We don't really have a cure for your pain, but at least you still look desirable
Fox pretty or deer pretty? Clean girl or mob wife? What’s your aesthetic? Have you considered fillers? Rhinoplasty could be helpful. Oh definitely get botox, you don’t want to look like you’ve gone through the very natural process of aging. Run!!!! to get yet another skincare product for an insecurity you didn’t know you could have.
The beauty industry is projected to reach 667 billion dollars this year. I want you to sit with this number for a second. Can we, in our right minds, justify this? I am no one to crucify, I have fallen victim too. For some, makeup is their art form. Lighting that candle and a face mask, calling it self care, brings you and me peace in this utter madness that is the capitalist machine. But perhaps, we needed a way out, or got conditioned into needing anything so desperately that even an act of self care became less about ending your days softly, and increasingly about the next package at your doorstep.
You might be familiar with the scene from fleabag, where they’re asked the question, ‘‘Please raise your hands, if you would trade 5 years of your life, for the so-called perfect body.” Portrayed as a joke, but the majority of women and girls, as young as 10, would make that trade in a breath. This is a melancholic but not an unanticipated outcome. Media has made sure of it for decades, to make young women believe their thighs touching is a sin. Remain hairless, petite, young, just the right amount of skinny. Try this new diet and you can drop 20 pounds in a week. Become light as a feather. Actually, the Kardashians said curves are in now. But gross, get rid of that fat and cellulite, makes you less fuckable. Appeal to men at all times. You shouldn’t ask for attention, good girls don’t air their dirty laundry to the world. Come on, you’re so hot, send a picture, promise I won’t share it. Why not? Well you were ugly anyways.
Truth is you’re their mannequin. To decorate and showcase. Your fate was decided the day you were in your mother’s womb as a woman. Your opinions, brilliance and ambition must not come in the way of watching your figure. No we don’t understand what is happening with your body, only capable of sexualising it. Menstrual cycles are just some blood, we don’t get the big deal. Just take some random pills for your hormones, god you’re so dramatic.
An infamous study and one of the very few on endometriosis, is not about the actual issue, or its impact on women, but on how the almost unbearable, unexplainable pain that this condition brings, makes the woman more attractive. While it has been retracted, the sheer ignorance enrages me. Woman or not, you should be too. How have the most brilliant minds, millions in research grants, and the medical practitioners regarded as god, not come up with a single concrete solution to a health crisis affecting 1 in 10 women?
There are thousands of “solutions” to “fix” every feature of your body. A product, a routine, and if you’re wealthy enough, procedures sold to you as fake confidence enhancements and self love propaganda. Meanwhile, drastically unknown is the cure to chronic illness affecting women. Medical gaslighting is not a rare occurrence, rather a shared despair of women that transcends borders, cultures, religions. On average it takes 7-10 years to get a diagnosis, to be told you were right all these years and it wasn’t just anxiety.
The internet was quick to catch on that Kris Jenner suddenly has a new face. It is inherently wrong for a woman in the public eye to feel the need to remain attractive, but good to know there is no age limit. To be daring as a woman you need not take on rigorous adventures or
protest against unjust systems, just let yourself age. Brave is the lady with wrinkles and smile lines from the life she lived. Pregnancy, childbirth, or even miscarriage, you must breeze through them and pretend the best time of your life consisted of nausea, fatigue, pains and severe depression. Well at least when you’re nearing your grave, you won’t have to worry about not looking desirable until your last breath.
Women, or rather humans everywhere, I urge you to teach your daughters strength, compassion, ambition, even audacity. Let them run wild and free at the age of seven they don’t care to be ladylike. Ask women their passions, not the calories in their meals. Strive to be memorable souls before timeless beauty. Because really, your beauty will not stand the test of time. Patriarchy will bring in its next object of desire as you struggle to keep up with the latest unrealistic standard.
I'm Nandika, an 18 year old who considers herself embodiment of 'jack of all trades, master of none'. Writing has been one of the many interests I wished to pursue but kept telling myself I'm not ready for it. I finally gave in and wrote a few pieces, this is one of them. I am still new to this and working on improving, just less afraid to put myself out there :)