[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.

[venetia]

Nohope biologically speaking we "sniff out" a mate who holds a different set of immunities to us. Someone with a complimentary set will literally smell better to us. Ever wondered why, for most of the bugs/viruses/flu you and your gf catch, one of you will get it waaay worse than the other? That's why. Genetic predisposition to immunity is far more practical than visual prettiness. (I get this from Robert Winston who is usually pretty current)

So, I guess you're right if people really are doing that - selecting on what the TV tells them to. (beauty is culturally specific, and the idea that it isn't is a classist racist myth imo). But I look around and I don't see all the non conforming/ non "ideal" people childless and alone.

And, I think it is just you. That kind of question has been asked by people since the dawn of time. Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, asks it. Ovid asks it. It's prevalent in folklore.