Exploring equality in men's and women's pursuits of ideal body images : a case study on Singapore's undergraduates.

• Main Author: Wong, Yuen Yin.
• Other Authors: Tan Joo Ean
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51740
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The need to look good has gained increasing importance and caused wider implications in today’s society. Sociocultural forces such as the media play significant roles in influencing and shaping individuals’ body image perceptions. Extant literatures place a disproportionate amount of focus on women’s experiences, and adopt a largely psychological and quantitative approach. Studies have found that women are less satisfied with their body images, pay more attention to their body images and invest more both mentally and behaviorally in their body images. With a sociological lens, this paper seeks to find out if the pursuit of ideal body images is gender equal in Singapore i.e. assessing similarities and differences between the two genders. Interviews were conducted with undergraduates from local universities and findings indicate that while the experiences of men and women may be increasingly similar, a deeper analysis on deeply ingrained social expectations and cultural norms shows otherwise.