Beauty Discrimination

All the buzz lately is about the trend of using plastic surgery to ensure a longer lasting, and possibly more profitable career. According to Reuters, men’s use of fat injections to soften deep wrinkles leaped 497 percent last year over the previous year. It's not just women who are obsessing over the need to improve their looks: One million men had some type of plastic surgery performed last year.

Gender issues aside, society will continue to attribute the increase in cosmetic procedures in women to vanity, while it will be viewed as a career necessity for men. According to an article published in The Wilson Quarterly, looks DO matter - we all want to look younger, healthier and more attractive, no matter who we are. It started as a biological fact thousands of years ago– in order to produce healthy offspring, we needed to mate with a strong and healthy partner. Strong and healthy quite often meant young and attractive.

While biology may play less of a role in our attractions to the opposite sex today than it did 10,000 years ago, a certain level of attractiveness has become a standard in society that most of us are unable to ignore. Why is George Clooney a sex symbol while Adrian Brody is just “a fine actor”? Why has Pamela Anderson continued to garner constant press coverage when her only talent is her ability to enlarge her lips and breasts simultaneously.

The dramatic increase in plastic surgery procedures is another case of treating the symptoms rather than the disease. And the more we applaud those who can afford to have their noses straightened, their foreheads lifted and their eyelids unbagged, the more people will re-mortgage their homes in order to afford cosmetic procedures.

I realize I’m not helping the situation. I’ll do whatever it takes to maintain a youthful, healthy appearance. Like everyone else who’s working hard to stay young, I really believe my career depends on it.  My years of experience in marketing, my track record of successful campaigns, my expertise…they pale when I’m compared to the hot new marketing chick with long blonde hair and a portfolio full of energy and enthusiasm.

I don’t know how to change perceptions so that people are judged by who they are on the inside instead of how they look on the outside. But it has become very important to me to think carefully about what attracts me to people – employees, friends, children’s friends – and stop myself when I sense attractiveness biases creeping in. Every one of us should be asking: How many valuable people am I excluding from my life because they don’t please me aesthetically? 

When we meet our daughter’s new boyfriend, how often is the first thing out of our mouths, “Oh, he’s cute”?  How often do we describe someone by their level of attractiveness, rather than their intellect or personality – “You know, the pretty woman with the gorgeous dark hair”?  I’ve certainly heard myself do it. No, it’s not fair.  It’s totally, blatantly discriminatory.  But it’s a fact of life. 

There was a time when age evened all that out. You passed 50, gained weight, got wrinkles and became simply, “that older woman”.  Maybe life was easier then, before technology and obsession combined to provide us with everlasting youth and beauty. Personally, I’m tired of the battle. I think I’m going to let the weight and wrinkles pile on and become “that older woman”…as soon as I finish my Ionislim treatments.