The Daily Runway: The Origin of “Beauty” and the Struggles to Achieve It Hikari Murayama May 2012 Global Citizenship Certificate Candidate I roll onto my side, making my old bed frame squeak, and pull the bed sheets over my eyes to shield them from the morning rays that began to shine through my incompetent window shades. I close my eyes and begin to slip into slumber, until my 6:45 alarm starts beeping merrily, forcing me to crawl out of bed to turn it off. I rub my eyes and look around my room that screams about the remnants of my girly childhood. My room is strewn with stuffed animals, pink colored items, and flowery decorations. An American Girl sits at the foot of my bed, while several posters of ballerinas are plastered on the wall. The five year old me dreamt of going to ballet classes and twirled around in my living room while singing ballet music. Although my mother might classify me as a tomboy, she would say that I still do “girly girly” things. I go to ballet 6 days a week, I like baking, and I do enjoy dressing nicely. I like reading Japanese fashion magazines, and sometimes I end up trying to mimic the outfits that I see in them. But when I flip to the back to the magazines, I am appalled to see ads upon ads for plastic surgery. That’s one thing that helps me get up in the morning; the beautiful pictures of models sit in the back of my brain as if they were last night's nightmare. Before I roll out of bed, when I’m still half asleep, I think about the numerous things I have to do before I step out of the front door. I have to wash my face, apply lotion, brush my teeth, brush my hair, change into some clothes, put in contacts, put on make-up, do my hair... all in preparation for my encounters with the people outside of my home. First impressions are key, even from day to day. If I don’t look my best one day, a friend might ask, “What’s wrong are you okay? Did you not sleep well? You look tired”. When in reality, you may have just woken up 15 minutes late and didn’t have time to go through your whole morning routine. Boys often complain about how girls take so long to get ready, my father being one of them. Sometimes if I forget to turn on my alarm, he will wake me up 20 minutes before we have to leave. That might be enough for him to finish his morning routine (wash his face, brush his teeth, brush his hair, maybe shave), but not enough for me. I’m still clambering to put on socks and brush my hair when he calls from the open garage that it’s time to leave. Prom preparations are also a good example. While I took 3 hours to do everything I needed to do last year, my date probably took around 30 minutes to prepare. Yes, I did feel more confident when I walked out the door with my dark blue dress and perfectly curled hair, but it makes me jealous that the opposite gender does not go through great pains to improve their appearance. I strive to look the best I can in the time span that I have, daily. Sure, I have lazy days and bad hair days, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I work to make my eyes look bigger with eyeliner, my skin flawless with tedious skin care, my waist thinner by limiting consumption. I feel as if the awareness of “natural selection” makes me want to look better in order to make me feel better about myself as well as to make sure that others will look at me and not turn away in disgust. It’s an arms race to see who can win the game of sexual selection. The games played a little differently in each section of the globe... but the general rules remain the same. Although the basis behind beauty may seem to be just a culturally influenced phenomenon, psychologists and anthropologists argue otherwise. Psychologists Anthony Little and David Perrett argue that if different people from different cultures are able to agree upon what faces are attractive and what faces are not, there must be a similar criteria that most humans naturally follow. Plato wrote of “golden proportions” in order to try to make sense of the thought of a fundamental tendency (1). According to Kendra Schmid of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the golden ratio between the length and width of the face is 1.6; Only the stunning Cindy Crawford and Helen of Troy, a woman from ancient Greece known for her physical perfection, seem to fit this ratio (4). Today, symmetry between the left and right sides of the face is thought to be the most attractive to the human eye (1). Not only is this tendency found in humans, but it is also found in animals as well, showing that it is a natural inclination and not something that humans have adapted through their cultures. Even infants seem to share this notion. In an experiment, Judith Langlois of the University of Texas, Austin placed pictures of different women’s faces in front of 3 to 6 month old babies and found that the babies looked at the “attractive” women’s faces significantly longer than that of the more “unattractive” counterparts. She says that even though they have never been under the influence of the media, they “make the same judgements as adults” (3). With this facial symmetry, potential mates are displaying a mate value, showing their strong immune systems and developmental stability (1). Biologists have long used bilateral symmetry with components such as wings, eyes, and ears in order to figure out ideal growing conditions. Factors such as pollution, disease, and in general, genetic mutations, cause animals to become asymmetrical (3). Not only do the lucky animals find mates more quickly and reproduce, they are more likely to survive and are more desirable to produce strong offspring. These beautiful ones have the means to “buy” the biologically expensive beauty, unlike their uglier counterparts who are using their immune system to sustain their health, rather than their physical appearance. Everytime I whip out an eyeliner pencil, I have to carefully draw the black lines to make my eyes look identical. Although this isn’t naturally part of my attributes, I can use these lines to make my eyes have the same shape and size. I have one eyelid that sometimes slips into a double eyelid, depending on how tired my eyes are, while the other is always a monolid. I even have double eyelid glue, a popular item used by girls in Japan, given to me by a friend, stocked in the back of drawer in case of emergencies. By making sure that my eyes are identical looking, I look more awake and less as if I just woken up or have an allergy attack. Biological proportions are also key to the beauty of an individual... especially in women. In addition to the symmetry in her two sides, her curves are also a stamp of biological premium quality, signifying her internal health. During puberty, a female gains at average of 35 pounds of adipose tissue or reproductive fat on her hips and thigh areas. This fat is essential for sustaining the fetus during the nine-month pregnancy, containing about 80,000 calories for that sole purpose (3). Healthy, fertile women have an average WHR, waist-to-hip ratios, of about .7. Meaning, there is more tissue on the hips and derriere than on the stomach area (1). With this proportion, which can be seen from a distance, a woman is more likely to be healthy and be able to produce a thriving family. However, women who have higher WHRs, meaning more fat deposits on the stomach rather than the lower region, are more likely to suffer from an illness (1). A 1993 study in the Netherlands discovered that even a slight increase in this delicate ratio can signal reproductive problems (3), confirming that health is closely related to what measuring instruments perceive as beautiful. From these studies, it seems that primitive sexual selection is still playing a key role in our urge to find the perfect mate. However, you could question whether we really can just “eyeball” these ratios and symmetries. Does a man lifting weights across the room from a woman on a treadmill really know that the woman really has the .7 WHR? Can he tell that her eyebrows are not “twins” and that one arches slightly more to the outside? Can he tell that her left ear is slightly longer than her right from that far away? It’s odd how we are able to tell what’s attractive without rulers and pencils in hand, but studies have shown there really is an importance in symmetry. Victor Johnson of the New Mexico State University uses an application called FacePrints in order to merge faces of almost symmetrical appearances in order to create the “perfect face”. He asked his subjects to rate each face 1 to 10 (1). Schmid claims that most faces would average from a 4 to a 6 (4). Only the merged photographs received tens in the experiment. Yet, its not as clear cut as the biological world makes it seem to be. Yes, symmetry is an important basis in any culture’s beauty standards.