Susan Sontag's writings on beauty, particularly as it relates to women, offer a complex and often provocative lens through which to understand societal pressures and individual experience. In essays like "The Double Standard" (1975), Sontag grapples with the ways in which female beauty is both fetishized and policed, arguing that it frequently serves as a tool of patriarchal control. However, to categorize her analysis solely as a condemnation of beauty as a "put down" would be an oversimplification. Sontag also, implicitly and explicitly, suggests that the very construction of beauty ideals creates a space where women can negotiate power, subvert expectations, and assert their own forms of agency. Her work, therefore, compels us to see female beauty not as a simple dichotomy of oppression or empowerment, but as a dynamic site of cultural contestation where both are simultaneously at play.
A key element of Sontag's critique lies in her examination of the relentless scrutiny and judgment to which women's appearances are subjected. In "The Double Standard," she points out how women are often valued primarily for their physical attributes, with their worth diminishing as they age or deviate from narrowly defined aesthetic norms. This creates a system where women are encouraged to invest heavily in maintaining a certain look, often at great personal and financial cost. The pressure to conform, Sontag implies, can be profoundly disempowering, trapping women in a cycle of self-surveillance and anxiety. The widespread obsession with cosmetic surgery, fad diets, and anti-aging treatments, all prevalent during Sontag's writing period and beyond, exemplifies the societal scaffolding that reinforces this emphasis on external appearance. For instance, the marketing of anti-wrinkle creams in the 1970s, often featuring idealized images of younger women, illustrates how the beauty industry profits from and perpetuates the idea that aging is an undesirable state for women.
Yet, Sontag's analysis does not stop at simply decrying these pressures. Her engagement with aesthetics, particularly in earlier works like "Notes on 'Camp'" (1964), reveals an appreciation for artifice and the deliberate manipulation of appearance as a form of subversion. While "Camp" itself is a specific aesthetic sensibility, its underlying principles—of exaggeration, theatricality, and the playful embrace of the artificial—can be seen as a precursor to understanding how women might use beauty for their own ends. By consciously adopting or adapting prevailing beauty standards, women can ironically highlight their absurdity or use them to gain social capital. Consider the deliberate styling choices of certain female performers or public figures who intentionally play with glamour and artifice. These acts, while seemingly conforming to beauty norms, can also be interpreted as a sophisticated form of self-presentation, a performance that allows them to control the narrative of their own image and exert a particular kind of influence. This agency arises not from rejecting beauty, but from engaging with its construction on their own terms.
Furthermore, Sontag implicitly acknowledges the power that adherence to beauty standards can sometimes confer, even as she critiques its origins. The ability to command attention, inspire desire, or project an image of confidence and success are all, in part, linked to physical appearance within many social contexts. While Sontag might view this power as a consequence of an unjust system, she also recognizes that individuals can, and do, wield it. Her essays prompt us to ask: if beauty is a currency, how do women navigate its exchange? Can they use it to achieve goals, gain respect, or even disrupt the very systems that assign it value? The rise of female entrepreneurs and leaders in the 21st century, many of whom carefully manage their public image, suggests that women continue to find ways to harness aspects of conventional attractiveness to enhance their professional and personal standing. This is not an endorsement of the system, but an acknowledgment of how individuals adapt within it.
In conclusion, Susan Sontag's essays on female beauty resist a simple categorization as purely a critique of its oppressive aspects. While she powerfully exposes the ways in which societal beauty standards can diminish women and perpetuate inequality, her work also opens up a space for understanding how women can engage with, manipulate, and even subvert these very standards to assert their own agency. Female beauty, in Sontag's nuanced perspective, is not merely a societal imposition; it is a complex battlefield where women can, and do, find ways to negotiate power, express identity, and shape their own presence in the world.