[miss_jane]

As I read through some of the threads about various aspects of beauty (cosmetic surgery, shaving, makeup etc) I noticed that the majority of them were distinctly not about the politics but about hints ands tips. I thought it would be useful and nice for busties to have a place to discuss the politics behind the "beauty myth" and hopefully clear some of our thoughts on it.

The type of topics that have been playing on my mind:

*Cosmetic Surgery
*The Removal of Body Hair
*Diets
*Makeup
*The Media's Attitude

Just to make everything clear I don't want this to become a place to attack busties who chose different ways of expressing their beauty.

So what are your thoughts? Can stereotypical beauty maintenance sit comfortably with feminist politics? Feminism is about a lot about choice for the individual, but is any choice (specifically about beauty) that a woman makes necessarily feminist? How difficult is it to stand up and fight the beauty myth?

As a side note : The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is the book that stemmed these thoughts in me and a few years own I still haven't cleared in my mind the way I feel about things.

[nohope]

Is it just me or would this question never be asked a guy. Also what is the purpose of the question? What answer could it offer which would shed any light upon the root question here, is a society healthier that is "beauty blind" or one which creates strict norms to which people are forced to conform through a regiment of extrinsic rewards and punishments.

I know people will say that categorizing is innate, and that beauty is an integral aspect of Darwinian evolution. But that still begs the question of whether society should be beauty blind or not. After all the society can be blind even if the individuals are not.

i.e. since we each carry with us our own genealogical baggage which we hope to over come in our mates, it is only logical that beauty conform to an individual standard which balances out our own shortcomings.

i.e. the best mate would offer positive genetics that we don’t carry, or would counter negative genetics that we do.

However if society sets the genetic norm, then we are more likely to make a mating failure, as we all compete to mate with persons which are closest to the social genetic norm, at eh expense of overlooking those mates which would best compliment our genetic makeup.