Ancient American Culture Research Paper

Words: 432
Pages: 2

Beauty is an important staple of our culture as a society today, but what is beauty? I believe that beauty is how society views the “ideal”. For example, in Ancient Greece, women with a shapely body, enlarged hips and breasts, were the ideal presumably for the visual signs of fertility. This was the ideal of the time and there are many sculptures from the time period showing Aphrodite portrayed in this way. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty, so naturally, she would be sculpted with the most beautiful figure for the time period. This differs from Ancient Egypt, because the Egyptians were very vain and their ideal was to look like the Queen, Nefertiti, in the way that her face was nearly perfectly symmetrical. It was also ideal …show more content…
This was the ideal of medieval Europe. The Europeans held thin eyebrows, long necks, narrow chests and low, sloping shoulders in high regard. All of these groups of people throughout time had a different idea of what the female figure should look like and what was considered beautiful. This was different because each of these societies had different ideals. They valued different things which influenced their idea of what was aesthetically appealing. In modern America, we are living in a relatively “body positive” society, meaning that we try not to make people feel bad about themselves for not achieving the ideals. This isn’t exactly realistic, because we still have ideals and the representations of those ideals are essentially beauty. In modern America, we tell ourselves that everyone is beautiful, but it would be a lie to say that most young women want to have that “Victoria’s Secret Angel” look. The ideal for us is a skinny stomach, toned arms and legs, clear skin, and no hair below the neck. This look is very difficult to achieve and can be almost dangerous. Many women feel the pressure of society’s ideals and the pressure to look like