Because culture says that women never look good enough.

[butterfly]

I'm mostly putting this here as a personal reminder of how Western (specifically American, in this case) society works to destroy female self-image.

At the Iwanex Studio website, under their portfolio section, you can see some of the retouched photos of celebrities that they've done... when you scroll over the image, you can see what the picture looked like before it was photoshopped. See Cameron Diaz's breasts reshaped and her arms and legs made smaller! See freckles disappear! See Julia Stiles' breasts and hips grow! Watch as women are given uniform 'hourglass' figures!

They fuck with some guys' appearances, too, but not to the same extent.

Comments

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I think they see this type of photography as art, and just like a portrait painting, you can well, make things look nicer.

I don't think Queen Elizabeth the 1st looked as great as paintings made her out to be either, at least now we can see the truth, those women's magazines are just as obsessed at taking unflattering photos and plastering them on the covers as well. I distinctly recall a Mischa Barton in swimwear with obvious cellulite on one cover not so long ago, of course it's now Mischa Barton looking like a skeleton, so it varies.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure classifying it as art makes it any less damaging to young women's sense of self-value. When nicer means 'physically impossible for the majority of people', it can cause a lot of pain.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I'm not disagreeing entirely, but there is a demand for this, and where there is demand there is supply. *shrug*

I have no answers.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely agree that there's demand. Just as there was demand in England for tightly-laced corsets that deformed the torso and inhibited breathing, just as there was demand for extreme footbinding in some parts of Chinese culture that led to three-inch long 'lotus feet' (which are, um, terrifying). What women are told they need to look like is often very damaging to them.