When Beauty Is In The Line

Women have always longed to be beautiful. Whether the preferences of the day dictated that women should be tall, round, covered in tattoos or pale as a ghost, those craving physical perfection have traditionally been willing to go to some pretty extreme methods to get it. Current beauty standards are higher than ever, and if you’ve considered nose surgery, breast augmentation or a face lift, you’re far from alone.

Today’s vast array of ways to improve one’s appearance can be overwhelming. Long gone are the times when a swipe of lipstick and a twice-weekly bath made up a satisfactory beauty routine. Most women know that even “natural” beauty can take an absurd amount of effort, and it’s a wonder that more ladies don’t try to escape our looks-obsessed society for a jungle hut in a village with no mirrors. Unfortunately, even there they might not be safe.


No matter where we live, humans have consistently found 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 a tradition of elongating the appearance of women’s necks by deforming their collar bones with heavy rings. Many cultures have elaborate piercing and tattooing rituals that are essential for woman to be considered beautiful. In comparison to some of the world’s more exotic beauty rituals, western breast augmentation, face lift surgery and nose surgery don’t seem so extreme.


Many women in the US subject themselves to rigorous workouts, strict diets and painful surgery to look as beautiful as possible. Celebrities are often nearly as famous for their beauty obsessions as they are for their talents, as in the cases of Victoria Beckham, Calista Flockhart and Tara Reid. This obsession with beauty can have terrible consequences. It’s well known that the singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia and plastic surgery often doesn’t turn out as planned. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, only one in every 50,000 plastic surgeries results in death. Still, a recent study found that over 40 percent of liposuction practitioners in Southern California were not properly trained, which seems like a recipe for disaster.


America’s obsessions 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 previous eras were praised for having very different physiques than the stick-thin look that is our ideal today. Accepting yourself, flaws and all, is essential to feeling beautiful, and feeling beautiful is half the battle.


Still, we are lucky to have so many options today. The standards for being beautiful might seem impossibly high, but modifying your looks has never been easier or more accessible. Women who are unhappy with some aspect of their appearance can do something about it now besides avoid looking in the mirror. Plastic surgery, laser treatments and even drug-store beauty products allow normal, non-famous, non-rich women to take control of the way they look.


In addition to the availability of effective beauty treatments, multi-ethnic and multi-racial beauties are being embraced by American society more than they ever have been in the past. Blond hair and blue eyes are no longer the absolute ideal, and women of all colors populate our movies, fashion magazines and TV shows. This loosening of traditional American beauty ideals is definitely progress. Now if we can just do something about all those size 0s running around Hollywood.