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6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful

  • Maria Borges

    Maria Borges is full professor of Philosophy at the University of Santa Catarina (Brazil). She is the author of Emotion, Reason and Action in Kant (Bloomsbury, 2019), editor of the collection Justice and Democracy in Brazil (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023), Filosofia Feminista (Feminist Philosophy) (SENACSP, 2023) and Amor e Dor (Love and Pain) (Editora da UFSC, forthcoming). She published, with Cinara Nahra, the book Body and Justice (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). Her philosophical interests are Kant, ethics, theory of emotions and feminist philosophy.
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Women and Their Body
This chapter is in the book Women and Their Body

Abstract

In this chapter, I aim at analyzing the importance of beauty for contemporary women. I begin by showing some traditional views in the history of philosophy, such as Kant’s conception that “woman is beautiful while man is sublime.” I claim that beauty is still considered one of the main assets for women, not only in the “dating scene” but also in the pursue of a carrier. I show the criticism of beauty practices in the feminist literature. From the 20th century on, we see that aesthetic procedures and cosmetic surgeries can be enjoyed by an increasing number of women. If, on the one hand, this indicates a greater autonomy in relation to the body, on the other hand, being beautiful becomes a moral duty. At the end, I investigate whether beauty is always oppressive, or we could create a new inclusive idea that incorporates a plurality of bodies.

Abstract

In this chapter, I aim at analyzing the importance of beauty for contemporary women. I begin by showing some traditional views in the history of philosophy, such as Kant’s conception that “woman is beautiful while man is sublime.” I claim that beauty is still considered one of the main assets for women, not only in the “dating scene” but also in the pursue of a carrier. I show the criticism of beauty practices in the feminist literature. From the 20th century on, we see that aesthetic procedures and cosmetic surgeries can be enjoyed by an increasing number of women. If, on the one hand, this indicates a greater autonomy in relation to the body, on the other hand, being beautiful becomes a moral duty. At the end, I investigate whether beauty is always oppressive, or we could create a new inclusive idea that incorporates a plurality of bodies.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter V
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. List of Abbreviations
  4. 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
  5. Part I The Feminist Perspective
  6. 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
  7. 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
  8. 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
  9. 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
  10. 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
  11. 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
  12. Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
  13. 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
  14. 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
  15. 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
  16. 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
  17. 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
  18. Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
  19. 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
  20. 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
  21. 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
  22. 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
  23. Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
  24. 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
  25. 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
  26. 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
  27. 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
  28. List of Contributors 339
  29. List of names
  30. List of subjects
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111396934-007

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter V
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. List of Abbreviations
  4. 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
  5. Part I The Feminist Perspective
  6. 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
  7. 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
  8. 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
  9. 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
  10. 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
  11. 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
  12. Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
  13. 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
  14. 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
  15. 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
  16. 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
  17. 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
  18. Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
  19. 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
  20. 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
  21. 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
  22. 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
  23. Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
  24. 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
  25. 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
  26. 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
  27. 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
  28. List of Contributors 339
  29. List of names
  30. List of subjects
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