Social Constructs: Relying on Visuals to Identify and Understand Ourselves

It seems to me, we live in an image obsessed society where one is judged based on his or her appearance. Drawing on the works of Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Thomas Hine, Jean Kilbourne, Maria Mies, Roger Rosenblatt, and Kath Weston, I will reveal how our society has come to depend on visuals to identify and understand ourselves, making us rely on visual images to represent ourselves and to label and categorize others. We place such a high value in the physical manifestation of appearances and how they represent us. We have become engrossed in a project of comparing ourselves with others. …