypt, no offense, but they are better off keeping their natural color, or just getting highlights, yeah highlights are what's in now.

In my personal opinion, I think natural beauty is it, you either have it or you don't.Men can see right thru that store bought beauty in a jar, and most will tell you it turns them off. A friend of mine told me he nearly died when he woke up and found his date's false eyelashes on his pillowcase. :-)

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Originally posted by epose:
yes, of course, that's clearly verifiable statement 8-)...
most of the people I know never committed a violent crime in their lives. now, would I be cynical in claiming there is too much violent crime? and that a large proportion of the world's population is involved in it, one way or another? and of course you are aware that most of the inhabitants of the planet are not among "the married couples [you] socialize with." apparently you are also unware that 90% of women marry "up." maybe you need to revise your statistical method before using it in your arguments.

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No, my *insight* is definitely not statistically correct. I *was* going to say that in a society (upper-middle class American society) where women do not depend on their husbands to achieve a certain safe, comfortable standard of living, it is very easy for a woman to put aside a man's earning potential and focus on other positive aspects of his character. In fact, it's considered pretty tacky to look at his *inner wallet.* ;-)

But as I wrote that, it sounded really arrogant, and I realize it's not that easy in most of the world to *make it.* So I didn't write it. BUT, I still wish you weren't as cynical. Don't know if you are a man or a woman, but I do hope whatever relationships you have in life are extremely intellectually and spiritually rewarding. I'm sincere about that.

Susan

In the US, it has long been a problem with African American women that they don't feel they are beautiful. They are in a country where the majority is caucasian and caucasian features have been very favored. Some of the uglier repercussions of slavery is that among African American women, there is a general feeling that lighter skin is better.

In the past 20 years or so, I'd say, there has been a long public campaign to show that women of color are just as attractive as whites. And recently, there's been a push to show that overweight women are just as attractive as thin. Now, there are commercial ads by such companies as Dove (soap, shampoos, moisturizers) that show pictures of older women, women with not-so-perfect teeth, black women, white women, asian women, latina women, and show them all as beautiful, asking us directly to question our standard of beauty.

I do believe to a large extent a culture's standard of beauty is ingrained by media and TV and film. And it's easy/lazy to just think that one standard is *the* standard. If people *really* think about it, I think they can see beauty wherever they look. If they choose to.

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Originally posted by Snoozin:
No, my *insight* is definitely not statistically correct. I *was* going to say that in a society (upper-middle class American society) where women do not depend on their husbands to achieve a certain safe, comfortable standard of living, it is very easy for a woman to put aside a man's earning potential and focus on other positive aspects of his character. In fact, it's considered pretty tacky to look at his *inner wallet.* ;-)

But as I wrote that, it sounded really arrogant, and I realize it's not that easy in most of the world to *make it.* So I didn't write it. BUT, I still wish you weren't as cynical. Don't know if you are a man or a woman, but I do hope whatever relationships you have in life are extremely intellectually and spiritually rewarding. I'm sincere about that.

Susan

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quote:

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Originally posted by epose:

Furthermore, beauty is not as relative as you wish to make it. The media doesn’t determine beauty. Beauty is a metaphysical attribute that existed long before cosmo, oprah, and other bimbo media outlets. Whether corp. x displays an overweight woman or an old woman in a t.v. ad or not, men will not suddenly change their preferences to accommodate media manipulation. Those ads are specifically designed to sell products, not to help “sally” deal with her complex.

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Of course the concept of beauty existed before the media, but I do think it's very susceptible to trends and whatever. Of the articles or programs I've watched about what appears to be a universal concept of beauty, it's symetry of features and a particular hip to waist ratio. But you can have this symetry of features in *any* skin color or age. Or with any type of hair.

And, I'd like to believe we can evolve.

As far as the divorce rates in the US, there are tons of things going on there. In my opinion it's a byproduct of women achieving equal rights. And like you said, a lot of it has to do with money. We are going through some serious growing pains in our attempt to achieve equality.

My mother's generation expected marriage, and knew at a young age what their roles in life would be, and most of the women I know (again, anecdotal and not statistical) of that age group (early baby boomers, mid-60s) were in HORRIBLE unsatisfying marriages. Is the institution of marriage more important today than happiness? Since I personally think the world is currently overpopulated and procreation isn't a necessity, I think marriage is still highly desirable but *not* necessary.

I, on the other hand, am 38 and had no defined role to meet since women can achieve almost anything here. Did I want to get married? Of course, it's the Cinderella fairy tale that still is the ultimate goal for most women. Did I want a horrible painful marriage like what I saw in my mother's generation? Absolutely not. So I went to law school and earn a butt load of money to make sure I'm not out on the street when I'm 90 and feeble. :-)

Now is my failure to marry due to the things you list? To a certain extent, yes, I agree with you. But part of it is because I don't *have* to get married and therefore don't *have* to risk a bad marriage, which personally scares me much worse than being alone.

In a culture like Egypt (and of course this is all distant 3rd-hand knowledge I have), where it's practically inevitable that a woman marry and almost unheard of that a single woman live alone, other factors will be at play. Having had a father who had serious periods of unemployment, I can appreciate a woman's need to have a steady wage-earner for a husband.

But do women there look at the man's kindness? His character? How he treats his mother and sisters? How his father treats his mother? To get a good idea about how he will probably treat her? I can't believe that doesn't matter as much as his income?????

But I have changed that concept in my mind as I've grown older, on purpose. A man's income doesn't matter, but whether he has a job he finds fulfilling *does* matter.

And I find it interesting, too, which no one has addressed, but as women's salaries approach men's here in the States, the standard of male beauty as risen as well. Men get manicures and try to have flat abs and big biceps. Men wear designer suits and Italian leather shoes and expensive cologne to get women's attention. It's not enough, anymore, to have the high salary, because women already have that. They want the sexy guy too.

I think we all have to work with what we've got because there's only so much we can change. As a thirty-something woman myself, I can tell you that I am thin and all of my life it has been the topic of many conversations by my friends and relatives. Recently, a friend's mother told him that she thinks I'm anorexic. I'm not... I love to eat and keep it down! Even if I gain weight it doesn't look right on me. So what do I do about the guys who like more curvy women? There's nothing I can do. I just try to exercise and make what I have look good on me. That's what we all need to do.

Now... as for the financial draw... I don't claim to be an expert on what attracts women to men or vice versa, but a man's job and income have never had a role in my decision of whether or not to get into a relationship with him. I've dated (for example) a mechanic, a contractor, a male nurse, and currently a waiter. Each of them was interesting and intriguing in his own right. The waiter, I have to say, takes my breath away... but I don't want to get distracted.

Anyway, just be happy with your look and work with what you've got.

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Originally posted by Laura:
What could be more beautiful than a sincere smile, bright eyes, and a warm and kind heart?

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Originally posted by Gail:
Snoozin,
I think that beauty is relative. I'll speak in terms of people we all know to make my point. A friend of mine loves Tom Cruise. I agree that he is seriously easy on the eyes. I know that he's good-looking, but he's not my particular type. I happen to think Johnny Depp is hot. So who's better looking? It depends on who's doing the looking. They're both handsome, but in different ways.

I think we all have to work with what we've got because there's only so much we can change. As a thirty-something woman myself, I can tell you that I am thin and all of my life it has been the topic of many conversations by my friends and relatives. Recently, a friend's mother told him that she thinks I'm anorexic. I'm not... I love to eat and keep it down! Even if I gain weight it doesn't look right on me. So what do I do about the guys who like more curvy women? There's nothing I can do. I just try to exercise and make what I have look good on me. That's what we all need to do.

Now... as for the financial draw... I don't claim to be an expert on what attracts women to men or vice versa, but a man's job and income have never had a role in my decision of whether or not to get into a relationship with him. I've dated (for example) a mechanic, a contractor, a male nurse, and currently a waiter. Each of them was interesting and intriguing in his own right. The waiter, I have to say, takes my breath away... but I don't want to get distracted.

Anyway, just be happy with your look and work with what you've got.

[This message has been edited by Gail (edited 04 July 2005).]

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Oh, I agree totally with you and think you've got a really healthy outlook, and much more apt to meet a great partner than someone with very precisely defined needs. I've got my *type* myself, which is Russell Crowe. None of my girlfriends think he's good looking at all. And my fiance is the skinniest boy on the planet, which wouldn't be my *type*, typically, but my feelings overtook that and I think he's the most handsome man on the planet, without question.

As for my being happy with *my* looks? Well, that's a whole other story.... :-p

My interest in getting people to be more relaxed, I guess, in their standards of beauty comes from seeing soooo many people unhappy with their looks.

quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi everyone how are you? i've always been fascinated by how standards of beauty differ from country to country. in egypt, a beautiful woman or man for that matter, would be, white, have blonde hair, blue or green eyes, although blue gets more points. as for the body egyptians like curvy bodies. in the lower class even being overweight is good. although i'm noticing that in the upper class people are becoming more and more obsessed with being thin.
whenver i travel though i find that what makes a person beautiful is completely different. im very thin, with olive skin, black hair and brown eyes. ofcourse in egypt this is very average. but when i go to europe people always comment on my tan, and my dark hair. when i visited australia specifically i was surprised at how obsessed people are with the tan. for them being tanned means being gorgous. and i was thinking my god the egyptians are born with a bloody tan but instead of being proud of it, they keep applying crappy creams like fair and lovely to whiten their skin. and instead of being proud of their dark hair and eyes, they dye their hair blond and wear contacts. as for my weight, although most egyptians tell me girl eat something! when i travel people seem to be pretty much ok with my thiness.
just a few days ago one of my relatives saw me and said oh yasmine look at you, you've put on some weight, and your skin is whiter you are becoming so pretty. and i was like whats wrong with having tanned skin? another friend of mine tells me that her grandmother chides her whenever she sits in the sun, and tell her to go and shower quickly and rub her skin really hard to get the tan off. (as if scrubbing the skin will make it whiter!)
so i just find it really strange how being beautiful differs from place to place. and since there are so many different nationalities here, i would be very interested to know what makes an ideal beauty in each country.

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In Poland in general opinion an ideal woman should have long blond hair, long legs and blue eyes. However, women with dark skin, dark eyes and hair always attract men's attention being very interesting for them, for this type of beauty is rather rarely here. When it comes to weight, "ideal" is slim or even thin.

quote:

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Originally posted by Snoozin:
Of course the concept of beauty existed before the media, but I do think it's very susceptible to trends and whatever. Of the articles or programs I've watched about what appears to be a universal concept of beauty, it's symetry of features and a particular hip to waist ratio. But you can have this symetry of features in *any* skin color or age. Or with any type of hair.

And, I'd like to believe we can evolve.

As far as the divorce rates in the US, there are tons of things going on there. In my opinion it's a byproduct of women achieving equal rights. And like you said, a lot of it has to do with money. We are going through some serious growing pains in our attempt to achieve equality.

My mother's generation expected marriage, and knew at a young age what their roles in life would be, and most of the women I know (again, anecdotal and not statistical) of that age group (early baby boomers, mid-60s) were in HORRIBLE unsatisfying marriages. Is the institution of marriage more important today than happiness? Since I personally think the world is currently overpopulated and procreation isn't a necessity, I think marriage is still highly desirable but *not* necessary.

I, on the other hand, am 38 and had no defined role to meet since women can achieve almost anything here. Did I want to get married? Of course, it's the Cinderella fairy tale that still is the ultimate goal for most women. Did I want a horrible painful marriage like what I saw in my mother's generation? Absolutely not. So I went to law school and earn a butt load of money to make sure I'm not out on the street when I'm 90 and feeble. :-)

Now is my failure to marry due to the things you list? To a certain extent, yes, I agree with you. But part of it is because I don't *have* to get married and therefore don't *have* to risk a bad marriage, which personally scares me much worse than being alone.

In a culture like Egypt (and of course this is all distant 3rd-hand knowledge I have), where it's practically inevitable that a woman marry and almost unheard of that a single woman live alone, other factors will be at play. Having had a father who had serious periods of unemployment, I can appreciate a woman's need to have a steady wage-earner for a husband.

But do women there look at the man's kindness? His character? How he treats his mother and sisters? How his father treats his mother? To get a good idea about how he will probably treat her? I can't believe that doesn't matter as much as his income?????

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I don’t know whether to argue with you, or pity you. In your attempt to convince me, or I suspect really convince yourself, that you made the right decision by choosing wage-slavery over humanity, you make a number of false assumptions and simply ridiculous statements.
First, your blind belief in the pseudo-principle of “equality” is nothing but a euphemism for approximation towards men. You endeavor to remake women in the image of men. To remove women's choice to marry, bear children, and devote themselves to child-rearing, to fulfill some unattainable state of “equality.” “Equality” at the expense of femininity and family. “Growing pains” in the form of the destruction of the family unit, so that a few women suffering from an inferiority complex can unsuccessfully attempt to acquire the character of man.
Furthermore, you sacrificed marriage and happiness, and don’t try to convince any of us that an aging, unmarried, lonely woman can possibly be happy, unless you are one of the many women who subsidize the psycho-therapy industry by ingesting neurotransmitter manipulators that chemically induce a state of “happiness.” Your fear of marriage because of other people’s experiences is either cowardice or another attempt to justify your loneliness.
Moreover, you’ve given yourself the right to determine the world's population. I suppose you and Big Brother have that right. You can join Joseph Stalin and every other tyrant who gave themselves the power to do the same. That kind of rhetoric is pathological.
Also, you support, and I suspect unintentionally, my assertion that the “modern” woman is materialistic when you glorify your acquisition of money. You’re obviously subject to the preponderance of the means over the ends. Stable people work to live, to provide support for the people they love, not to prove they are capable of working, or to rack up digits, or to live alone in an apartment with cats and a mechanized pseudo-penis. Congratulations, you’ve attained the grand status of wage-slave living alone in a hive. I’m sure we’re all envious.
You mention Egyptian women, well the ratio of Egyptian women to men in professional positions, I would estimate, is extraordinarily greater than in the u.s. And, more importantly, these women are not self-conscious of their “gender.” She is a professor, not a female professor, and she doesn’t need special support to achieve that status. The Egyptian woman is a professional and a wife and mother, while retaining her femininity and humanity.
You also repeat the same-old tired myth about women’s “lib.” I suggest you read the link I added at the bottom of my post to get a better idea of history, rather than the fiction you were indoctrinated with in pseudo-studies courses in college. As an economist and capitalist, I assure you it wasn’t “equality” or “liberation” that drove women into the labor force, but the benefits to business (or more specifically the financial elite) from a reduction in the cost of labor and increased consumer spending (debt accumulation and inflation).
http://www.fathersforlife.org/hist/all_the_past2_.htm

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi everyone how are you? i've always been fascinated by how standards of beauty differ from country to country. in egypt, a beautiful woman or man for that matter, would be, white, have hair, blue or green eyes, although blue gets more points. as for the body egyptians like curvy bodies. in the lower class even being overweight is good. although i'm noticing that in the upper class people are becoming more and more obsessed with being thin.
whenver i travel though i find that what makes a person beautiful is completely different. im very thin, with olive skin, black hair and brown eyes. ofcourse in egypt this is very average. but when i go to europe people always comment on my tan, and my dark hair. when i visited australia specifically i was surprised at how obsessed people are with the tan. for them being tanned means being gorgous. and i was thinking my god the egyptians are born with a y tan but instead of being proud of it, they keep applying crappy creams like fair and lovely to whiten their skin. and instead of being proud of their dark hair and eyes, they dye their hair blond and wear contacts. as for my weight, although most egyptians tell me eat something! when i travel people seem to be pretty much ok with my thiness.
just a few days ago one of my relatives saw me and said oh yasmine look at you, you've put on some weight, and your skin is whiter you are becoming so pretty. and i was like whats wrong with having tanned skin? another friend of mine tells me that her grandmother chides her whenever she sits in the sun, and tell her to go and shower quickly and rub her skin really hard to get the tan off. (as if scrubbing the skin will make it whiter!)
so i just find it really strange how being beautiful differs from place to place. and since there are so many different nationalities here, i would be very interested to know what makes an ideal beauty in each country.

---

You know each person in his own race has a different idea of beauty, but sometimes that beauty crosses barriers. My bf is gorgeous bay any standards!!!

Seriously though, even if you have olive skin, please stay out of the sun wear a good sunblock and this will ensure lasting beauty,even when your older. The sun causes very bad skin damage and 80% of wrinkles!

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Originally posted by epose:

Furthermore, beauty is not as relative as you wish to make it. The media doesn’t determine beauty. Beauty is a metaphysical attribute that existed long before cosmo, oprah, and other bimbo media outlets. Whether corp. x displays an overweight woman or an old woman in a t.v. ad or not, men will not suddenly change their preferences to accommodate media manipulation. Those ads are specifically designed to sell products, not to help “sally” deal with her complex.

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While I agree that the media doesn’t determine beauty, it does determine beauty standards thru what is called psychological conditioning, or shall I say ‘brain washing’ in laments terms. As one person said, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. While one man finds overweight older women unattractive, in another society, they may be the standard of beauty. When a child is born the first thing they see is their mother’s smiling face, at that moment, the mother is the most beautiful person on earth to this child, this is the person that will nurture that child until he/she becomes conditioned to view beauty in a different light. It doesn’t happen “suddenly” as you’ve pointed out, but it can happen over a period of time, thru a series of manipulative ads.

Take the ad the poster pointed out for example, about the skin lightening cream, Fair and Lovely. First it associates loveliness with being fair, word association, then it shows a commercial of a dark girl who couldn't get a date until she started using this cream and became lighter, manipulating women's insecurities. This is what some advertiser's do.

Believe me the media is a very powerful outlet in conditioning our minds. For instance, if you see constant news flashes of Arabs attacking civilians, then your psyche can began to associate Arabs with terrorism, exactly what’s happening in American society now, media hypocrisy, they intentionally will not show any footage of American attacking Iraqi civilians, conservatism.

If every time you open a magazine selling ‘beauty’ products and all the models are blonde with blue eyes, your mind begins to associate beauty with blonde and blue eyes. Yes ads are designed to sell products, so often times, this overweight older woman is not often used to sell ‘beauty’ products, maybe they are using her to sell dishwashing liquids, or soap detergents. All models don’t necessarily sell products that are supposed to enhance our beauty. And everyone on a television screen isn’t necessarily attractive, relatively speaking.

Pavlov, a Russian psychologist, exemplified the way psychological conditioning works, using a dog. He showed how you could make a loud sound, then feed the dog, and do this repetitiously, until the dog can just get excited hearing the sound, without the food, because he has learned to associate that sound with food.

John Watson did the same thing with a rat. He used a child that was not naturally afraid of rats, and presented a loud frightening bang, along with the rat, scaring the child each time. After several repetitions, the child became afraid of the rat without the sound, again he learned to associate the rat with something frightening.

Again, after repeatedly hearing the word ‘beauty’ followed by an ad showing a blonde with blue eyes, eventually you will began to associate this with beauty. This is the way our psyche works. The same way you associate a red light with stopping, your mind was trained to associate the 2, you put a red traffic light in a society that is not used to them, they will drive right thru it, because they have yet to be conditioned.

Take a ‘gorgeous’ blonde to an isolated part of the world, where there is no media manipulation, and blondes are non existent, and you may find some of the inhabitants actually fear this unknown creature.

What has happened in Egypt thru years of colonization and oppression , by the British and French, they were introduced to an aristocratic class of people who had everything they desired materially. So they began to associate their whiteness with something of status, and as the topic started pointed out, they are still brainwashed. But they shouldn't feel isolated, many of us white women are brainwashed ourselve, we probably use hair bleaches 5 times more than any other race, as we too have been duped into the blonde is more attractive hype. Natural blondes only represent 5% of the world's population, the rest are blonde from a bottle.

I don’t know whether to argue with you, or pity you.

<<You can do either, doesn't matter to me.

<<In your attempt to convince me, or I suspect really convince yourself, that you made the right decision by choosing wage-slavery over humanity, you make a number of false assumptions and simply ridiculous statements.
<<I don't have to convince myself of anything. You may hate materialism or free market economies, and there are a lot of bad things about them, I agree, but money in the West is what empowers people, and while I've made mistakes in my life, at least I've had the chance to choose. Without that freedom, I would die, and I'll take my failures with my successes any day. :-)

>> You endeavor to remake women in the image of men.
<<No, I endeavor to permit a woman to do *anything* she is physically and mentally able to do. If I want to be, and can be, an astronaut, I should be afforded that opportunity. That's not making myself into the image of a man.

>>“Growing pains” in the form of the destruction of the family unit, so that a few women suffering from an inferiority complex can unsuccessfully attempt to acquire the character of man.
<<Women don't suffer from an inferiorty complex per se, but I'm beginning to think you do. And a healthy family unit cannot even exist unless the people within it are healthy too.

>>Furthermore, you sacrificed marriage
<<I sacrificed *early marriage.* I am engaged to be married to an Egyptian-born man.

>>and don’t try to convince any of us that an aging, unmarried, lonely woman can possibly be happy,
<<I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I was trying to have a balanced conversation with you, showing you that I see the good and the bad of my situation, but am happy with the choices I've made because the good outweighs the bad. I don't understand why you are so *angry.* ??

>>Your fear of marriage because of other people’s experiences is either cowardice or another attempt to justify your loneliness.

>>Moreover, you’ve given yourself the right to determine the world's population.
<<If you mean I have a right to govern my own body and whether I procreate, then you are correct. I don't impose my beliefs on anyone else.

>>or to live alone in an apartment with cats and a mechanized pseudo-penis.
<<Well, you've just showed me what your character is made of. Lower class than I'd associate with.

>>I’m sure we’re all envious.
<<I don't care if you are envious or not. I was trying to say that there are so many different lifestyles to live, and while what I do may not be your cup of tea, it is what suits me best. Why do you condemn me for that? I'm not condemning you because you have very different opinions.

>>The Egyptian woman is a professional and a wife and mother, while retaining her femininity and humanity.
<<Great. And an American woman isn't? I think she is.

>>You also repeat the same-old tired myth about women’s “lib.” I suggest you read the link I added at the bottom of my post to get a better idea of history, rather than the fiction you were indoctrinated with in pseudo-studies courses in college.
<<I think you sorely misjudge the fact that I have *lived* history....

>>As an economist and capitalist, I assure you it wasn’t “equality” or “liberation” that drove women into the labor force
<<I know it wasn't, but equality has become a byproduct of it.

Why are you so angry? Have you asked yourself that? I thought you were a person I could have an open-minded discussion with, but I am wrong. You are like the fundamentalist Christians here who say it's their way or no way at all. *That* mindset, to me, is something to pity. You miss out on all the diversity out there, all the people you could learn from.

While I agree that the media doesn’t determine beauty, it does determine beauty standards thru what is called psychological conditioning, or shall I say ‘brain washing’ in laments terms.

>>I like that description. Thanks. :-)

I have to confess that I would love to be that 'thing' that stops the traffic and pulls out of fellow humans' lungs this unstoppable "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" when she happens to pass by, in all her flawless glory...Well, not this lifetime, but I am making a mental note to myself to come back as Angelina Jolie or such the next time around dammit.

quote:

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Originally posted by 1mangang:
believe me,
all women are beautiful in their own ways
trust that my friends.

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Thank you Brother, YOU DA MAN!!!!!!!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Gail:
Karah_Mia,

Well said! I couldn't agree with you more!

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quote:

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Originally posted by melissa360:
While I agree that the media doesn’t determine beauty, it does determine beauty standards thru what is called psychological conditioning, or shall I say ‘brain washing’ in laments terms.

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Hi melissa360!

quote:

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Originally posted by newcomer:
Hi melissa360!

Although what you mentioned was the traditional psychological conception of learning, if you go back to the text books you will find that they have moved on a lot from there now and realize that human behaviour is a little more complex than a rat’s or a dog’s trained responses. Yes conditioning is one element that influences learning, particularly in relation to physical responses, but when it comes to attitudes this is much more complex and other factors come into play, such as an individual’s personality, emotional state, past history, rational processes, intelligence (IQ and emotional), environment, culture, and also their belief systems.

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Hi Newcomer,
If you've read everything that I've written you will realize that I was explaining psychological conditioning on a subconscious level. Of course when anyone's level of consciousness is raised, they are not as easily manipulated by the media. For example, when someone has gained a certain level of racial or national pride, they cannot be manipulated to think of themselves as inferior, hence an ad trying to manipulate racial insecurities will not be effective on such person.

I am not talking about 'conscious' learning, which us humans have the ability to attain. I am speaking of the conditioning that happens subconsciously, that we are 'not' aware of.

Psychological conditioning is just as effective on humans as it is on animals, because we have a subconscious. I'm sure you've heard of 'subliminal messages' and how powerful a marketing tool they are in today's advertising. We are not able to control what happens on a subconscious level. All humans have certain urges and desires they can't control, and respond to certain stimuli in the same way animals do. It has been shown that for example if you are hungry and thirsty, and a McDonald's commercials with subliminal phrases like 'mouth watering' burger, and 'icy cold' cola, a person can suddenly have the urge to buy McDonalds. If however, they are 'not hungry' or hate McDonald's food, then they will not get this same urge. If advertising was not effective, companies like McDonald's would not be spending billions of dollars on it, as research has shown.

Like they say, you can sell an icecube to a man in the desert quicker than you can to an eskimo. Advertisers do research to find target markets. You wouldnt try to sell anti-wrinkling cream to a teenager anymore than you would try to sell tanning lotion to an African. An after researching to discover a person's insecurities, urges, or desires, you design an ad to manipulate this person into purchasing your products, given they have that purchasing power.

Sit in front of a television one day and watch a children's cartoon, and watch how many cereal ad's are displayed, then see how many beer ads are displayed when watching a football game. Then observe a mother in a supermarket while her child is insisting upon a certain cereal because of some silly prize in it. Then observe some guys order another round of drinks at some sports bar.