Pretty's Pricetag

Last semester, I was in Buddhism class and we were talking about how society influences us to do things that are against our nature. We came up with examples like working to exhaustion, sleeping less, and forgetting to play. Then we paused. We were all thinking it. But no one said it. Dr. Ruff asked, “What else?” Even I was too uncomfortable to say it. Then he said, “We starve ourselves!”

We’ve heard it all before. We are fully aware that society places unrealistic expectations on people (not just women) to be “perfect”. But what I am really scared of is what we have become because of this.

Eve Ensler, the writer of the Vagina Monologues, has dedicated much of the money that has been made through the monologues to efforts to end female genital mutilation in Africa. To see and hear about what these poor girls are put through is horrific. After I saw a movie about FGM I was literally scarred for life… I still think about it and shudder.

These girls are literally being cut apart- AND WE ARE DOING THAT TO OURSELVES RIGHT HERE! The billion dollar plastic surgery industry in America thrives on the skewed mentality that women (and men) have to rip themselves apart and be put back together to be beautiful. Plastic surgery is rarely a painless process- whether people are having their foreheads sliced across their skull for a brow lift or having a vacuum shoved into their torsos for liposuction. But it is perfectly acceptable- OFTEN ENCOURAGED in our culture.

What does that say about our culture? This is the culture that we are perpetuating with every shampoo or lipstick purchase. This is a culture that we are raising our children in. It is time to stand up for what is natural, and right, and humane.