Friday, February 11, 2011
Work. School. Homework. Cat. Clean. = My Life.
Lately I have gotten into the habit of painting my nails, I used to hate doing it as a kid but now I can't get enough of it. It got me to thinking about body image and body image in itself is a system. It seems to have all of the parts to make it one; elements which can be seen as clothing choice (hair style, make-up, etc), rules which the society lends in order to say what is in and what is out, and the purpose which is to fit into society and societies norms. If someone does not work ideally in the system then they are considered an outcast, people will make fun of them and mock them because that is what society tells us to do. If this system was to fail, how would it happen? What is it's breaking point? Why is this system still in place if it ridicules people just by how they dress?
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I've thought about this before, which is really interesting. I believe that humans are competitive and therefore, likely to compare ourselves to others. "She's taller than me. His shoes are newer than mine." I see the "rules" or "norms" of our appearances as something so infiltrated into our lives, it's hard to escape. The media, magazines, the people around us; they all are telling us to dress and wear our hair a certain way. However, I see our behaviors as a feedback loop to the system. The more we engage in buying these clothes (or not, and creating a new hipster style), the more the system succeeds. These styles and norms change over time and looking back on pictures of me as a child, my mom was wearing spandex shorts with bold flowers on them. Maybe 3 years ago I would have scoffed a bit more, but now, those styles are coming back into style. Systems change!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree - if enough people follow fashion or social norms about image, it creates a reinforcing feedback loop - not necessarily to a particular fashion, but to the fashion process itself. If enough people didn't buy into it (literally), I think then we would see system break down or change.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sara in saying that the system is till in place because humans are competitive. We naturally try to be better than the people around us. This isn't inherently a bad thing and has actually lead to our development as a species in a big way.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the fact they people still use something like clothes as a gauge for whether or not someone is worth talking to is pretty pathetic.
Do you think that we will get past this form of judgement? Perhaps move to some new medium for dividing people rather than clothing?