Cosmetology

The work of women photographers and photographs of women. Explores the intersection of feminism and art.

A look at the beauty myth exposes the unrealistic, impossible standards of female beauty as destructive social control, asserting that the myth of female perfection is created by the media and the diet, fashion, and cosmetic industries.

Throughout the history of the Western world, countless attempts have been made to define beauty in art and life, especially with regard to women's bodies and faces. Facing Beauty examines concepts of female beauty in terms of the ideal and the real, investigating paradigms of beauty as represented in art and literature and how beauty has been enhanced by cosmetics and hairstyles. This thought-provoking book discusses the shifting perceptions of female beauty, concentrating on the period from about 1540 to 1940.

Looks at older women's complex and often contradictory feelings about their bodies and the physical realities of growing older, especially in the present day's youth-obsessed culture.