The Mind's Epidemic

I think society expects women to be somewhat masochistic.

First, we're saddled with all of these painful beauty routines. We wax, we pluck, we cut ourselves shaving, we inject botulism into our faces to appear younger, we risk skin cancer to look like we're fresh off the beach.

Then there's the clothing. Sure, we've grown more evolved over the years. We've gone from corsets and footbinding to high heels and extreme push-up bras.

Self loathing is also a must, as you're expected to bond with other girls about whatever genetic feature you hate most. Also, medical conditions don't count. You have to choose something visible. If you take to hating it enough, you're in luck. There's plastic surgery for just about any part if you've got the wallet to facilitate it.

And for those of us who can't find something to detest all by ourselves, there are stacks upon stacks of magazines showing you fake images of "the beautiful people" and what hand cream they use. If you're still content with yourself, find a girl with low enough self esteem and she'll gladly try to knock you down a couple of pegs.

When I was a kid, my dad taught me to tell a rather insightful joke which ran like this: Q:Why do women wear perfume and make up? A: Because they look ugly and they stink. And we do, at least in our own heads. We give money to all sorts of people hoping that they'll be able to turn us into the barbie dolls that grace our television screens. Maybe they can fix us.

The problem is that nothing is even wrong to begin with. Ugliness is an epidemic of the mind, not the body. All we need to do to shatter the funhouse mirrors we see ourselves through is break out of the mindset that we're hideous. All we need to do is embrace what we have, learn not to pine over what we don't, and start to see ourselves as those who love us see us.

We need to stop accepting all of this pain that society heaps on  us just to sell a few more lipsticks and realise that we are all beautiful. If we can do that, we'll be golden. If not, then there's a lot more pain in the future.