SONNET 130My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rareAs any she belied with false compare.

Changing Ideals of Beauty

Renaissance Beauty 15th Century

Elizabethan Beauty 16th Century

Victorian Beauty 19th Century

Turn of the Century 1890-1910

Jazz Age 1920’s

Post Depression 1930’s

Bette Davis

The War Years 1940’s

Betty Grable

Post War Beauty 1950’s

1960’s

Model Twiggy

1970’s

Farah Fawcett

1980’s1980’s

1990’s1990’s

Kate Moss

Post Millennium

The following statistics are a sampling of results from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty:

• Only 2% of these women describe themselves as “beautiful”

• About 3/4 of them rate their beauty as "average"

• Almost 1/2 of them think their weight is "too high"

The previous findings are particularly the case in the U.S. (60%), Great Britain (57%) and Canada (54%).

Statistics

• Almost half of all women (48%) strongly agreed (8, 9, or 10 on a 10-point scale) with the statement that: “When I feel less beautiful, I feel worse about myself in general.”

• Just 13% of all women say they are very satisfied with their beauty, 12% with their physical attractiveness, 17% with their facial attractiveness and 13% with their body weight and shape.

• The study revealed that women see beauty and physical attractiveness as increasingly socially mandated and rewarded. Almost two-thirds strongly agreed that: “Women today are expected to be more physically attractive than their mother’s generation was” (63%); and, “Society expects women to enhance their physical attractiveness” (60%).

Changing Beauty in Arthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

Dove Evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Videos

Discussion Questions•What is your standard of beauty?

•Do cultural ideals effect your perception of what is considered “beautiful”?

•How are these cultural standards unfair?

•How can you challenge these standards?

•How have ideals changed since Shakespeare’s time?