DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OF BEAUTY AROUND THE GLOBE

Western culture has largely influenced women around the world, leaving their own cultural norm to be able to adopt the western perception of beauty and by using media and films to dominate the mind of the women in other places. But, surprisingly western norms have not actually affected the conventions in the eastern countries like China, japan, and South Korea. Meanwhile, many Asian regions have adopted their own meaning of glamour and other beauty trends.

Around the world, body ideals can be dissimilar in tremendous ways. This particular cultural norm affects most women around the globe, and, therefore, there is a major contrast between the Western cultures compared to the East/Asia. In some instances, these two particular cultures have a complete opposite definition of the word ‘beauty’.

It is important to understand as to how the body ideals in the world are dissimilar in tremendous ways. According to research, women from Europe or the United States of America prefer curvy or busty appearances. Besides that, tanning has also been introduced as a form of beauty in the Western culture, started in the 1920s by Coco Chanel. Today, most western women would sit during the summer on beaches to look darker. Women have also been seen using skin tanners and sunbathes on the beach so as to darken or tan their skin and have tan lines, which seem attractive and a form of beauty appearance. Of course, there are also other ways through which one’s beauty can be measured in the West. For example, corsets were used so as to differentiate between waists and hips in a women. However, corsets are rarely used by females in modern times.

It is also quite apparent as to how the Asian culture of beauty and similar values differ in contrast to the Western culture. The Asian culture has not been influenced by the Western media. Asians still follow the trend of Victorian era women. Hence, light skin tone is key to the word ‘beauty’ in Asia today. In China, if one is darker than others, then automatically others would assume that this person is from the rural countryside and that this particular person works in agricultural or manual labor industries. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women see V-shaped chins and double eye-lids as a form of facial glamour and it is a norm that all girls should have to be considered attractive. Huge cleavage and hips is a big refusal in Asia. Studies have also found that Asian women have breasts that are not bigger than the breast size of D cups.

Furthermore, fashion differs in both Eastern and Western cultures. In Eastern cultures, fashion is more about erotic displays of women and erotic clothing such as lingerie and bikinis. In Eastern culture, however, fashion is more likely to be introduced to the audience as a means of representing the cultural values of a nation or ethnic society within a particular Eastern nation. This is how both cultures differ variably in their motives and appearances of fashion shows.

In conclusion, body images in Western society and media have not influenced or dominated the Eastern perception of beauty. In this manner, both the Eastern cultures and Western cultures toward beauty are different from one another. Beauty and fashion has been separated in these two cultures for over centuries now and will continue to be that way in the foreseeable future. Comparing Western and Eastern beauty can be seen as a contrast of two completely different worlds. Therefore, the disparity of body images and the word ‘beauty’ are enormous and nothing alike.