Beauty is Pain and Other Myths Brought To You By Patriarchy!

This post will somewhat correlate with my last post on consumerism and self-identity. More on self-identity.

I have received some interesting and thought-provoking comments on my last post, for which I am very grateful for, so thanks :)

But, I still have a lot I want to say on the topic of Beauty™ and why the obtaining of this idea of Beauty, as sold by western capitalism, is often painful. Growing up, I watched a lot of television and unfortunately, a lot of beauty advertisements. It is not shocking that I often heard “Beauty is Pain” and other such cute little slogans promoting sadomasochistic beauty standards. In my 8 year old mind, I was convinced.

Under patriarchy, Western society does not want women to be viewed as human beings. We are always portrayed in a way that sexualizes us, degrades us and dehumanizes us so that men can feel safer. If we break the mold of submission we are taunted, harassed, raped, or even killed.

Men create and maintain beauty standards. These standards change over time, but they always share one common factor: pain.

Women were told to bind their middles with tight corsets and other such contraptions. These were used to maintain the ‘ideal’ waist size so that the body appeared like an hour glass. Women’s bodies must look like objects. These objects will continue to define our bodies, which is so pathetic and so limiting.

image found here

Dresses were to be worn at all times. They were to fit tightly over the corset, pushing the breasts up to unnatural heights and pushing the stomach in, suffocating the organs. However, women can now wear pants, how revolutionary. But pants had to be changed and altered to meet the pornocratic demands, too. Most of women’s clothes today fit incredibly small, tight and constricting. We are shunned and considered ‘lazy’ if we opt for more comfortable attire.

The clothes are one thing, our actual skin is another. If our skin is not white, we are told to bleach it with harmful chemicals. If we are too pale, we are told to step into a dangerous tanning bed and risk getting skin cancer.

Women are expected to appear submissive in their dress and spend copious amounts of time perfecting their “beauty.”Time spent primping in mirrors and curling hair could be put towards so many things, but we don't think about that, because we're not supposed to think.

All of these things are minor compared to the new ‘beauty’ trends that have crept up over the last few decades.

We now view plastic surgery as completely normal and unproblematic for the people who can afford it. We see nothing wrong with wearing 5 inch stilettos and starving ourselves. We pop pills that resemble amphetamines and take part in over-exercising and dangerous dieting. We smoke cigarettes to curb our appetites, sit for hours in tanning beds, expose ourselves to dangerous chemicals and wake up every morning hating how we look.

All of this is done to sustain, maintain and affirm male supremacy. We must endure pain to fit man’s perception of beauty. We are told we’re too fat, too dark, too short, too pale or too tall. Male supremacy feeds off our pain. No one ever examines our minds, unless we are challenging white heterosexual male supremacy, then we’re raging ‘misandrists.’

In a fantastic book I own, The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World by Joni Seager, the beauty industry is exposed. Seager has a whole chapter dedicated to beauty and plastic surgery.

Here are some startling facts,

- The cosmetic industry in the United States rakes in 50 billion dollars a year, more than any other country.

- 42% of girls in grades 1-3 in the United States want to be thinner.

- 80% of 13 year old girls in the United States have attempted to lose weight

Whoa whoa whoa…

Grades 1-3? That’s 6 to 8 years old! We only have the media and possibly some shitty parenting skills to thank for that.

Let’s look at some more, keep in mind, most of the statistics are from the United States as it is the only country that has plastic surgery rates shooting through the roof.

In 2007:

There were:

- 240, 763 eye lid surgeries

- 2.8 million botox injections

- 185, 335 tummy tucks

- 456, 828 liposuctions

- 399, 440 breast augmentations

- 138, 153 face lifts

These are some significant and horrifying numbers from the United States. I am sure the statistics are high in Canada, but I doubt it is to this extent. 2.8 million United States citizens injected toxins into their face so they could ‘erase signs of aging, that tells you a lot about western culture and standards. It tells you a lot about gender inequality. It tells you a lot about how feminism is still needed.

Aging is now considered a problem instead of an accomplishment.

In the patriarchal fantasy, the ideal woman should be white, thin, somewhat tall, hairless, starving, big-breasted, long legged, tanned and injected with toxins.

All of these things require bleeding, cutting, mutilating, squeezing, injecting, poking and prodding. Under male supremacy, pain is key. Pain is sexual. Pain is sexy. Women are told to undergo bodily mutilations by their husbands, partners, friends, family members and the media. Women are portrayed on television shows, pitted against other women to win a date with a plastic surgeon who wipes his ass with $100 dollar bills. Shows like Bridalplasty, extreme makeover and 10 years younger tell women that they are severely flawed, so much so that they should actually have to spend thousands of dollars and risk going under the knife. We hate our bodies so much we’ll do anything to make our bodies ultimately sick and weakened. We will go to great lengths of sickness and mutilation in order to maintain this idea of beauty.

This sadism is twisted and purely white het. male supremacist. It is clear that these beauty rituals are for the fat cats to fill their wallets and the men to fill their pants.

So, the next time you step into a tanning bed or inject yourself with some more toxins, think about who you are really doing it for. Would you really be mutilating your body and walking in 5 inch stiletto shoes if you lived somewhere else? Somewhere, in a magical place, where there was no white het. male supremacy. We can only dream of this place.

Are our choices based around choice, or the illusion of choice?

All I know is that I’m sick and tired of it. Bottom line. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, some dude probably said. But who cares about that when the beholder is probably an asshole.