title: Beauty and healing: examining sociocultural expectations of the embodied goddess.
abstract: Studies indicate mental health improvement can occur via religious communities offering social support and other resources. Many people from many cultures regard medicine as a supernatural or magical treatment that can somehow lead to a better state of living. In medical advertising, female role portrayal involves the blending of beauty, ritual and attractiveness in combination with the best product image. A Chinese saying suggests that, "A girl will doll herself up for him who loves her." Female role attraction is a very important ethical subject in gender issues. Moving forward in time, female role visualization and consumption in medical advertising reveal depictions that encouraged women to do some self-searching and find, or develop, inner strength. This study is designed to examine female role portrayals in a restricted patriarchal society. The results indicate that the ideology of motherhood is an accepted social orientation that the public readily identifies with. Results further indicate that beautification through medical products incorporates an emotional element of religious healing and that the objectification of beauty in the media reveals a possible neglect of women's internal beauty.
authors.affiliation: Department of Commercial Design, Vanung University, No. 1, Van-Nung Rd., Chung-Li, Tao-Yuan, 32061, Taiwan. jtyeh26@vnu.edu.tw
authors.forename: Jin-Tsann
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: Chyong-Ling
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D001504:Beauty; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D029221:Faith Healing; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D019981:Health Care Sector; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D004366:Nonprescription Drugs; D012067:Religion; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012945:Social Values; D013240:Stereotyping
chemical_list: D004366:Nonprescription Drugs