Customer Reviews

The World Has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body

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How do we define beauty?

The beauty ideal is not constant, it varies across cultures and changes over time. Today's supermodels bear little resemblence to the pale, full figured women idealized during the middle ages, but both were considered "beautiful" during their respective times. In the world has curves, Savacool uses both time series and cross sectional reasearch to illuminate consistent themes underlying various beauty ideals and gains valuable insight into cultural idenity and economics in the process.

The cross cultural research takes the form of interviews with women around the world. These interviews are my favorite part of the book. Savacool assembled a widely diverse group and asked them insightful, probing questions. The book is an excellent read for anyone curious about how we decide what makes a woman beautiful and makes excellent reading for a college economics or women's study class.

This a well researched and well written volume on the female human ideal. Historical perspective, good choice of illustrations, encased in a breezy - easy to read style. If you are in the beauty biz, or just interested - this book will make that plane ride from New York to LA melt away. Julia is magazine industry vet with a great popular touch. Let's hope she steps up to the plate again.

Big butts are beautiful. From the perspective of mainstream American culture, one may as well say "boogers are beautiful." After all, drooping, jiggling cellulite-pocked backsides do not make the cover of Cosmo. Instead, we idealize the impossible dream: a vacuum handle-sized waist disproportionately accompanied by tiny, but peach-like bottoms and mammoth jiggling coconut breasts. Breasts can jiggle, of course, but butts cannot. Didn't you get the memo? Such lithe bodily images get crammed into our neural networks, often surreptitiously. But Americans continue to take on more and more bulge, almost in defiance of this ideal. Collectively, we're ballooning as though some rampant fungus has come to immobilize us. Yet we dream of attaining a body fat ratio somewhere near starvation level. "The World Has Curves" explores this paradox while trying to ascertain why such unattainable ideals persist. A short history lesson and a partial world tour help illuminate these questions. Indeed, places do exist where big butts are beautiful, very beautiful.

Now hold on, wait a second. Haven't we already answered such questions? Don't ideals simply bubble up from vicious patriarchy or media mind control? Don't women want to attain the thickness of a grain stalk simply to attract big burly men who spew pheromones like Niagara spews water? Or, better, don't our genes want us to propagate ourselves and don't our beauty aspirations merely reflect these needs? Skinny equals healthy equals fit to reproduce! So bring on the funky music! Q.E.D. This book eschews such answers. After an examination of various cultures, no consistent ideal predominated. Americans of course like skinny skinny and more skinny. So do the Chinese and Japanese, but with some variations. The "Kimono column" shape provides the traditional body ideal that has recently integrated some Western ideals, such as pronounced chests. In stark contrast, Jamaicans and South Africans idealize the full figure. Men in these countries supposedly scoff at scrawny European models. The author even quotes a Jamaican woman who ate herself into a "sexy shape." She kept eating until a certain, presumably large, pair of shorts no longer fit. Only then did the male ogling begin. So what to conclude? Beauty ideals must simply be relative to one's culture. End of story, goodnight. No wait, the story doesn't end there. The book excavates beneath the seeming collage of body structures towards a deeper possibility. Something unites all of these ideals, beyond "being sexy" or media manipulations or even social Darwinism. The book theorizes that feminine body ideals correspond to the ideals of a societies' elites, or at least the affluent. For instance, gauntness in South Africa symbolizes disease, particularly AIDS. There, a plump figure signals health. Likewise, skinny in Jamaica often signals neglect by oneself or one's family. "You're fat? Hooray! Someone's feeding you!" Similarly, the flab-less American figure emanates self-confidence, discipline, high social standing and free time. Here the assumption goes: you're skinny because you work hard, which radiates success. The body thus becomes part of a complicated pecking-order calculus. In short, we tend to emulate "the top." We're primates, after all, and chimps and baboons partake in similar, and often much nastier, practices. It could be worse.

Early on the book fully admits that its argument rests upon a bed of generalizations. Obviously ideals differ within societies as well as between societies. America would not have produced the song "I Like Big Butts" were it otherwise. But as a generalization the argument rings at least true enough. Adding to this, the book covers a lot of ground but not necessarily a lot of detail. An early chapter outlines a fascinating history of dress and body values from the 14th century to the corset, but only at a rather high level. Regardless, "The World Has Curves" wasn't written as a dissertation. It's a popular book. Its journalistic style reads quickly and it remains accessible throughout. As such, more people have probably read it than any recent PhD thesis. And that's a good thing, as the book communicates some hopeful vibes, namely, that places do exist where women don't deal with negative body image. And it may amaze some that burka-clad Afghan women seem to fret less about their bodies than Americans ("chubby" seems to be their ideal). Of course, things can also change, as the story of Fiji demonstrates. The socioeconomic conclusion also moves beyond traditional feminism. The author states outright that her generation (twenty to thirty-somethings) appreciate the accomplishments of past feminists, but they also no longer see men as "the enemy" nor their bodies as "a tool." Though many would argue that a lot of work still remains on this front, her perspective is nonetheless intriguing. And the future? Where do we go from here? If science plops an "instant thin pill" out of its profit-driven labs, a different ideal may emerge. The final chapter suggests that fitness may fill the gap. Being in top shape may differentiate those with time to work out from those with only time to diet. No matter what happens, "The World Has Curves" provides an eye-opening read for men and women alike. Although one can imagine a more in-depth analysis of these issues, the book stands on its own and just may stimulate some curious minds. Here's to a more curvy world.