Friday essay: how 19th century ideas influenced today's attitudes to women’s beauty
- Written by Michelle Smith, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
An advertisement for breast implants in Sydney in 2015. Advertisements often promote a 'natural' ideal of beauty, even when advocating surgical intervention.Paul Millar/AAP
In the 19th century, a range of thinkers attempted to pinpoint exactly what it was that made a woman beautiful. Newly popular women’s magazines began to promote ideas...
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