In this project, I aim not only to give my own representation of the issue of the pressures and constrictions placed on women, but to give my own opinion on how to overcome it. I believe that the solution is within our own psyches. This idea came to me when I read the book 'Women Who Run With The Wolves' by Clarissa Pinkola Est és. In it, she writes about the 'natural predator of the psyche...the dark man who inhabits all women's psyches' which controls all of our natural instincts, 'attempting to contravene nature.' Before trying to change the way of society, we must first believe in it ourselves. 

Introduction

Despite how far we've come socially and politically women are still not 'out of the woods' - the 'woods' being the pressures and constrictions that 'beauty' controls women in society, sometimes without us even realising it. For this project I have selected the well-known tale of Little Red Riding Hood - specifically the Grimm Brothers version, Little Red Cap - and using it to portray my theme of the control the ideaology of beauty can have over women and how we can find ourselves entwined in it. My project will contain a parallel between woman and child. The Wolf represents the manipulative nature of the mass media, specifically the beauty industries which 'preys' upon women at a very young age. However, as I got deeper into this project, I also thought of how we ourselves, in our own minds, inhabit a predator. A woman's physical insecurities are caused by how we think in our own minds due to socialisation. A young girl is walking through the woods and is watched, followed and confronted by the wolf. Her naivity results in her inevitable consumption. Regarding his false behaviour, he is a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' who is mistakenly trusted.  

"The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly, heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...More women have more money, power, scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers."

- Naoimi Wolf  (The Beauty Myth)