However, it’s so mind boggling when social media, magazines, commercial adverts and different platforms perpetuate these deep rooted insecurities about the female form, telling me if I don’t robot size myself into looking like every other women out there, then I don’t have beauty. I fear for myself when I finally start wrinkling, when my body starts to sag, when I start noticing grey hair, how will I cope mentally. Everybody is telling me what I need to do to regain my beauty, to stay beautiful. Nobody is telling me that ‘beauty is fleeting’ and how to cope when my youth fades and I’m now considered a beautiful older woman who was stunning in her prime.
Women are getting surgery, injecting their lips, injecting their butts, lifting their faces, sucking in their waists. And they do these things, not because they want to, but because the media says this is the ideal.
We now see 16 year old girls, engaging in one form or another of surgery to alter something about themselves just because of beauty. These are young ladies who aren’t even fully physically formed as women yet. And yes, there are plastic surgeons who will carry out these procedures without batting an eyelid. There are parents who will allow their children get these surgeries, without really digging deep into why one would want to change body forms so early in life.
I mean our minds are so messed up at this point, and people and companies are preying on our vulnerabilities. The same vulnerabilities they create and advertise. They are making big bucks off our waterered down conformist minds. I really worry about myself and the survival of my mind. To grow old is supposed to be the ultimate dream. There are adages like ‘age like fine wine’ because everyone knows that the older the wine, the better the taste. Old age is supposed to be a blessing, an honour. But I fear it. Crazy right? Society has told me, if I’m no longer young and beautiful, then I have nothing to offer. Not my intelligence, not my accomplishments, not my love, nothing. So, why shouldn’t I dread getting old?
What do I have to look forward to? Nobody reminds me, that to grow old could mean finding love, taking care of my parents, making love in form of my children, seeing them produce their own children, accomplishments in my career and wisdom that comes with experience. The fortune that is living to be that old. Nobody tells me these things.
Instead they say be afraid, be very afraid. As you grow older, begin to be self conscious of your age because nobody needs to know how old you really are. You won’t be as appealing anymore once they do.
We’re raising a bunch of insecure, fickle minded women who place too much value on materialistic things that won’t stand the test of time. If we aren’t actively fighting this new ‘normal’ by rebelling, educating ourselves, following women of wisdom and strength; if we aren’t reading and being defiant, learning the true meaning of love and beauty through charity, also through religion; if we aren’t standing strong and refocusing our minds, one day we’ll find ourselves lost, time and life wasted not truly understanding that life is to be lived beyond self. Like I said, life is to be lived, not stuck in one unchanging state.
This article was written by Demilade Lewis, from Ibadan.
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