Feminine beauty?
I put the question mark there
deliberately. Was just talking to a friend who is about to get herself waxed.
Why?
Why do women do things like this
for the sake of beauty. As a teenager, big hair was all the rage and I would
sleep like this (minus the face mask):
Imagine how uncomfortable THAT
was.
Do women do this for themselves?
Or do they do it to be attractive to men? Do men do such silly things to
themselves? Or is it just women?
Why?
We have to be thin, which means diets.
We are expected to wear make up because we don’t look good enough the way we
are. High heeled shoes. Anyone who has ever worn them knows just how dangerous
they are. I know, they make us poke out our breasts and look sexy. But hey,
have you guys ever tried wearing them for any length of time?
We have to have “plump” lips that “feel firmer and velvety
smooth” You can buy “lip plumpers” to
help do this. We have to “Exfoliate” our skin in case we happen to let one of
those tiny little skin fragments go somewhere it shouldn’t. We should have “perfectly arched dramatic eyebrow”, which means waxing or
shaving our eyebrows to make them a
certain shape and size. We have toothpaste that makes our teeth whiter. I
wonder what’s in some of these products.
AND when you
start to age (around about 25 I reckon by the ads on television), that’s when
you are really in trouble. No lines, no signs of ageing, no collagen, no “age
spots” whatever they might be, are allowed. We have to “Get rid of Melasma, age spots, freckles, dark
underarms and other hyperpigmentation problems”. Why?
There are even photo imagine
programs to make you look better, younger etc.
This is not even going into the area of cosmetic surgery, botox
treatments (which are working really well for children with cerebral palsy – I
think a much more important use of such treatments), liposuction, books
like “The Lowdown on Face-Lifts and Other Wrinkle Remedies”. What’s wrong with
my wrinkles? I’ve earned every last bloody one of them.
When I take off my hat: “Next time you
take your wooly hat and wind up looking like Cyndi
Lauper…pump up the volume. Go big by
spraying a fine mist of volumizer on roots. Then flip your head over to work a
dime size dollop of cream wax to ends.” So I need volume to my hair.
I could go on about this for
days, weeks even.
I remember an aunt, many years
ago, giving me all these tips about keeping myself beautiful, and even then, me
wondering, why?
Aren’t I good enough as I am?
Madeleine
Sunday, 26 February 2006
