{"id":184,"date":"2025-10-14T09:18:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/sociologyofeverydaylife\/?post_type=content&p=184"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:08:13","slug":"chapter-11","status":"publish","type":"content","link":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/sociologyofeverydaylife\/students\/chapter-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 11 \u2013 Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Chapter 11 \u2013 Beauty<\/h1>\n\n\n
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Chapter Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What do you think of as \u201cbeautiful\u201d or \u201cattractive\u201d in a person? Our ideas of physical attraction feel deeply personal and have powerful implications for our self-worth and relationship to our bodies. While people often say that beauty is in the \u201ceye of the beholder\u201d, sociology can show us how beauty ideals are not simply individual preferences but are social constructions. In this chapter, we look critically at beauty ideals through the lens of intersectionality\u2014a sociological perspective that examines how various systems of inequality work together. We examine how beauty is both an ideology and an industry. As an ideology, physical appearance ideals can obscure inequalities relating to gender, race, class and body size. As an industry, beauty is implicated in the drive to sell more products, as well as a sense of body dissatisfaction\u2014a culture of \u201clack\u201d\u2014that motivates us to keep shopping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Further Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kuipers, Giselinde. 2022. \u201cThe Expanding Beauty Regime: Or, Why It Has Become So Important to Look Good.\u201d Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty<\/em> 13(2):207\u2013228.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giselinde Kuipers explores the increasing importance of physical appearance in contemporary life. The article argues that since the late 19th century, historical developments including visual and consumer culture, democratization, the service economy, and new media have elevated the social significance of beauty, embedding it into evaluations of personal and moral worth. Kuipers argues that these historical transformations have contributed to a self-reinforcing cycle of rising appearance standards: increasing access to beauty practices continually raises societal expectations and intensifies pressures to meet elusive, ever-evolving ideals. Although beauty products and practices\u2013once reserved for elites\u2013are increasingly accessible, this \u201cdemocratization\u201d of beauty also generates new inequalities as beauty becomes a resource that disproportionately benefits those with the means to cultivate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion questions<\/summary>\n
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  • How does Kuipers define the \u201cbeauty regime,\u201d and how has it evolved over time? What key historical developments have contributed to the increasing importance of beauty in social life?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • How has the expansion of the service economy intensified the need to \u201clook good\u201d? What kinds of occupations face the highest demands for appearance?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • How do fashion and beauty trends in consumer culture create pressures for individuals to continually invest in their appearance?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • In what ways does expanded access to beauty resources simultaneously create new forms of exclusion and inequality?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • How has the rise of social media affected the way beauty is defined, practiced, and evaluated in contemporary societies?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

    Hunter, Margaret. 2021. \u201cColorism and the Racial Politics of Beauty.\u201d In Maxine L. Craig (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Beauty Politics, 1st ed<\/em>., 85\u201393. Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This short chapter examines the origins of hegemonic beauty standards, which prioritize lighter skin tones, in systems of colorism and racism. It argues that colorism operates as a subsystem of structural racism, conferring unearned privileges to those with lighter skin while embedding inequalities into institutions like education, employment, and the justice system. Drawing on the concept of \u201cracial capital,\u201d the author explains how physical traits associated with whiteness translate into social and economic advantages, often pursued through practices such as skin bleaching and cosmetic surgery. By framing these practices as responses to and negotiations of systemic discrimination rather than acts of self-hate, the text calls for a nuanced understanding of racism as enabled, perpetuated, and potentially contested by everyday beauty practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Discussion questions<\/summary>\n
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    • How do global beauty standards reflect and reinforce inequalities of race? What is the role of colorism in shaping these dynamics?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What is the concept of \u201cracial capital,\u201d and how does it explain the social and economic advantages associated with lighter skin tones?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How do racist beauty standards impact women of color compared to men of color?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What strategies might individuals and communities use to resist colorism and challenge the hegemony of Eurocentric beauty standards?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

      Kang, Miliann. 2003. \u201cThe Managed Hand: The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean Immigrant\u2013Owned Nail Salons.\u201d Gender & Society<\/em> 17(6): 820-839.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Miliann Kang\u2019s ethnographic study explores how gendered, racialized, and classed dynamics shape the provision of body labor\u2014a combination of physical and emotional work\u2013in the context of Korean immigrant-owned nail salons. Through an intersectional lens, the study identifies three patterns of body labor shaped by race, gender, and class: high-service (for white middle-class clients), expressive (for Black working-class clients), and routinized labor (for racially mixed lower-middle-class clients). Kang argues that these practices reflect broader inequalities, as nail salon workers adapt their services to clients\u2019 social locations. Ultimately, the ethnographic analysis highlights how gendered service work both reproduces and provides opportunities to contest existing social hierarchies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Discussion questions<\/summary>\n
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      • How does Kang\u2019s concept of \u201cbody labor\u201d expand on Hochschild\u2019s idea of emotional labor? In what ways does the maintenance of beauty standards rely on the labor of marginalized others?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • What are the defining characteristics of high-service, expressive, and routinized body labor? How do these patterns reflect the socioeconomic and racial composition of the clientele?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • How do the differing expectations of clients reflect socially situated (classed and racialized) norms about femininity, beauty, and respect? How do these expectations affect the workers\u2019 experiences at work?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • In what ways does the body work performed in nail salons create opportunities to challenge racial, gender, and class inequalities?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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        Quizzes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

        Test your knowledge with the Chapter 11 quizzes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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        Quiz<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n