Mary Harris

Original Post

My personal appearance I believe would be described as average. I definitely dress for comfort more than anything else. There is a high probability that I would be wearing jeans and a personally tie-dyed shirt, mainly because I do not know anything else. For as long as I can remember I have dressed myself casually. I would attribute this to the way I was raised. I grew up in a beach community where no shirt, no shoes, did not mean no service. Therefore my apparel was the norm, almost uniform amongst every one else but I never dressed for anyone else, I always dressed for myself and what I would be comfortable in. I am the youngest of three with an older sister so growing up I was used to be given clothes that were already broken in, therefore never really having to take the time to go shop for myself so I never truly developed a style, unless jeans and t-shirts count as style. Because of this, my identity was more formed by this experience, just kind of going with the flow and taking what I got, and it never bothered me. Now that I am older and having to shop for myself, it feels like there is a whole new world. This is a time where I could truly redevelop, or find, my own style but my personal preference is already so biased toward casual apparel that I do not know if it will ever change.

Clothes are not the only way to express one’s personal style. Today there are many ways to do so some that involve just minor changes and some that are much more intensive. The basics including adding accessories such as watches, bracelets, necklaces, and the list can go on and on. The more intensive could be piercings, tattoos or surgeries to find one’s own style or conform to societies. At the age we are now, late teens or early twenties, is definitely a time for exploration. Tattoos and piercings are no longer seen as a rare style choice. A multitude of the population have one or the other, it is more about where they are or how big they that defines one’s style. Unlike clothing, “commercial interests” do not shape piercings and tattoos (Sanders 4). What I mean by this is that there are only so many ways one can wear clothing. There are pants for your legs, shirts for your upper body with some variation to these but not a lot. With piercings and tattoos the options are nearly limitless only bounded by one’s body. The methods by which we can alter our appearance to find a “look” that is suitable to both one’s self as well as society are endless. This is both a blessing and a curse in my opinion. It is a blessing because “physical appearance affects his or her self-definition, identity, and interaction with others” and these methods allow us the opportunity to appear differently or better than we originally see ourselves (Sanders 1). It a curse because this idea that we must modify ourselves to seem more attractive to not only ourselves but also others creates a very self-deprecating society. With the option to improve oneself through surgery or other cosmetics can make people feel as though they are never good enough or that there is always room for improvement.

The origins of body modification date very far bark to tribal times and some of the practices come from a very genuine place while others were meant to portray a false image. Body paint for example, which is the root of modern day tattoos, was used so humans could “differentiate themselves from animals and human beings who do not belong to their tribe” making it essential rather than option (Sanders 4). On the other hand the practice of foot binding and the use of corset’s can be seen as the ground floor of unnecessary irreversible forms of modern body modification. Foot binding was used in China for centuries to represent status among women and those without their feet bound had “significantly reduced chance of marriage” spurring the idea that women should modify themselves to please men (Sanders 7). Corsets were used for the same reason, to make women more appealing to men. This not only gave women the idea that they were not good enough but also that they if they hope to find a husband they must meet certain standards of beauty. All of these examples show the positives and negatives of body modification. In some ways in gives a person the chance to make their body their own and take control while others are used in a submissive manner to meet the unreasonable standards of our society.

Objectives

• Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
• Investigate how physical appearance affects definition of identity and belonging.
• Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, subcultures and generations.

 Reflection

This reading and assignment made me think a lot about the image I put out into the world and if that image is what I truly want people to think of me. Every type of style has a stereotype and therefore we automatically make assumptions about people just due to their outer image. More than anything this assignment made me realize just how much we judge other people due to their appearance. Most of the time those who we associate ourselves with is very much impacted by their attractiveness. Even though we may not know or consciously make decisions based on it, “attractiveness has considerable impact on our social relationships” and many a time that is why people with the same styles tend to be seen with each other (Sanders 1).

I believe that just as we unconsciously judge people on their attractiveness we also unconsciously make style choices based on our culture and upbringing. The way we dress or the tattoos we have are usually seen as a form of personal expression but sometimes they can be connections to a cultural past. I have always that the only certain kind of people get tattoos or piercings when in reality a lot of the time it may not having nothing to do about who that person really is.

Future

After this assignment I will take into account my initial opinions and try not to base them off of how a person looks or dresses. Especially today, when so many different lifestyle and personal choices are accepted, people can now proudly show who they are in many different ways of personal expression. A person’s appearance should be more intriguing than off putting if they have a different style than one’s own. Mainly, I am just going to take away that there are many reasons people choose to get tattoos, pierce themselves or do any other type of modification and therefore I have no way of knowing their reasons and have no right to assume things about them.