Someone asked me a rather provocative question the other day:
"Why do women put themselves through torture to look good: high heeled shoes, painted-on jeans, control-top stockings, corsets and shapers, push up bras, waxing? (Oh, and none of that is cheap either.)"
Hmmm ... there are so many ways to answer this question: a lesson on the sociological and anthropological history of beauty, a feminist diatribe about how wrong it is that our modern society still bases a woman's worth on her looks, a little primer in the economics of beauty.
But I thought I'd spare you all that, and just ask my girlfriends what they thought.
It's not surprising they all said the same thing: Women do all those things -- and more -- because we want to look good.
Yes, it's just that simple. What's not as simple is who we are getting beautified for.
Think it's all just for men? Think again.
Women like to look good for a lot of reasons. Themselves. Other women. And yes, men. (But usually not. Sorry, guys.)
Sure, sometimes we like to get all sassified and beautiful for the men in our lives. But, let's be honest, men don't usually notice. (You might want to work on that. Hint. Hint,) So our choices are limited to looking good for other women and looking good for ourselves.
I don't know why we primp and gloss ourselves into gorgeousness for other women, but we do. And it has absolutely nothing to do with what you are thinking right now.
Maybe it's because we all had some popular girl make fun of our poor style choices in high school. Or maybe it's a modern manifestation of some primordial, cavewoman-esque fight for dominance that's still in our DNA. But I know that I bring my Beauty A-Game when I know certain women are going to be wherever I am.
But the most important person women look good for is themselves. And no, we don't consider the things we do to be beautiful "torture." Sure, getting part of your eyebrow ripped off your face hurts. But it's hardly Chinese-foot-binding. Now that was torture. And since I'm pretty sure you don't want to read a rant about that, let's get back to pretty things ...
One of the most beautiful women in the world, Sophia Loren, said: "Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful."
I don't know about you, but I think every woman has a right to do, or not do, whatever she needs to believe and know that she's beautiful.
Gina Bever is a local public relations professional and woman-about-town. She's known for providing her friends -- male and female -- with thousands of hours of free therapy and (asked for) relationship advice.
ASK GINA: Send questions about relationships to Gina at malecall@timesfreepress.com.
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Why do we have this profoundly self-referential column "Male Call" in the News-Free suddenly? The title makes me think of "Booty Call" and other shallow, sexist concepts, and the content today morphs into an infomercial. I've been trying to ignore it, but it hasn't gone away. I'll keep twitching my nose and maybe it will.
I think it's a bit interesting that Gina makes the comment about torture and Chinese foot-binding but doesn't link it in any way to the high heels that women wear today. Has she ever spent an evening in a pair of Manolo Blahniks? Beautiful? Yes. Sexy? OH MY, YES!? Painful? EXTREMELY! Just a thought...
Typical shallow, useless blather in Chattanooga. What ever happened to inner beauty? Some of the most beautiful women I've met in my lifetime were 70 or more, with wrinkles even. Egad! How horrible to contemplate, wrinkles, the map of our lives. Gray hair, the snow on our roof of experience. These women had more beauty and grace in their little fingers than all the Botox-bloated, stiff-faced, concrete-bosomed fakes I've seen in Hollywood and on the Sunset Strip, desperately searching for a Man.
Bleah, nothing uglier than a woman who has the need to look like a 16 year old at the age of 45 or 65. The pathology of this fixation is evident in our culture and in the columnist's words above. You have not come a long way, baby. Definitely not.