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BOTOX FEMINIST 64
I’m not sure buying a Groupon for a medical procedure is the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I was getting hitched soon. Like most brides I wanted to look lovely at half-price. I had never worried too much about wrinkles all those years as I baked in a tanning bed, but now I had a severe case of the thirties. There was only one cure Botox. Besides the obvious reservations one might have about purposefully injecting toxins into one’s skull, the only problem with this plan for a wrinkle-free brow was that this was going to make me a giant hypocrite. My whole life I judged women who got plastic surgery, and now at the sight of a few frown lines and an impending wedding, I was running to the luxury “spa” for injections. Such a measure to sustain youthfulness might seem less-than-newsworthy, but I have worked hard to maintain my substantive credentials. I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh (in Religious Studies, no less), a mom, and a feminist. On paper, I am supposed to be the kind of person who believes beauty comes from the inside, aging is unavoidable, and women shouldn’t be held to unrealistic beauty demands. So I became a hypocrite. With a beautiful brow. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve never been above vanity. I’ve been bleaching my hair, skipping sweets before bikini season, and gluing on fake eyelashes before big events for longer than I care to admit. There’s some sort of invisible line though, that you cross when you willingly paralyze muscles in your face or go under the knife in an effort to deceive people to think that you’re younger and/or more beautiful than you are. For me, I decided that I was okay with any cosmetic procedure that just puts things back the way they were, such as Botox for wrinkles or even a breast lift after your three babies sucked them into looking like empty tube socks with a roll of quarters in the toe (for example). To each her own, though. I read an article about Camilla Parker Bowles in which she said she loved every one of her wrinkles, because they were evidence of the wonderful life she led and the children she raised. While I admire her approach to aging, I simply don’t want to go gently into that goodnight. I’d rather cling desperately to my youth. What has been curious about my journey into the rabbit hole of the beauty industry is
how other women react when I tell them. If the subject of aging or beauty comes up (which it often does among thirty-something women) I admit to getting Botox and offer a demonstration of what my forehead looks like when I’m mad versus happy (spoiler alert: there’s no difference). What I notice is that women are almost always disturbed by the revelation that I succumbed to such a frivolous and superficial act. “Why would I give in to the culture of perfection, sexism, and anti-aging?” they ask with their judge-y eyes (which I can read since they don’t alter their forehead’s musculature with poison like I do). I realize, as we all do, that women in particular are bombarded with constant images of ultra-thin, ultra-young, ultrabeautiful ideals that we can never measure up to, and any effort to do so is futile and probably increases insecurity in the end. What seems odd to me about the silent shaming among women is that they are participating in the very thing that they are lamenting. When we look at each other and judge what we perceive to be superficiality, vanity, and insecurity, we are reinforcing the schism in the sisterhood. Remember how your grandma looked old from the time she was sixty? It’s because there was almost nothing previous generations could do to disguise the cruel truth of their ages. Oprah believes hair dye has changed aging for women forever, and I agree. One of the reasons that our mothers
generally look better at sixty, seventy, and older is because they have beauty options that allow them to look as vibrant and youthful as they feel on the inside. If women feel young, why should we begrudge them the opportunity to look like it even if they have to use Groupon (or Botox) to get there? Susie Meister welcomes you to continue the dialogue about beauty, aging, or anything else with her on Twitter (@ susie_meister). She also hosts a celebrity interview podcast called The Meister Piece available at susiemeister.com. @susie_meister and my podcast, The Meister Piece, can be found at susiemeister. com.
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I decided that I was okay with any cosmetic procedure that just puts things back the way they were...
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