I need help. I would like to know if I can be provided with, or find material concerning women dealing with societal pressures of being beautiful, or wanting to be, as depicted in the media. i would like to know if there are any web links to such issues.

thanks,

Insiyah SAeed

-- insiyah Saeed (isaeed@knox.edu), February 07, 2000

Answers

Insiyah, I wish I had a specific site to suggest, but my heart sees that no one else has made any suggestions. So, I will share the one that hit me when I read your post. Naomi Woolfe wrote a book. "The Beauty Myth" Why don't you search either of those subjects, and see if they lead you anywhere? Common gals, there must be some other ideas we can share here. Jan

-- Jan Dymond (jan.dymond@cablelab.net), March 04, 2000.

CONTACT, the Scottish Borders Businesswomen's Group, had a request last week from a producer with Channel 4 which is making a series on the theme of "Doing Without". One of the progs they will do is on the matter of businesswomen and make-up:self perception and other's perceptions.

I copy below some of the text from the communication and the contact details of Leesa. May be worth contacting her for info/ideas?

leesa@FulcrumTV.com

Section Channel 4 request to CONTACT: We are also looking for a professional woman who wears make-up every day, and for whom it is an integral part of her life. The film would entail her living without make-up for a short period (approximately one week) in order to see how she copes. I must stress that I’m not looking for a woman who necessarily wears a lot of make-up, more a woman who perhaps might feel like a different person without it, and uses it as a mask with which to face the world.

Taking part would entail being followed by our crew during the living without period - but not 24 hours a day! The crew would only be made up of one person for the majority of the filming.

My response: Can I suggest that this idea would be much more acceptable to professional and business women if the focus was on how differently one is treated by others according to whether one is wearing make-up or not? I can assure you there is a considerable difference. So what is interesting is other's perceptions of one knowledge, skill or capability in relation to one's appearance.

Leesa phoned to confirm that this was exactlt the perspective they were interested in.

-- Mary Wilson (mary@interalia.demon.co.uk), March 08, 2000.

There was a TV Programme recently about acute body dysmorphia. Which I understand may be slightly different to media pressure and womens' perception re: make-up ect. I think it was on BBC1 - may be worth getting in contact with them. Should be easy to find info on the net..will contact you direct with general search page findings.

Christine Reid

-- Christine Reid (kr3@aol.com), March 13, 2000.

Regarding breasts and body image: http://womenswire.com/image/breasts2.html

Excellent links and feature articles about body image and the media: http://209.52.189.2/welcome.cfm/female_body_image

Body as history timeline and plastic surgery-related info: http://nm- server.jrn.columbia.edu/projects/masters/bodyimage/history/index.html

There are lots more. Go to a search engine like http://www.metacrawler.com, http://www.dogpile.com, or http://www.google.com and type in a search query like "body image" or whatever else you can come up with--the more specific the better. You can search for famous names of authors or figureheads, but if you do, either search as a phrase or put quotation marks around the name so that it looks for the words together (ie "Barbie Doll"). You can search many engines using boolean logic (barbie or ken and "body image"--means you're looking for anything with the key words barbie and body image or ken and body image).

Remember to follow as many links as you can, and to try searching for as many key words as you can think of (anorexia, eating disorders, diets, dieting, physical appearance, self worth...etc etc).

Good luck!

Briana.

-- Briana Doyle (glowurm@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

Back again with another good site: http://nm- server.jrn.columbia.edu/projects/masters/bodyimage/food/warped_page1.h tml

It talks about the effects of a warped perception of our bodies based on negative images perpetuated by the media and early childhood conditioning.

-- Briana Doyle (glowurm@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

I cannot help you with a web-site,but the German feminist magazine EMMA has published stories on women with anorexia and bulemia aswell as reports on body image of women.There e-mail adress: info@EMMAVerlag.de.Maybe you could ask them for referals.Good luck Susanne Kretschmann,M.D.,Germany

-- Susanne Kretschmann M.D. (soskr@t-online.de), July 21, 2002.