Men’s Narrow-mindedness Women

20 Years have changed, but the social pressure still fetter women till now on, even though it is not always in the similar way as in the previous age. The discriminations and unpleasant treatment to the women as seen in the Shallow Hal movie are the example of the men’s narrow-mindedness in seeing beauty. they define beauty and perfectness in women based on their ideal body like images which capitalism attempt to carry on in the media exposure, slim, good skin, and beautiful. Wolf 1991, Bauman 1992, Giddens 1991, and Shilling 1993 have argued that within a cultural framework of late capitalism, in a consumer culture, people are obsessed with appearance. The status of body has been transformed from a fixated natural given to a malleable cultural product. As the result of that, women who feel imperfect physically obsession to try hard to lose some pounds of their weight, although they have to face eating disorder for getting ideal body as they dream of. As cited by Maasik and Salomon 2006:488, Naomi Wolf in The Beauty of Myth argued that industries and glamorous fashion photography that promotes female beauty. But these pleasures are provided only for the male spectator. Whilst the women are the object, not the subjects of the gaze and their bodies are eroticized and often fragmented. Therefore, men will be more fixated on women outside appearance rather than personality. These are some examples of capitalism effects which have reduced the meaning of true beauty.

2.3.3 Men’s Narrow-mindedness

The discrimination toward women is not only about their position as subordinate in social and cultural life, but also as an individual who become the 21 victim of sexual judgment of men’s narrow-mindedness. Fisher 1999:233 argued that men are beguiled by beauty. So that, the narrow-mindedness here means the men judge women based on their outside look solely. Fisher 1999:234 stated that were interested than women in a partner’s physical appearance, particularly youth and beauty. This inclination leads men trapped into his mistaken defining beauty. For women, it caused a sense of self- hatred when they find imperfectness in themselves. Therefore, it is not any longer as an ordinary issue, but rather it has shifted into political problem. Gamble stated that idealized forms of women’s bodies are objectified by various as the victim the object to satisfy men desire, like in the way they are dressing, concerning appearance and having diet to go get ideal weight. Besides, the new culture which recently famous among society, they are cosmetics, and a standard of ideal objectification and to fulfill cultural claim about beauty, 200:94. Actually, the beauty which most people believe is a set up that formed by some groups who had intention of this situation. The patriarchy and the capitalism had affected society in interpreting it. Maasik and Salomon stated that ‘beauty’ is a currency system like gold standard. It is determined by politics, best belief that keeps male dominance intact, 2006:488. Related to this study, the politics deals with the capitalism era when the capitalism can take benefit by persuading their service or beauty product from people who are obsessed with appearance. Then, the best belief is related to the role of the media in forming public perception about the meaning of beauty. By broadcasting, implicitly and unconsciously they 22 program people mindset to make them believe what is beautiful and what is not. As stated by Gamble 2006:95 that women’s perspective of ideal body in the 1990s should be slim and youthful, as personified by a model named Kate Moss.

2.3.4 Women’s Self Development