My friend (who shall remain nameless) called me from the highway the other day where, as she drove to East Texas to drop her son off for a camping weekend, she saw a billboard. In East Texas. It said this:
"Gentlemen, does your lady suffer from Tinydiamonditis? Is she embarrassed to wear her diamond in Public? Is her daughter or Daughter in laws diamond bigger than hers? We can help your cure this terrible complex..." (You get the idea)
My friend was pretty appalled at this. Was it the notion that men actually think that women feel this way about their status and their jewelry? Or the accusation that this mentality may be true? Of all the places for this kind of thinking to be pervasive, I would not have suspected rural East Texas. But I didn't make too much of it. Maybe they're not serious....maybe it's just an advertising gimmick to get your attention by offending your sense of priorities. Maybe.
Well then today I opened my mailbox and found my "Living" magazine, you know, one of those local publications filled with ads for granite countertops, teeth whitening, overpriced baby furniture and the like, with perhaps a one-page article on fitness thrown in so that they can call it a magazine instead of junk mail. The back cover is this ad for a local plastic surgeon. According to his ad he specializes in botox, body contouring, tummy tuck, liposuction, face lift, brow lift, eye lift, lip enhancement, breast augmentation, reduction and lift. Yes, he has built a career capitalizing on women's insecurities and vanity. The picture is of a sexy Jessica Rabbit type woman (read: not proportional) with shopping bags in both hands, proclaiming "Now it's much more fun to go shopping!"
Okaaaaay...where to begin on this? Are women seriously so shallow that (a) appearance is valued above other traits, and (b) shopping is an actual life calling to which one can more thoroughly enjoy when one is more beautiful?
Ok I must admit that not being beautiful is not hard if you have never been beautiful to begin with. Aging isn't nearly so painful when you realize that beauty lies within before you reach adulthood; somewhere between the hormone storm of puberty and college graduation is when I believe that "healthy" women get their priorities straight. These people who are having a hard time not being depressed as they get older are having these problems because their values are so skewed that they never actually found something to be happy about other than their looks, and then when the body ages, they have nothing left to be happy about - no higher calling, no purpose for living, no life's ambition, no joyeux de vivre. Just living from shopping trip to shopping trip. (Isn't there some kind of psychiatric diagnosis for women who become sad and depressed if they do not get a shopping "fix" every so often?)
At any rate, as a mostly-intelligent and average-at-best looking person, I am embarrassed to be a part of a population, time and place that actually has these kind of warped values. What will future generations look back and think about us as a society?
Now another whole bend on this is that, out of all those surgeries that this guy performs, the breast reduction is actually meaningful and warranted. As a consumer of said surgery (although not with this surgeon) I really despise being lumped into this category of women. Especially by my insurance company. "Yes we cover that surgery under your plan - if your pre-operative photos show your nipples hanging down to the leve of your navel." Well I could wait a few decades to get to that point, but frankly there are some actual physical consequences to not having that surgery when you need it, not just cosmetic consequences. If other women weren't so vain, perhaps my insurance company would not have been so quick to lump me into that category and deny my claim. Thanks, ladies.
My friend was pretty appalled at this. Was it the notion that men actually think that women feel this way about their status and their jewelry? Or the accusation that this mentality may be true? Of all the places for this kind of thinking to be pervasive, I would not have suspected rural East Texas. But I didn't make too much of it. Maybe they're not serious....maybe it's just an advertising gimmick to get your attention by offending your sense of priorities. Maybe.
Well then today I opened my mailbox and found my "Living" magazine, you know, one of those local publications filled with ads for granite countertops, teeth whitening, overpriced baby furniture and the like, with perhaps a one-page article on fitness thrown in so that they can call it a magazine instead of junk mail. The back cover is this ad for a local plastic surgeon. According to his ad he specializes in botox, body contouring, tummy tuck, liposuction, face lift, brow lift, eye lift, lip enhancement, breast augmentation, reduction and lift. Yes, he has built a career capitalizing on women's insecurities and vanity. The picture is of a sexy Jessica Rabbit type woman (read: not proportional) with shopping bags in both hands, proclaiming "Now it's much more fun to go shopping!"
Okaaaaay...where to begin on this? Are women seriously so shallow that (a) appearance is valued above other traits, and (b) shopping is an actual life calling to which one can more thoroughly enjoy when one is more beautiful?
Ok I must admit that not being beautiful is not hard if you have never been beautiful to begin with. Aging isn't nearly so painful when you realize that beauty lies within before you reach adulthood; somewhere between the hormone storm of puberty and college graduation is when I believe that "healthy" women get their priorities straight. These people who are having a hard time not being depressed as they get older are having these problems because their values are so skewed that they never actually found something to be happy about other than their looks, and then when the body ages, they have nothing left to be happy about - no higher calling, no purpose for living, no life's ambition, no joyeux de vivre. Just living from shopping trip to shopping trip. (Isn't there some kind of psychiatric diagnosis for women who become sad and depressed if they do not get a shopping "fix" every so often?)
At any rate, as a mostly-intelligent and average-at-best looking person, I am embarrassed to be a part of a population, time and place that actually has these kind of warped values. What will future generations look back and think about us as a society?
Now another whole bend on this is that, out of all those surgeries that this guy performs, the breast reduction is actually meaningful and warranted. As a consumer of said surgery (although not with this surgeon) I really despise being lumped into this category of women. Especially by my insurance company. "Yes we cover that surgery under your plan - if your pre-operative photos show your nipples hanging down to the leve of your navel." Well I could wait a few decades to get to that point, but frankly there are some actual physical consequences to not having that surgery when you need it, not just cosmetic consequences. If other women weren't so vain, perhaps my insurance company would not have been so quick to lump me into that category and deny my claim. Thanks, ladies.
I have to add this about a billboard we saw this weekend (just prior to Valentine's Day.) This was a Valentine's Day themed billboard, and it said, "My wife is hot! Thank you, Dr. So-and-so!" It was an ad for Lap Band Surgery. So, gals, if you can't lose weight for yourself, do it as a Valentine's gift for your husband!
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