I like Victorian novels where a marriageable girl's prospects are often discussed, with a kind of vicious honesty, vis a vis her looks and her money.
It seemed so utterly callous yet it offered a glimpse into a real adult world, with it's worldly wise ways.
The talk always matched up with their deeds. Yes the town beauty married the heir and the plain and proud heiress settled for an older widower perhaps.
Or sometimes the heiress and the heir made a match of it and the beauty found her true love however poor. Sometimes the plain Jane got a life partner who could offer her a life of comfort and protection.
But it made no one less important and everyone was essential and had a place wherein he or she was valued.
Valued for real functionality and not merely paid lip service to for the apparent.
Where everyone is not busy being so politically correct and er...so nice that they're obviously fake.
Where everyone is not beautiful or lovely, and plain ordinary folks do exist, and are acknowledged as such.
And more importantly accepted as entirely necessary and normal.
Women especially, who can scrub up to a pleasant glow of amiability and joy. But not become visions of gorgeous houris of glamor.
So yes...the plain women with the homely features and the indifferent figures might feel a little wistful when they spy a modern day Cleopatra or Helen of Troy walk by, but hey!, that's life and it's only a momentary pang.
A moment of necessity for introspection enrichment and growth. You have to face your cravings to know you don't need it.
Beauty and youth of course are not commodities money can buy. By encouraging every woman to be beautiful, to be ultra sultry hot and glamorous-cool, (Yup! I said that long sentence. :) ) guess what three deleterious things are happening?
Beautiful women instead of remaining precious art objects of our aesthetic appreciation are becoming the objects of our base desirous envy and unfortunately, rather unenviable role models for our emulation.
No you're not "worth it." As L'Oréal puts it...because you're beautiful or want to be. Not even because you worked hard for it, disciplined those rounded curves, attained that flatboard stomach and sashayed down the catwalk and attained the tiara.
You have achieved, but very little to boast about. Those things beauty queens yack about, helping poor homeless disadvantaged kids and third world nations, or the compassion of a Mother Teresa, those are the real grown up gritty stuff to do. Now that might earn you the grace in fact to deserve "it", whatever "it" is.
Certainly not picture perfect silky hair, silicone smooth skin and voluminously thick eyelashes!
Perhaps inner peace balance and a knowledge of your place in the world?
So yes... two things when you give in to political correctness and confuse inner beauty and skin deep beauty...you end up envying what should be admired but visually, and you end up with utterly worthless ambitions...but what else?
Well for starters you not only have a dumbed down a generation of wanna be glam dolls as future wives and mommies to be and disempowered and devalued present daughters and sisters, you have given a great big growth boost to an inane industry and insipid culture which profits off your vanity and grows ever more powerful and hungry for more and more of your money.
Make no mistake the kind of goods you itch to buy, the objects you desire, the commodities you wish to possess, creates your characters, your souls and fills up not just your houses but your hearts. As well as create space on shelves in markets, malls and boutiques for costly frivolous frippery. (Which once was a great little bit of rare extravaganza but now is the norm.)
Everyone and everything is prettier more polished plastic and shiny.
But neither self sustaining nor substantial, nor solvent.
There are many who are the walking dead in painted faces whose souls have been clogged with layers of deceptive foundation. You're not touching the skin of their souls at all but their suave seasonal attitudes put on haughtily, like haute couture...
And others are hiding crazy neuroses behind rosy faces and simpering winning smiles.
We have arrived at the point where the surface reality has become our fluid reality.
The plain honesty of being labelled a plain but honest woman has taken shelter in shame where even grandmom must be manicured and moussed to be called adorable.
I do prefer to be called plain to my face. Because it makes me feel, when I'm loved, I am loved for something much more important, than either my face or my figure.
To be contd.
(c) Amrita Valan 2015
The Victorian...
(Well whatever...contd part 2.)
Sorry for my weird takes on stuff but...
Please bear with me.
I want to present a few points.
Mainly, looking good, putting our best foot forward was always a big deal for every social human being, but women especially.
That's ok. When not carried to levels close to insanity. I understand a rhinoplasty for a deviated septum but for a chiseled nose? Absolutely not.
That rather outsize nose is my proud genetic inheritance. It marks me out as descended from a long line of forefathers, and when I stand next to their photos or portraits, oh boy!, I feel my connections my continuity and my lineage. I feel a sense of history even purpose. I feel the humor of going through life down the the lane of time, all of us with protruding noses and rounded eyes.
Ok. Now imagine this. I got my nose all slimmed down like a sleek fox terrier, my lips all puffed up with collagen, and my skin stretched into a shiny rictus of flawless perfection with botox.
All so I don't look my age and can walk with my teenagers as if I were an elder sibling. Now notice that my kids still sport that hooked patrician nose and the heavy jaw and they're not afraid of a wrinkle or sun spot... yet!
So I am a beautiful glam mommy but my kids don't bear even a remote resemblance to me anymore.
Why? Well, I decided I had rather look like La Jolie, or the late Mr Jackson than my own kith and kin.
And then I purr silkily in the same breath, "I'm so proud of my 'beautiful' children!"
Really? After discarding every feature of physical similarity with them, who are you fooling really? What do you think your kids feel about "their" looks now, seeing you makeover your own, so radically?
And what do you think they'll do when they get their own wrinkles and signs of aging?
I believe they'll remember the example mommy set them and start cutting and hewing their own flesh cosmetically.
I didn't and don't mind that a beauty regimen is part of a woman's life. A minor part. Done for art's sake or one's own pleasure to look well groomed.
If for a special man, then as a gift to him, a special one, not a mandatory obligatory daily offering.
Women value yourselves. A man's better half and if it clicks, you're his whole life and more than that the compass of his very soul. Not his eternally youthful show piece or trophy.
Don't let a small slice of your life cut into and eat up the other parts destroying their potential.
You're way cool as a research scientist a doctor, lawyer or tennis player already. You don't need to color coordinate, (or contrast ;) ) your lingerie or accessories with your outfits to titillate.
Let's face it. Looks are so over rated.
"I just want to be presentable" says a woman.
Really?
Being presentable? To whom? Or who? Excuse my grammar. My perception of this idiotic sentence is that women who say this, perceive themselves as "presents", gifts to be opened up by others, and lol...they concentrate so much on the wrapping, I guess they are busy being gifts for five or six year olds.
I want to be. Neat and well groomed same way men are. For a sense of being worthy of each lovely hopeful nee morning I'm stepping into. Not as a slob but an efficient effective vibrant being.
Yup. I don't want to dress like a joker with thin inconsequential multi colored straps hanging out of my clothes. I eat noodles. I don't wear them.
Nor let men, any men, strangrrs acquaintances, colleagues and neighbors, play peek a boo with my lingerie the whole day.
But yes, functionality and art can go hand in hand.
On a day that deserves it, or I deserve it I can make a style statement. Nake art.
Otherwise keep it simple.
(I won't add stupid, eh? :) )
But like everyday is Not a Sunday, I don't want to drag out the old sunday best every morning.
It's nice to be neat and clean and inconspicuous too. It's actually a lovely contrast to other days when you play butterfly.
Beauty is such a treat. I want to keep it that way. Special and a rare treat and opportunity.
But of course that will affect the turnover of beauty products and high priced haute couture off the shelves.
So you get to decide. Keep beauty as private and sacred...a personal art. Or let's make it big business and parade it round town.
Remember if you choose the latter....it's a 24 into 7 job. No rest, no respite no holidays. Image without substance, display without depth, and obligatory without choice or exception.
This is the age of product placement and congratulations!
You have placed yourself on the market shelves, just like skin whitening creams and cosmetics, as an alluring product.
(c) Amrita Valan 2015
