beauty

why do we try so hard to be beautiful?

we women spend simply ages either trying to look beautiful or worrying that were not trying! If youre trying, you’re on a long endless path that’s fast becoming a rat race, and if youre not, what a loser.

we starve ourselves, wear uncomfortable clothes, get our bodies operated on, undergo excruciatingly painful procedures, mince on high heels that are killing on the toes and wear synthetics and leather in summer - while putting up with jeering while going through this rigmarole. why. what makes us so desperate to be noticed?

The answer just stares you in the face doesn’t it. in a global culture that rejects the un-beautiful (as defined in a totally synthetic, racist and narrow sense), the un-perfect or the un-stereotyped, how else would you be seen? - its not enough that youve struggled your way to education, gotten a job and are good at what you do. if you dont look good none of it matters. The sum of your life, your skills, experience, sheer niceness as a person is zero against this one factor.

Leave alone being noticed – not everyone happens to mind being left alone in a corner of the room. this culture also bestows the "right" to abuse, belittle, insult and traumatize the non-supermodels (ie the overwhelming majority of us). real people come in different shapes, sizes and colours, and there's nothing wrong with that. how idiotic to expect to people to look like the touched up, remade folks on the big screen!

behavioural and sociopsychological studies have found the phenomenon to be true beyond doubt: looking good gets you places, but being plain is something youll have to fight against and square off all your life. For all that weve been told sanctimoniously that beauty is only skin deep, the real world belies it - whether its about making friends, getting a job, winning a client, appealing for donations or finding a spouse, being beautiful definitely matters in our world.

the urgency to look good is something that’s been drilled into our heads. weve seen the images in popular culture - we are surrounded by images of carefully sculpted women who have to spend hours (not to mention heaps of money) on their appearance. im sure the majority of us is more familiar with cindy crawfords mole than with the scar on our mothers stomach from the cesarean!!

Womens magazines teach us to be better customers. They catch em young too. Magazines for school kids and teenagers teach how you just how to get that pouty effect with the latest in xyz lipstick. Got pimples? Try blah and blah cream enriched with vitamin e supplements. (Puberty means pimples. Face it. lump it.). see a womens program on tv and youll think theres nothing in the world to think about beyond the spots on your nose and how your butt looks from the side.

but these are the obvious gambits… if youre a rebel you may be able to resist caving in under that kind of pressure. what about use this deodorant for confidence and this cell phone for popularity? dont snigger at those two corny examples – im not mentioning names, but I just saw two ads on tv saying exactly this! the ads were targeting adults.

And oh, the peer pressure. Its almost impossible to not hack the number - the most rebellious, independent Attitude women ive seen still have to concede at least in part to run the rat race. For all that they may reject bimbo culture, they’ll still have to do their eyebrows, smear on lipstick for the occasional function, epilate…. And that’s just the bare minimum. All to measure up to some trashy image that’s anyway not realistically achieved. as germaine greer aptly summed it up “the further from natural a female form, the more attractive it becomes. the further from natural a female form, the more feminine it is.”

yeah i know - its not just the women. this pressure is on the men too. from beer pack abs (it happens to depend on body musculature – you may not be carrying an ounce of extra fat, but still if your body is not built that way, you wont have it), to gels they must needs use to spike their hair, high power fuel inefficient bikes they should use in the city to be cool, to the quantity of alcohol they must “do” … theyre not much better off than the women.

But there are comforts though - at least aging is something that’s not yet been denied to men. A man with grey hair looks distinguished. Hes a man of the world. Hes been there, seen that. a woman who looks old is a hag. Women positively must not, cannot look old. Look at the tv programs – the “old” women will sport the same plastic frozen be-facial-ed appearance as the young ones, with two artistic wings of “grey” hair to concede age. Wrinkles? – you must be kidding!! Old is unacceptable. Im not going to quote this research that was done on images built by the media, but why don’t you check out your news channels carefully one day? Have a close look at the anchors – how many of ‘em are old, and how many of the older people are women?

Ours is a silly destructive cynical culture that belittles natural maleness and femaleness. you have to almost fight for the right to feel good about yourself the way you are - body comfort is so difficult to achieve, leave alone body pride. I was reading an essay today and this phrase just leapt off the page : “carefully cultivated disgust” with our own bodies. How very, very true.