Paper #2 - Proposal

Title:  The Beauty Trap
Topic: Women in cultures throughout history have attempted to enhance their beauty and desirability through many means. The underlying reason for this behavior is the inherent biological need for females to attract the best possible genes in order for her offspring to have the optimum chances of surviving and thriving.  Advertisers and the media in this day and age are exploiting this need and in many cases employ dishonest methods.  This is causing women to believe that they can never quite reach the mark set by the advertisers in the ads showing the idealized vision of a woman.
Analysis:  This obsession to become the ideal women starts at a very young age.  Girls as young as fourteen years old are getting breast augmentations, nose reconstruction, liposuction and eating disorders are also on the increase.  Clearly this has parent’s approval, which points to a second source of pressure on these young girls, where mothers who are themselves trying to reach this ideal are therefore projecting their own insecurities onto their daughters. Women who are caught in this web are in a constant struggle to achieve an unattainable goal.
Exigence: I am motivated to give young women an awareness that can help them choose a healthier road to womanhood.
Intended Audience:  My intended audience is young girls who are currently enmeshed in this process and allow them to see an alternative to responding to these pressures.
Main Evidence:  I will use logos from articles from the Washington Post, Newsweek as well as excerpts from Mary Pipher’s book “Reviving Ophelia” Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and The Well Dressed Ape written by Science Journalist Hannah Holmes. I will use ethos because as a women who struggled with this issue and had to wade through the marsh myself, before coming to my own realizations and decisions, I hope that my arguments will prove helpful to others.  I will use pathos by illuminating the driving force behind the manipulation that causes this dysfunction in the population that advertisers and media are attempting to sell to with little regard for the consequences.