Lecture: Beauty & Feminism (A Distortion From the Truth)

Name & Title: Dr. Gordon CHIU Yui Wai (Honorary Professor, S&T)
Location: Open University
Lecture Style: Online/Live
Email contact: dr.chiu@gordonyourself.com; gchiu@ouhk.edu.hk
Time: 9:30 am-11:30am Hong Kong Time
Date: 4th March 2009
Office Telephone no. : 27686866
Address: Room A0914, School of Science & Technology
The Open University of Hong Kong
30 Good Shepherd Street, Homantin, Kowloon

Online/Offline References:
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (London: Chapman and Hall, 1859)
Malèna (2000) Movie
Huffington Post Lashes Out at Vogue's Photoshop Usage for "The Perfect Woman"
Beauty & Breast Issues in Hong Kong
Ladies Pro-Feminism
Ladies Against Feminism
Views on Feminism from Christian Churches

Outline of Lecture on Beauty & Feminism (outline is a supplemental walkthrough and is NOT meant to replace the 2 hrs of lecture/discussions)

Definition of Beauty: Greek origin: -being of the hour, seizing the moment

Some measures of beauty:

• Symmetry & balance


• Youthfulness


• Additional examples during class discussion

Advantages?: faster advancment?, higher grades in school, better treatment by certain admirers, a subjective yet often measured criteria in society

Disadvantages?: Watch movie Malèna (2000).

Note: Studies have shown that attractive looking criminals have received lighter sentences than less attractive criminals.

Definition of Feminism: Belief that women should have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men.

Historically, this has caused a great divide amongst traditional feminists who believe that the beauty industry is made to prey upon the weaker females and to increase their sufferings.

The movie Malèna is set in 1940 Italy during World War II. During these poverty stricken times, a woman's beauty was shunned by the villagers.



Recent statement by feminists:
"The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us ... During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty ... pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and millions of women worldwide have told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal ... More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers!!"

Historically:
Women had a role in balancing the family.

The feminist movement while real became quickly used by marketers, economists and corporations. After World War II, tough economic times were abound and marketing efforts for treating women as equals was the perfect answer to increasing the income of the family. This would allow educational, property and general taxes to be increased substantially. Affordability would rise and pretty soon, consumption would follow. The amount of time that women would lose eventually could be offset by buying consumer goods. The damages to family life would create new social work opportunities as well as attorney's career based on divorce cases.

Point of No Return, "The Perfect Woman Idea":

In 1969, Vogue magazine made the breakthrough that has evolved into the cast-iron Beauty Myth of today.

"Vogue began to focus on the body as much as on the clothes ... In a stunning move, an entire replacement culture was developed by naming a 'problem' where it had scarcely existed before, centering it on the women's natural state, and elevating it to the existential female dilemma ...

The number of diet-related articles rose 70 percent from 1968 to 1972 ... The lucrative 'transfer of guilt' was resurrected just in time."

We are bombarded today with images of the "perfect" woman. She is tall and willowy, weighing at least 20% less than what her height requires. She rarely looks older than 25, has no visible flaws on her skin, and her hair and clothes are always immaculate. One "perfect woman" looks pretty much like the next; she is essentially not human, interchangeable and disposable. In fact, quite often she is presented in bits and pieces like a mannequin- -a torso, some legs, a shapely fanny--completing the assembly- line metaphor.

Today's culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. And if you're not perfect or strive to be perfect, you could easily lose your relationship.

Time has become so stretched that dating services are popping up with new concepts "who has time for a dinner date & movie anymore?" Example: http://www.hkspeeddate.com/


The Perfect Storm for Change:

Consumers & investors get the "royal cheatment"

• Economic & global collapse of falsehoods & lies


• Open University offers a degree based program in beauty


• Safety issues in cosmetics and skincare


• Unscrupulous surgeries makes actresses look deformed and wax-like


• Global climate changes outlaws the use of caviar (i.e. La Prarie)

Smarter consumers are noticing that there is more than just ingredients and packaging on a bottle just like all great stories use words found in any dictionary. How the words are put together makes all the difference.

Example:

The words:

1. It


2. Was


3. The


4. Best


5. Of


6. Times


7. And


8. Worst

Form:

It was the best of times and the worst of times -Charles Dickens

By being creative with his combination/formulation of words into powerful sentences, Charles Dickens was the most popular English novelist during the Victorian era!!

Skincare and beauty formulation is no different. While there are many formulations on the market, how you sequentially combine them will ultimately lead to different results. The "how" of combining is determined by your philosophy. If you have the wrong philosophy, the formulation maybe enjoyed as hype but not as a long lasting approach to beauty.

Hype can cause pain & suffering:

1980's - 2009 version of healthy: Diet & exercise

1. Counting your calories (no regard to food source (mold, toxins, preservatives), storage conditions (moist vs. dry, overheated juices in bottles are cooled only at the stores) or combination of the foods (some foods should never be combined i.e. tomatoes + potatoes) )


2. Exercising in enclosed environments = increase your metabolism and just burn it off (Gym, Yoga etc. in locations that could have either mold or sick building syndrome.)

According to some leading researchers, "this has lead to more cases of chronic sicknesses since sliced bread!!"

5 Day Hermit Crab Study on Sugar + Mold Generation:
A mold study with Caribbean Hermit Crabs indicates that substance CC (aka substance double C) enables the species to be resistant to mold and to protect the surroundings. However, this protection can be compromised if the sugar level is artificially escalated above its threshold. In the experiment, the sugar level is raised for 5 days using a 2" slice of Asian pear. The substance CC is unable to stop the mold growth especially at contact with the Asian pear due to an overabundance of mold food (sugar). While substance CC remains protective to the Caribbean Hermit Crabs, the sand has become compromised. If the conditions are not changed, the health of the hermit crab will be decreased due to the overproduction of substance CC. At some point, the advancing growth stages of the mold will eventually harm the hermit crab.

Unfortunately, humans don't produce substance CC. And numerous complaints can arise from allergies to headaches and even cancer.

Human Species Earn & Burn Concept Fails to Prevent Chronic Metabolic Disorders:

Counting calories does not distinguish which foods will provide a complete burn, create residual waste, reactive by-products or irratic swings in the metabolism.

Examples of chronic metabolic disorders:

1. Diabetes


2. Depression


3. Adrenal insufficiency


4. Thyroid (hypo/hyper)


5. Many forms of cancer

Medical definition:

Diabetes is the name given to a collection of diseases that have elevations in blood glucose levels in common. Population studies have defined cutoff levels of glycemia that are eventually associated with increased microvascular disease such as retinopathy. Two replicate fasting levels that exceed 126 mg/dl (>7 mM) are diagnostic in the absence of symptoms. Persons with fasting levels between 110 and 126 mg/dl are at risk of diabetes (impaired fasting glycemia). Replicate, 2-h glycemic responses >200 mg/dl (>11.1 mM) after a standard oral glucose tolerance test indicates diabetes also. This stage is often reached, however, before the fasting glucose levels are seen to rise. Type 1 diabetes comprises those forms of diabetes that are primarily due to insulin deficiency, however a relative insulin deficiency also is part of type 2 diabetes, which is however less severe, though it is compounded by degrees of insulin resistance, often associated with obesity. Long-term type 2 diabetes is complicated by glucose (glucosamine) toxicity, which decreases the patients' abilities to secrete insulin further, leading to diagnostic confusion with type 1 diabetes. Whereas type 2 diabetes is usually strongly familial, type 1 is much less so, having only one member of the family so affected in 90 percent of cases.

Topic for another time:
Perhaps the unstoppable rising costs of healthcare will make us all evaluate whether the excessive prescribing of medications is helpful or harmful on a longer term basis.

In Conclusion:

Peace, equality and love need to be supported together. It is clearly evident that feminism has been utilized by the beauty industry as a lucrative marketing tool preying on the disatisfied working woman and her desires. This has left the unsuspecting female consumer to be burdened with the stark reality that these miracle promises come at an even heavier price.

Dr. Chiu firmly believes that the current ecological, economic, educational and health problems have created a perfect storm for change. Consumers will be increasingly critical and requiring the companies step up in their 'works'. If they are going to buy something, it had better be:

1. Safe


2. Effective


3. Earth Friendly


4. Kind