Beauty Demands

The Beauty Demands project aims to bring scholars, practitioners, policy-makers together to consider the changing requirements of beauty. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and aims to build a network of individuals, research groups, and centres of those working on the topic. The assumption of the network is that beauty image is becoming ever more demanding and defining of women, and increasingly men, irrespective of their professions. The project will ask whether this is the case, and how this norm is constituted and how it impacts upon women. It will also ask whether the dominant beauty norm is increasingly a global beauty norm, and thus open to less cultural and sub-cultural resistance. The project is especially concerned with role of technology in this. In particular, that procedures which were once regarded as 'exceptional' such as the use of surgery, are now regarded as 'normal' or even 'required' in certain contexts. The network wil

Our first workshop is fast approaching, here is some more information on the types of discussions that will be taking place. University of Warwick, hosted by Dr Fiona MacCallum (Psychology) This workshop will consider changing body image. It will consider perceptions of ‘normal’, ‘healthy’ and ‘perfect’, conceptually, as they figure in the understandings of women’s and girls’ self images, and how they are understood in current practice and regulation. The extent to which the requirements of beauty are becoming more dominant for women of all types (and increasingly men); as the ‘minimal requirements’ extend and are required of more, perhaps all women (for instance, sportswomen, politicians and professionals). The way concepts function to support such demands will also be considered, for instance, deviance from normality is a criteria used to justify surgery. Such criteria both influence concepts of normality (as they define abnormal) and are also influenced by such concepts, as aest

Network member Hannah Zeilig curated a 2 day event ‘Mirror Mirror: Representations and Reflections on age and ageing’ in October 2013. The conference asked questions about age and the arts, re-considering the category ‘age’ as well as the categories ‘fashion’ and ‘beauty’. Here's what the Guardian had to say about the event:  How to grow old in style . What do you think about what the 'Fabulous Fashionistas' were discussing? Please note: the network exists to share views on beauty norms and practices. Beauty Demands is encouraging debate between the network members and beyond. Content should not be read as endorsement by project staff of views expressed here.

One of our network members, Melanie Latham, discusses EU regulation on body modification technology and potential UK feminist frameworks for human enhancement procedures. What do you think? [vimeo http://vimeo.com/28299045] Would you like to join our network? Get in touch here . Please note: the network exists to share views on beauty norms and practices. Beauty Demands is encouraging debate between the network members and beyond. Content should not be read as endorsement by project staff of views expressed here.