Josh Gray

On Body Image, Gender, and Race

In response to the first discussion question, women are encouraged to
become thinner and daintier to align themselves with the images of
other women they see in magazine advertisements, television
commercials, music videos, etc. In general, this trend is acceptable and
should be encouraged as it leads the majority of women to make wiser
choices about their eating, exercise, or posture habits that in turn
promote a rewarding, goal-oriented experience of life. Unfortunately,
there are exceptions to this rule as some women become fixated with
one aspect of their looks, be it a small waist, large buttocks, etc. These
women may develop dangerous conditions such as eating disorders in
an attempt to be more sexually appealing, however this occurs in the
minutia of cases. Similarly, the encouragement of men to become
stronger, or at least to develop defined musculature is overall positive
since it encourages men to adopt healthier habits and builds the
muscles of society, making potentially deadly physical altercations
between men less dangerous (more body tissue to dissipate force of
impact from such things as punches or bullets) and less likely to occur.
Again, as in the case with women, there are some men who take
bulking up to an extreme and develop painful and perhaps dangerous
side effects of supplements such as steroids or excessive protein
powder. Again, however, this occurs in the minutia of cases.
In response to the second discussion question, feminine qualities are in
fact often devalued but only because they are expressed outside of
their proper context. For example, a woman (or man) becoming
emotionally distressed at the site of a dead animal is not a reaction to
be praised since the life or death of an animal is something completely
trivial and should not evoke the compassion or nurturing quality of
a human being. As a further establishment of this point, consider the
Greek city-state of Sparta. Here, the quality of nurturing was highly
valued by all stations of society because it was only applied in its
proper context, the raising of youth. The reason that the qualities of
strength, assertiveness, and control appear to be valued to a greater
extent is because the range of contexts in which these qualities can be
appropriately expressed is much larger than the range in which
feminine qualities can be appropriately expressed. Without loss of
generality, if strength therefore is used in a given situation, it is more
likely that it is being appropriately expressed in said situation, and so
appears to be more valued across the totality of situations. The answer
to the final question about the damage of these qualities is now
clear. Both feminine and masculine qualities are good, it is just that
proper expressions of masculine qualities are able to be more
prevalent in society by their very nature and so therefore appear to be
more valued by members of said society.

Josh Gray

In response to the third discussion question, in countries of the world

where Caucasians are not the majority there is no such thing as the
white beauty standard affecting people of color. In the United States,
there is an overwhelming majority of Caucasians and so people of color
attempting to appeal to the majority choose to resemble Caucasians.