Denying diversity: perceptions of beauty and social comparison processes among Latina, Black, and White women

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  July, 2002  by Maya A. Poran

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I think that the cultural definition of beauty in the US. is very materialistic. People just think about physical appearance & about money. If a person is dressing with clothes of Tomy Hilfiger, even though that person is not that beautiful, she/he is consider to be beautiful because of the clothes. Same as if a person has a car or money, even though, he/she is ugly they think he/she is cool because of the money & the car....

These responses indicate a distinct awareness of consumer culture's creation of beauty. Although White women were also very strong in their association with Models, Latina women seem to be more aware of Models as selling tools.

Racially-Specific Collective Self-Esteem Scale

The salience of race in the lives and experiences of Latina, Black, and White women was evident in the scores obtained through the racially-specific CES. Scores for the scale and four subscales were computed, and five One-Way ANOVAs were performed. Whenever ANOVAs revealed significant differences between groups, Scheffe post hoc t tests were used to determine where those differences lay. Coefficient alphas were Overall CSE = .67; Identity subscale = .70; Membership subscale = .71; Private subscale = .60; Public subscale = .73.

The overall scale score was not significant by race, F(2, 148) = 0.96, p> .05; neither was private self esteem, F(2, 148) 0.78, p > .05 (all participants had high private self-esteem scores). There was a strong trend toward significance for the Importance to Identity subscale, F(2, 148) = 2.88, p = .059, which indicates that White women were the lowest in importance to identity: Latina women (M = 14.35, SD = 4.56), Black women (M = 14.10, SD = 4.69), and White women (M = 12.33, SD = 4.55).

Membership CSE was found to differ significantly by race, F(2, 148) = 5.09, p <.01. The distribution of scores indicates that White women in the sample had significantly lower scores on membership: Latina women (M = 22.25, SD = 3.98), Black women (M = 22.77, SD = 4.38), and White women (M = 20.37, SD = 3.59).

Public CSE was found to have the greatest significant difference among the subscales, F(2, 148) = 30.17, p < .0001. Black women had the lowest Public CSE scores (M = 9.02, SD = 4.17), which indicates that they were very aware of the prejudice toward them as a group. Latina women also had relatively low public esteem scores (M = 11.69, SD = 4.06); White women, on the other hand, had very high Public CSE (M = 15.12, SD = 3.73).

There were significant differences between Latina, Black, and White women on the BSE scale and subscales, as well as two subscales of the racially-specific CSE. Correlations were computed for the BSE and CSE items, and they were found to he highly correlated. (See Table II). The most consistent positive associations are found between the Overall Body Esteem scores and the Membership CSE subscale, the Physical Stamina BSE subscale and the Membership CSE subscale, and the Sexual Attractiveness BSE subscale and the Membership CSE subscale (p < .01, p < .05, p < .01, respectively). It is interesting that the Weight subscale was not related to Membership CSE (p > .05). As previously stated, White women scored the lowest on Membership CSE, and Black women scored the highest; this difference between Black and White women also holds true for the Body Esteem scales. Latina women, however, differed; they had the lowest BES scores and relatively high Membership scores. This finding indicates that there may be other fact ors in Latina women's experiences that are not being located by these measures.