Society’s impact on body image

In the animal kingdom laws of attraction exist for drawing the most desirable mates and increasing chances of reproductive success. More often then not, it is the male of the species that dons the more impressive features, sings the merrier song or wears the most colorful coat in attempts to attract the female. While the females watch the displays put on and listen to the mating calls, the males put on their best show hoping to win the most fertile female. Take for example the northern cardinal. Like many male birds the northern cardinal has more colorful and vibrant feathers than their female counterparts. These bright feathers signal health with brighter feathers seen as clues to a healthier male, helping to attract females (New Hampshire Public Television, 2008). Indeed the males in the animal kingdom stop at nothing to impress their females and the stakes are often high with female reproductively being the key to continuing a species or its endangerment. Although at the top of the food chain, humans are also a part of the animal kingdom. However for humans, it is the burden of the women to attract their men and this has evolved into complex definitions of beauty and fertility for women.
Independent of culture or time, beauty in women has been sought, defined and exemplified by evolution, society and men. From the curvaceousness of a Boticellian woman to the sensual curves of Marilyn Monroe, there is no denying that there exist factors, unchanging throughout time, which detect and define the standards of beauty showing the clear line between what is unattractive and what is alluring, what is repelling and what is beautiful. Men have become observers, voyeurs waiting to be impressed and women have become the watched objects, judged by their appearances for clues to their fertility. These standards of beauty created over time by men in power have resulted in power-knowledge struggles (Foucault, 1995) that influence women’s self-image and ideas of acceptable body image in society regardless of the absence of explicitly expressed desirability. In this essay the evolutionary standards of beauty will be explored through the lens of the Panoptican Theory to determine the real impact of society on a woman’s body image.
When studied through evolutionary theories human attraction is defined as external traits and appearances which give clues to one’s health and fertility. According to evolutionary psychologist Robyn Dunbar, “when a person possesses characteristics that have been connected over time with increased fertility the person is seen as more attractive,” (Dunbar, 2007) which in modern society has become synonymous with beauty. Because the exclusive function of attraction is ultimately reproduction, investing in partners who appear fertile raises the reproductive success of that relationship.

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