Berger Tompkins and Rich
Language and images are usually a way to express what someone is thinking, however, language and images can often restrict our thinking in various ways. Susan Douglas, in her essay ,"Narcissism As Liberation", writes about "the great myth...that superficial appearances can be equated with a person's deepest character strengths and weaknesses"(128). The image of what a "beautiful" and what is not is an image that is constantly restricted in our minds. These restrictions come from television, movies, or many other things that people encounter. John Berger in "Ways of Seeing", proclaims that "men survey woman before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated"(46). This further shows what these restrictions do in our everyday lives. Adrienne Rich in her essay "When We Awaken: Writing As Re-Vision" gives her theories on how to free people from these restrictions mainly through "re-vision". One image that is restricted in our minds is the concept of beauty, that is seen in advertising. These restriction are put on women. The image of what beauty is, in regard to women, is perpetuated though advertising. Through the advertising and on a larger scale the media, women are told
This concept is described as "the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction"(550). Rich plans a way for women to break free from restriction put upon them. If they look beautiful then they will be treated well and maybe just as well as the men are treated. Another way that women are restricted by this image of beauty, is their yearning to pretty because they want be treated as well as men are in our society. They must see through the "I'm worth it" and "'You've come a long way, baby'" slogans that they are "drenched" with all of the time. Adrienne Rich says that some of these restriction can be lifted if a process called re-vision is used. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. Images and language are can often restrict people thinking. about "perfect faces and bodies, and the psychologically , politically, and economically punitive measures taken against women who fail to be young, thin, and beautiful"(133). This process could work for the restricted image of beauty that Berger and Douglas articulate. Women can use this anger and energy to "love each other, to share risk and grief and celebration"(561). These advertisers already know that the method of making women feel inferior is a formula that works. Similar in that not being what is deemed beautiful is a horrible thing to be avoided at all costs. She says that when men wrote about women and that most of them were about beautiful women "threatened with the loss of beauty, the loss of youth-the fate worse than death"(553).
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Acceptance Essays
