Beauty myth hacked
IF you have ever spent even a fragment of a minute worrying why your hair didn't fall the way it should or why, out of nowhere, fine lines under your eyes have appeared or you feel a little too big and hefty today, read on.
We women spend too much of our precious time bothered about our looks and very often we do so because there is a male factor in the whole equation, generally I mean.
Whether it is a boyfriend, husband or an acquaintance, women want to look good in order to be loved and appreciated.
We tend to thrive on flattery and compliments.
Hence the compulsion to look good to please your partner is not a myth but a caustic reality.
When a compliment comes your way, you gloat feeling justified having spent all the time and money on various go-to-products, which are nothing but hogwash.
Certainly, looking good makes one feel good and boosts one's self-confidence but what we are deliberating here are extreme behaviours with obsessive tendencies.
I was intermittently reading Naomi Wolf who in her book, The Beauty Myth, argues that beauty is the "last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact". By this, Wolf means beauty or the lack of it has been used as a tool to keep "women in her place".
Beauty myths are turned into big businesses all around the world. Rich, poor, young and the old fall for this conspiracy where beauty is compartmentalised in a certain way, associations are unfairly cast, women are chained in their own typecast.
There is also this age old thought that the first impression counts and this is another collaborator in making beauty a must-have. The need to look neat and presentable is always a boon but when one goes overboard for complete transformation between self and that dream person with loads of beauty products in between, it becomes a cause for worry.
With women seen in arenas other than home, the need to look more than just presentable has become a stress factor. Having said that, it is a new age thought that the compulsion for beauty is not just about women, it is about men wanting to enslave women with constant psychological intimidation
Women, youth and beauty make voluminous topics for discussion in context, notwithstanding the fact that they (such topics) can also be sensitive and capricious.
In some third world countries, a woman who touches 40 and worse still, when menopause hits, the woman is considered having lived her life to the fullest. This overbearing thought and delusion make it difficult for women to see their life beyond a certain age.
Such women become complacent with no motivation to look good even for themselves, often whining in self-pity.
In this respect, the Western concept is in juxtaposition, with women who are self-driven into developing a sense of "self".
The external factor to please men becomes secondary and as such women do not "age" as easily. Hence, looking young and feeling young are playful connotations bandied.
In the searing heat of debate, even when you secede from feminist's view, it is about detaching from beauty and redefining the female identity. It is time we stopped feeling taunted by the curvy slim supermodels on screen or off, those glossy women's magazines who look at you with mocking nerve.
The average woman who feels ugly and old for most of her life will never be liberated and all the feminist thoughts, views and championing will be just an effort in futility if we do not come out of the dungeon of fretful thoughts and create a robustness from within that comes with the stamina to stop the invasion of Beauty as a be-all and end-all.
True beauty of a woman is in her soul!
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