Anna’s Teaching Blog

A neat experiment, conducted by Dove, to help women stop being so critical of their looks. Here’s how Dove describes the rational behind the video:Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see.

Basically, they took a woman, had her describe herself to a sketch artist, then had another woman or man talk to her for five minutes, and the other woman (or man) described the first woman to a sketch artist. They then compared the two drawings. It’s amazing to see how the second person found the first woman much prettier than the first woman saw herself.

Here’s one example – it’s pretty cool how well the forensic sketch artists did, in terms of capturing the woman. I’m not sure I’d know how to describe someone this well. It’s also interesting how the woman’s description of herself (left) was not as attractive as the stranger saw her (right). And the stranger usually got it right.

Now, sure, you’d want to know that the sketch artist wasn’t in on it – otherwise he might intentionally draw the woman less pretty when she’s describing herself.

We delved into the issue, a week or so ago, of why women’s rights advocates aren’t nearly as successful of late as gay rights advocates . I also posted a nice summary of the responses from women, and a few men , to that post about the women’s movement. I don’t know if this experiment sheds any light on that. But I have a feeling it might. Either way, it’s interesting. And would also be interesting to see it duplicated with men, other ethnicities and races, and nationalities, and sexual orientations, to see whether the results differ.

Introspection is never a bad thing.

Click here to watch the clip: Dove Real Beauty Sketches

adapted from America Bog:

 http://americablog.com/2013/04/women-go-to-sketch-artists-and-find-out-theyre-prettier-than-they-think-video.html