In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You

Elizabeth Levin is chair of the Psychology Department at Laurentian
University.

Teenagers have tremendous discretionary income to spend and are subject
to powerful attempts to manipulate their concepts of what is beautiful.
In addition, they are developmentally susceptible to peer pressure, and
feel they are the centre of attraction playing to an imaginary audience,
that it is very important to fit in. In Your Face, a thought-provoking
critical guide to understanding and resisting the culture of beauty,
talks to and not down to teens.

The book begins with a lesson about how “beautiful is good and ugly
is bad” is a prevailing concept in everything from fairy tales to
movies. The roles of body shape and age are also discussed, and another
chapter looks at the double standard as applied to boys and girls. The
power of beauty is explored, and even some disadvantages are pointed out
(e.g., a good-looking guy can be judged very harshly if he doesn’t
demonstrate leadership). Beauty contests are the focus of another
chapter, and some startling facts are revealed (e.g., many men prefer
women heavier than the typical model, and many models have blemishes
that the photographers retouch). Other chapters look at everything from
fantasies (more money is spent on cosmetics than on education) to
models.

In Your Face is easy to read and never preaches. Its purpose is to help
the reader recognize that he or she has choices. It gives the reader
lots to think about. Recommended.