Is “Beautiful Female Something” Symbolic Capital or Symbolic Violence? That Is a Question

The rationale for this article derives from a personal anecdote embedded within the challenging discourse of endeavoring to identify and attach meaning to the concept of a “beautiful female something.” The focused analysis provided here about this stereotypical label reveals a dimension of patriarchal chauvinism that directs the way in which the interpretation of a “beautiful female something” can become socioculturally and universally entrenched. This article expands this concept by stating that the proliferation of this label can be traced in large part to the power pathology of a burgeoning social media that exploits the concept of beauty to the advantage of global consumerism. Developing the analytic articulation found within Bourdieu’s capitals theory, this study contends that the label of a “beautiful female something” functions as both a modality of symbolic capital and symbolic violence. The article ends with a discussion of this paradox and proposes to analyze the covert social mechanisms and conflicting forces that underpin the exploitation of consumerist approaches to female beauty across the globe.