Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so the old saying goes. But what about in the eyes of society?
An intimate gathering of six students met Monday night in 201 Flowers to talk about just that in a discussion entitled "What is Beautiful?"
The event was the first of several group gatherings sponsored by Counseling and Psychological Services that sought to explore popular perceptions of beauty shaped by mainstream advertising and media.
"Contrary to what advertisements tell us, beauty is not something that can be commodified," said Katie Anderson, a senior who led the discussion and is currently writing her thesis on issues of beauty.
With the aide of streaming video and PowerPoint, participants discussed an array of issues such as the ways Barbie affects young girls' body images, Japanese cute culture, anorexia and cosmetic surgery.
Senior Paula Rosine Long said the night provided an opportunity for participants to increase their awareness about subjects that are not talked about as much as they should be.
"I think it would be really great if everyone-male and female-saw something like this and really understood that their own sense of beauty is constructed by outside forces," she said. "So many people are completely oblivious and buy into what is secretly being force-fed."
Monday's discussion was prompted by the Oct. 28 showing of the documentary "America the Beautiful" in the Bryan Center's Griffith Theater. Among the topics surfaced was how society's standard of beauty are manifested on Duke's campus.
Anderson cited "Duke's 25 Hottest Girls" as an example, referring to a Facebook group that ranked Duke girls by the quality of their profile pictures and updates rankings weekly.
"The fact that the creation of such a group was considered normal and the fact that it was so popular is alarming," she said.
At one point, attendees touched upon the role of cosmetic surgery and the ways it has led women to try and attain an unhealthy model of beauty.
"Cosmetic surgery had to create a market by making women dissatisfied with their appearance to the point where it is currently a $1.9 billion industry that is estimated to increase by 8.4 percent annually," said Anderson in front of a Powerpoint presentation that flashed images of women with enlarged breasts, butts and lips.
By the end of the evening, students said they felt they had a better understanding of the forces at play in popular perceptions of beauty.
"The discussion definitely made me more aware," Long said. "Some of the statistics were eye-opening. I was definitely moved by the images of extreme anorexia and the video of cosmetic surgery, which were very powerful."
Senior Megan Ramaiya also said the discussion strengthened her views that beauty is not something that society should determine.
"To me, beauty means filling yourself with things of value and substance and trying to make those things a part of you," she said.
Anderson said the evening was a success because it made people think in new ways about an issue that they encounter every day.
"I guess this sounds kind of cliched, but I want people to feel beautiful as they are and not have to strive to emulate socially constructed standards of beauty," she said.
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