Boob Deodorant ? The Latest Absurdity From the Beauty Industry

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  • Boob Deodorant? The Latest Absurdity From the Beauty Industry | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/boob-deodorant-latest-absurdity-beauty-industry?akid=11435.108806.d1iS0j&r

    In fact, inventing problems with women’s bodies and then offering a cure – if you pay up – is the primary purpose of the multi-billion dollar beautyindustry. More than 20 years ago, Naomi Wolf wrote The Beauty Mythchallenging that exact phenomenon. Since then, the industry has only gotten bigger, and the range of made-up problems women need to “cure” only wider.

    Of course, human beings throughout history have altered their appearance, to indicate membership in a group, to denote status or to appear attractive. What counts as “attractive” may vary wildly across cultures and traditions, but the pursuit of beauty is important to many human beings in many different societies around the world. An interest in the aesthetic isn’t weakness or vanity. It’s the foundation of art, of design, of architecture, of many of any given culture’s most treasured developments. It’s not shallow or frivolous for women and men to interest ourselves in our own personal aesthetic, devoting time and care to how we look. There can be an art in dressing and doing your hair and make up, not to mention a female-centric passing down of traditions and practices. Lipstick alone is not propping up the patriarchy.

    But socially obliging women as a class to present in a certain way that necessitates the expenditure of time, money and effort is.

    Beauty culture can be a lot of fun, and I’m not immune to it. Sephora knows I own enough lipstick for a bus full of human women. It’s also a major burden. And when industries are so transparently trying to stoke our insecurities in order to get us to buy more stuff, our ears should perk up a little bit and we should ask: is this about the fun in playing with the aesthetics of our physical bodies? Or is this someone trying to get me to buy a thing by convincing me that something is terribly, embarrassingly wrong with my body?