Whose Expectation? Ideal Beauty and the Cultural Construction of the American Woman

Author

Ameliea Rose Dulaney, University of MississippiFollow

Date of Award

Spring 4-30-2021

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Theresa Starkey

Second Advisor

Beth Ann Fennelly

Third Advisor

Caroline Wigginton

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

My research project “Whose Expectation? Ideal Beauty and the Cultural Construction of the American Woman” explores the cultural and political climate of American society over the last four centuries, analyzing how ideal beauty standards have worked in the lives of American women over the years, examining (1) how they have been negotiated by women at different times of cultural and political flux, (2) how, although beauty has long been an integral aspect of feminine identity, it has become even more so with the introduction of new technologies (advertising, tv, makeup, etc.), and (3) how as a result, the definition of 'beauty' has come to mean the value of external displays of beauty as opposed to internal displays in response to the changing structure of American society in accordance with the rise of mass consumerism.

In this research paper, I examine a number of primary sources, specifically those considered to fall into the umbrella of ‘women’s literature,’ that is, writing by women, for women, and/or about women, including but not limited to best-selling novels, women’s magazines, and etiquette manuals, at different historical moments in the United States to show: one, how cultural ideologies of Western society (those old and new) inform expectations of beauty (both internally and externally) and thus have played a vital role in shaping identities of American women; two, how, despite shifting norms and values over time, gendered ideologies work to standardize experience, asserting themselves in a variety of cultural mediums; three, how these mediums reveal a tension between real and ideal displays of identity as women navigated their roles at different moments in history four, how, in this navigation of newfound freedoms, women often find themselves in a paradoxical relationship where identity is informed by shifting roles and increased agency but also insists on preserving conventional notions of beauty; and finally, how this tension exists throughout history, only taking new forms and faces.

Recommended Citation

Dulaney, Ameliea Rose, "Whose Expectation? Ideal Beauty and the Cultural Construction of the American Woman" (2021). Honors Theses. 1836.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1836

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