Fonseca Alexandra Fonseca (Aleks) SOC 206 A

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The Americanization of Beauty Standards: Beauty Perceptions between the Socioeconomic Classes in Costa Rica

An Ethnographic Approach

This class has served as a concrete and credible way of the way I think about gender,

sexuality and identity. There are many theories that back-up ways my ways of thinking, which makes me feel confident when I want to sound credible. This class has also helped me understand the way I view others, but also presented me new challenges about identity issues within myself. As a writing major, Im almost always unpacking things, which is both a blessing and a curse since my mind is never quiet, always wandering. However, this class has really pushed me forward in asking difficult questions about myself (the easiest specimen I can observe), which has made it more accessible perceiving and understanding others around me. As much as this is a gender class, its helped me analyze my identity issues as a marginal global citizen. A sense of identity has always been evaded me; when I was in 5th grade, I changed the way my name was spelled. It was my first, small step in controlling the way I viewed myself, and ultimately how other people did as well (never realizing how awkward it is now explaining why my full name is spelled different). I call my high school years my amoeba stage, where I didnt really have a sense of self (unknowingly however, I knew I was a Costa Rican living in Miami, but that was the extent of it). However, not particularly attached to Miami or its Cuban culture, I moved to Boston for college where my identity issues hit me at full-force. I am Costa Rican and officially American (as of 2009), but no I dont particularly think of myself in those terms. I held on to the idea of fully identifying myself as a Costa Rican for the

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longest time, but I felt fake; my marker was if I dont understand most Costa Rican slang, then I must really be a gringa. However, I clung on to being different (from Central America) for so long that is was exhaustingI knew I didnt see myself as American, but I understood most of this culture better. The biggest, most challenging step I took in regards to my identity was accepting that I am not particularly attached to Costa Rica (like, a few months ago). This idea is the antithesis of what being Costa Rican is, so I must not be. However, as someone in a gender class, I am also aware of the fluidity of identity. Its hard not wanting to be categorical since living in the margins, undefined, is terrifying, but also extremely rewarding. This class has not only served as a basis of understanding myself, but also understanding myself as a woman who fits no stereotypes. Thats another story altogether, but Id rather be aware of all the aspects of myself (whether defined or not) than live a life where people dictate that for me. This is the basis of why I chose to write about the way beauty is perceived in Costa Rica. No nation, including Costa Rica, will become immune to globalization. As Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948, the United States has swooped in and protected, aided and granted Costa Rica many beneficial things, mostly in the educational and job sector (and bringing us all those tourists). The U.S. Department of State says the following: U.S. foreign assistance seeks to assist the Costa Rican Government improve public security, the primary concern of both Costa Rican citizens and political leaders. Providing a safe and secure domestic environment will contribute to greater economic growth and prosperity, and will help keep local and transnational crime from eroding the effectiveness of Costa Ricas democratic institutions However, Costa

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Ricas socioeconomic well-being has shifted from a relatively neutral one to one were classes are heavily divided and dictated by income and skin color. This shift is not new to Latin American countries, but it is interesting to see it happening in Costa Rica were its know to be the top democracy in Latin America, as Osborne states in Costa Rica and the "electric fence" mentality: stunting women's socio-economic participation in the 21st century. With the shifting in classes, women of all classes then attach themselves to the American, or western, ideal of beauty: fair skin, straight hair, thin, but also must be athletic. For many this ideal is unreachable, but becomes easier the higher up one is in the Costa Rican socioeconomic setting. Rosen quotes Bertrand Russell in The Democratization of Beauty, envy is the basis of all democracy and as Costa Rican women continue to obtain the unobtainable, so do their perceptions about the realities of this notion of beauty. Costa Rican womens versions of Americanized beauty is socially implemented in a more radical way due to their perceived experience of how American women might be subjected through American media. The most obvious thing to start with is how did Costa Rican women become so socioeconomically segregated? Osborne explains how an overwhelming gender disparity in the labor force reveals significant developmental deficiencies and contradicts fundamental democratic ideals. Osborne also adds that strict gender roles in Costa Rica is paradoxical to the democratic progress from the past two decades, that even though progressive, these restrictive gender roles impedes womens empowerment. With Costa Rican women becoming perpetuated in strict gender roles, the effect of Americanized beauty ideal comes with the performance of gender, as Judith Butler says in

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Gender Trouble. The westernized ideal of beauty is perpetuated in both national and international based media in Costa Ricamost often in commercials selling beauty products. In the article The Globalization of Ideal Beauty, by Tini van Poser, interviews Ricardo Ramos, a Spanish-Colombian fashion designer who criticizes the fashion industry for setting unattainable ideals, Models in shampoo commercials and the like are preferably blond and have fair skin. The average Latin American woman tends to be darker-haired and dark-skinned, said Ricardo Ramos. Not only is this problematic, but when Latin American women of color try to perform their gender, there is always something missing. There is a clear dichotomy between what Latin American women look like and the ideals that is set upon them by the media. A personal ethnographic observation is when I visited Costa Rica in 2013 and naturally forgot to pack my facial moisturizer. I was in Liberia, one of the bigger rural cities thats on the way to the beach. Liberia is a bustling city that is seeing quite a boom of new money from tourism and prime education, as well as American companies employing the city. At the supermarket, I picked up an Olay brand with a young, light skinned woman on the packaging but the biggest surprise to me was tag line: Makes skin whiter in just three weeks. Its problematic that an international company adheres to a American ideal of beauty and then tries to normalize it in rural Costa Rica; as Rosen says, having white skin is given value because not every woman has it (in this part of Costa Rica, at least). The ideal image of beauty further complicates the way Costa Rican (and Latina women) view themselves with ethnicity and class. Jillian Hernandez, a doctoral candidate in women and gender studies from Rutgers University in The Latina Look, says, Many Latin women have pressure to conform and to downplay their ethnicity, to assimilate and resemble the norm, she

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said. In many ways, as people of color, we dont want to be too visible; we want to assimilate. In trying not to be the stereotype, we end up policing ourselves and forcing conformance to the mainstream culture. Rosen states that by erasing race, and racial difference, fiddling and replacing identity markers is racism. This assimilation of the westernized beauty standard Costa Rican women of color think they must obtain in order to normalize themselves comes from the fact that Costa Rica is predominantly white European by 94%, and not mestizo. Unsurprisingly, lower class women are predominantly the mestizo minority, as the the white European women in Costa Rica takes up most of the upper class. Of course, this is a generality and there small amounts of white European women and mestizos in both upper or lower classes. Thus the democratization of beauty is seemingly democratized for lower class women as beauty products sell white skin and other American beauty standards. Not to mention, that half the products in supermarkets in Costa Rica are now American products. Upper class women struggle with the ideal American ideal of beauty in different ways than lower class women. Even though its not so much about assimilating to becoming normalized, because they already are, but rather the radical ways Costa Rican women perceive and practice American ideals of beauty. Plastic surgery, weight loss products, exercising in copious amounts is what most upper class women in Costa Rica devote their time to. Theres the upper class woman who works full time, but still feels pressured from society to try some type of weight-loss supplement, and the upper class woman who fixates herself with attaining the unattainable.

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These lifestyles are reminiscent of the stereotypical upper class woman in America, but the way Costa Rican women perceive it through media as an actual way of being and acting further influences their actions to replicate the medias portrayal of women. As Rosen says, in trying to democratize beauty, shortcuts (in technology, etc) become attempt to replicate an ideal beauty and become Masters of Nature. A second ethnographical observation in Costa Rica is how very little women in my family dont eat in public. Not only do they pretend to eat a lot, but they often comment in a halfjoking way about all the chocolate they want to eat, but never do. These insecurities become very apparent as the younger, upper class women in my family repeatedly set their ideals with that of American actresses (in this particular upper class sphere). My sister-in-law is by far the most obvious and radical example of her perception of American beauty, constantly buying all the magazine tabloids and replicating the actresses fashion. Even though this is just one woman out of many upper class women, all the other women that I am constantly surrounded with when I visit have some sort of affinity towards the American beauty ideal. Its not surprising when I learned that upper class Costa Rican women are now using the weight-loss drug Neobes within their circles to lose weight. Neobes is used to treat obesity by increasing heart rate and blood pressure to decrease appetite. This is another way a democratization of beauty is achieved, but here only in the upper class sphere as one packet of these pills cost upwards to 50 US dollars. Whether or not this new weight-loss fad is true in all spheres of upper class women in Costa Rica, this small percentage exemplifies what Rosen says about the democratization of

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beauty: women self diagnose each other and themselves (by placing moral worth on beauty), as well as create inferiority complexes with those who dont fit their beauty ideal expectations. With different socioeconomic differences intertwined with rising racial hierarchy, the beauty standards of Costa Rica are skewed. Its time for a call to action to separate ourselves (Costa Ricans) from the idea that perfect, beautiful or acceptable is synonymous with Americanized beauty or the western ideal of beauty. Rather, the transgression of more equal opportunity in Costa Rica will eliminate cultural gendered roles that still control all spheres of the socioeconomic classes. As Osborne concludes in her article, Costa Rica and the "electric fence" mentality: stunting women's socio-economic participation in the 21st century.:

despite this milestone [female president], traditional gender roles remain restrictive and are corroborated by the modern pervasion of machismo decades after Costa Rica's democratic reformation. Ultimately, women's disengagement in the formal labor force challenges the traditional definition of democracy and suggests there is still repressive gender inequity in Costa Rica.

Theres hope that with the title as the Most Democratic Nation (Osborne) Costa Rica will return to its roots as a nation of progressive ideas that will include breaking the barrier between set gender roles and strict racial and socioeconomic hierarchy. However, the more America becomes involved in supplying jobs and education to the masses, the harder it will be to transgress. Theres still work to be done, but helping women of all classes is the major step in a successful country. With a successful transgression, not only will these women stop obliging to set gender roles, and therefore look up to Americanized beauty ideals, but then will begin to dominate the workforce without this electric fence mentality (Osborne). As the great Isabel

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Allende says Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country. This is an ideal that one day Costa Rica will hopefully fully achieve.