Beauty, Capitalism, Patriarchy

It is hard to pin-point the exact relationship between beauty, capitalism, and patriarchy because it is difficult to discern which phenomenon causes the other. For example, it is likely that because people endlessly strive to be perceived as beautiful, markets boom and capitalism is furthered. However, it is also plausible that because capitalism is ever-growing in our society, people need to find new industries to sell their products (i.e. the clip we watched from Mad Men where Don Draper says that love only exists to sell a product). So, although I can't positively say which came first, I think it is safe to conclude that beauty and capitalism together fuel and endless cycle with people obsessing over physical perfection and sexual attractiveness. This becomes a major problem when the younger generation experience record high occurrences of eating disorders and cases of self-objectification. With said self-objectification, women's beauty/clothing/cosmetic market shoots through the roof and the cycle is furthered even more, prompting women to try even harder to appeal to the male (and female) gaze by spending money to achieve this standard of beauty.