Women always crave to be beautiful. Whether the preferences of the day dictated that women should be tall, round, covered in tattoos or ghostly pale, the coveted physical perfection has traditionally been willing to go to some pretty extreme methods to get it. Today’s standards of beauty are higher than ever, and if you’re considering a nose job, breast augmentation, or facelift, you’re not alone.
The sheer number of ways to improve someone’s appearance today can be overwhelming. Long gone are the days when applying lipstick and showering twice a week became a fulfilling beauty routine. Most women know that even “natural” beauty can require an insane amount of effort, and it’s a wonder that more women aren’t trying to escape our appearance-obsessed society for the forest cabin in a mirrorless village. Unfortunately, even there they may not be safe.
Wherever we live, humans consistently find ways to do weird things to ourselves in the name of beauty. Some African and Asian cultures, such as the Karen hill people of Thailand, have traditions of elongating the appearance of women’s necks by deforming their collarbones with heavy rings. Many cultures have elaborate piercing and tattooing rituals that are important for women to be considered beautiful. Compared to some of the world’s more exotic beauty rituals, western breast augmentation, facelift surgery, and rhinoplasty doesn’t seem so extreme.
Many women in the US resort to strenuous exercise, crash diets and painful surgeries to look as beautiful as possible. Celebrities are often almost as famous for their beauty obsession as their talent, as in the case of Victoria Beckham, Calista Flockhart and Tara Reid. This obsession with beauty can have dire consequences. It is known that singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia and plastic surgery often did not go according to plan. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, only one out of every 50,000 plastic surgeries results in death. However, recent studies have found that more than 40 percent of liposuction practitioners in Southern California are not properly trained, which seems like a recipe for disaster.
The American obsession with thinness and physical perfection can seem out of control at times, but negotiating a healthy relationship with beauty is not impossible in our culture. Keeping an eye on the past can help, as women in earlier eras were praised for having a physique that was very different from the skinny appearance we aspire to today. Accepting yourself, flaws and all, is so important to feeling beautiful, and feeling beautiful is half the battle.
Still, we’re fortunate to have so many choices today. The standards for being beautiful may seem very high, but changing your appearance has never been this easy or simple. Women who are unhappy with some aspect of their appearance can do something about it now besides avoiding looking in the mirror. Plastic surgery, laser treatments, and even drugstore beauty products allow normal, not-famous, and non-wealthy women to take control of their appearance.
In addition to the availability of effective beauty treatments, multi-ethnic and multi-racial beauty is being embraced by American society more than ever. Blonde hair and blue eyes are no longer absolute ideals, and women of all colors populate our movies, fashion magazines, and TV shows. This loosening up of traditional American beauty ideals is definitely progress. Now if we could do something about all the size 0s hanging around Hollywood.
Image Source: Girl
