In men, good looks is a whole, something taken in at a glance.
Susan Sontag (1975)
Do we own our beauty? Without a doubt, a woman’s beauty is examined in multiple parts by herself and those around her. Sontag argues that men are different. A man’s beauty is determined by the sum of a man’s parts, and imperfections are not imperfections. They might be for women, but a man’s imperfections serve to enhance his beauty. While this might have been generally true when written by Sontag, this sentiment is not accurate to the modern day.
The cosmetic industry has undeniably targeted women through marketing to amplify insecurity. Insecurity is an effective way to generate profit and has practically built the empires of makeup brands. Cosmetics are traditionally for women; however, of course, that is changing. Only fifty percent of the population was stripped of their value through insecurity at this time, but a new industry has targeted men’s beauty and fragmented it.
The fitness industry is comparable to the cosmetic industry, each targeting a specific gender. Both target both gender binaries, but they each have one they focus on. The fitness industry is somewhat different in terms of its fragmentation compared to cosmetics. Fitness specifically targets individual body parts rather than parts of the face, like cosmetics. Gyms have been hijacked as solutions to men’s insecurities rather than improving their health. A healthy physical body is no longer the goal of fitness or gyms. The goal is to make the newly fragmented male body more attractive by individual parts for whomever a man desires for sex.
One thing Sontag fails to mention, which is not completely her fault, is how people’s beauty outside of the gender binary is fragmented. One of two things is possible. Either people outside of the gender binary are free from the bonds of fragmentation, or both the body and face are equally fragmented. However, it seems sentiments may lean more towards the ladder. In a capitalistic society, the mode is profits, and it would be logical for organizations to fragment the beauty of all people to extract wealth from their insecurity. Have they succeeded? At this point in time, probably not. However, once non-binary people become more broadly accepted, it is likely that they will face both forms of fragmentation.
This concept can be stretched further, however. What if society was genderless? How would beauty look on an individual level? One of two things seems plausible. If there is no gender, then either individuals will have all components of their beauty fragmented or beauty will be once again a whole. Both seem equally plausible, but for different reasons.
In our current system of capitalism and profit-driven motives, it is likely that companies will work in tandem, each corrupting the individual’s sense of security. A genderless society would see an individual completely shattered into all different parts. Every insecurity would have a fix, and everyone would have that insecurity. A genderless society might give companies the power to create hegemonic dominance over humanity’s insecurity.
However, this disruption of a gender binary might do the complete opposite. Each individual has become their own without any standards of gender; therefore, companies cannot target specific standards as there are no standards. Hegemonic dominance would no longer be possible. Everyone creates their own standards of beauty, so beauty is once again a unified force rather than a fragment. An individual would be a whole rather than the sum of its parts.
The sad truth is that society generally trends toward the greatest amount of wealth extraction. It is evident that both cosmetics and fitness have bled into each other’s target audiences without affecting their profits. They are not competitors; they are cooperators, and the more people’s beauty is fragmented, the more they will target everyone’s insecurities equally. Even if society’s gender standards radically change, beauty will likely still be fragmented. Is there a way to reclaim our beauty? Is the fusion of beauty back into a whole based on the individual, or is it something everyone needs to embrace for it to become reality?
References
On Women — Susan Sontag (pg. 89-93)