I have always had a thing for Cinderella and her brand of girl (be she Pretty Woman or Bridget Jones). It is a sad commentary on my life and speaks volumes if you know my particular story. Recently this particular fable has once again taken hold of my sub-conscious.
I have figured out that Cinderella's fairy godmother is alive and producing results for many a modern girl...and her name is Botox.
You look fabulous for the ball, she affords you confidence and opportunities that may not have been available to you in your work-a-day, hum-drum guise but late in the evening the clock's ticking begins to sound loudly in your ears. You are still the same sweet loveliness underneath but at midnight (or in 4-6 months in the case of Botox) the spell will be revoked and all the wages of all your sins will be returned promptly to your face like the pumpkin it is. Only this time there is no glass slipper with which to identify you.
Perhaps the moral of the story for the modern girl is that you are responsible for making your own glass slipper...
Or perhaps you just keep begging that syringe-touting bitch of a fairy godmother for just one more hit of that sweet sweet spell...
9 comments:
Och, I love it.
Fairy God Mother, thy name is Botox.
It's true, Botox is a pumpkin fable, and it is as dangerous as the Cinderella myth. Why? Like you said, it puts shelf-life on our femininity and causes us to ignore our own for a state-dependent myth.
I dig this post. Smart bitch. Glad you're among us.
I love the idea that we are responsible for our own glass slippers--because we are, absolutely.
But as for Botox putting a "shelf-life on our femininity," any more than any other paradigm of beauty to which we choose (note the verb) to ascribe (and we ALL do)--with respect, darling V, I can't agree.
So many women I know HATE their bodies; complain about their skin; bemoan their lack of exercise; get their hair coloured, cut, plucked, and otherwise removed; buy endless skincare products; and constantly change their makeup, their clothes, their hair. They are frequently insecure about their bodies and beauty, and do whatever they can to offset this insecurity. So how can we as sisters--if the above is indeed us, and it is--ever trash another woman's choices when we are so bound by our own?
I've had Botox before, and my feminist politics were in no way diminished by it. It affected my forehead, not my brain, and didn't, in fact, alter any of my face's expressiveness. The fact that Botox is a "hidden" cosmetic treatment hardly makes it "dangerous"--are our sisters' cellulite creams or pussy waxes any less hidden? Or are they dangerous, too?
I was very open about having had Botox, and I'd recommend it to any woman who finds it of interest to her, just the way I'd recommend the skincare line I use to women who comment on the way my skin glows. I have my own limits as to what I'd do in terms of using Botox again, but I those limits are mine--just the way your decision to wax your pubic hair is yours, to dye your hair or not shave your legs.
I am not a slave to beauty, but I really like who I am and what I look like. I plan to grow old gracefully and healthily, making my own choices along the way to help this happen, and I respect the sisters out there making their own choices, too.
The whole holier-than-thou thing about Botox brings to mind that old slogan from coined by our 70's mothers--your hands, off my body. Feminism continues to be about choice.
Love, sisterhood and respect,
Oksana
Meh. I needed the Cinderella story when I was young and I'm not against Botox: I'm just too ghetto poor to even ponder using it.
When I was young, the Cinderella story gave me hope and the huevos to get the hell outta Victoria.
You know, I never wanted the prince, or the slipper, but I did want Cindy's fighting, autonomous spirit...
The story isn't dangers for the individual girl, but it is for society's perception of her - its ab/use of it narrows.
Oh, and Mata isn't against botox, she's just pissed it's a diamond encrusted pumpkin.
And you have such a misperception about Feminism. It's not a dirty word and it isn't against beauty. And we feminists don't care if you use Botox.
You slander it too much instead of proposing how to work Botox into it.
Feminism a dirty word? Pardon me?
I say quite clearly I'm a proud + loud feminista. Heh, you should know that by now, Sista V. I do get dog tired though of gals slagging other gals' choices--NOT that I thought that's what either you or Mata were doing, but for those who do, it's the antithesis of feminism to deny a woman her choice, be it for botox or no babies. That was my point.
Botox and chocha waxes are already right in there with all those other fun things we feminists get to do, if we want.
But speaking of "what's in there," check out my next post...
5 comments and a blog schism. I'm honoured.
Welcome to 3rd wave feminism. I've often thought that our mothers may have had it easier in their day, bu only in the fact that their choices may have been clearer. You are a feminist therefore you burn your bra and dump the razor.
But women post-60's decided they didn't necessarily want to be hairy bitches...and then other feminising products began to creep back in but our politics did not leak back out. So I agree with you both...
VC, you're right. We need to find a spot for Botox within the politics. It doesn't need to be outside of it nor should it be. Botox is part of the game now and Oksana's not the only one playing.
Oksana, you're right. We need to stick together as ladies and in order to do that we've gotta stop slagging each other for our choices. I'm of the "my body, my choice" brand of feminism too. And yes, that syringe-touting bitch of a fair godmother has cast her spell on my lovely countenance as well. My husband always said he would divorce me if I got Botox. Someone has got to explain that one to me.
Bald pussies of the world unite! Don't hate us because we're silkilious.
*look at me: ever the fucking bridge mender. It's okay Mata, they're still friends*
feminism sort of reminds me of some kind of zen poem. if you are trying for enlightenment, then it will take you 83 years. but if you are just aware, you are already enlightened. uh oh, you opened your mouth to agree or disagree, go back to the drawing board!
another thought: there's the discourse of feminism, which often seems to take the form of the writer using clever rhetorical form to prove something to someone, and then there's the humbling every day experiences that make being a woman different from being a man. in other words, what do you really want out of all this? I mean, really, really want? I can't help but think it is an end to dukkha. in this sense, we are all "feminists", right? in fact, i'd even suggest that the idea of a binary-based feminism (male or female) is so 70's. of course we are biologically different, our place in society is different, etc. but we're all really after the same thing.
Hah. Thanks for the wet blanket on the cat fight. Whadd'r'ya doing stomping in here and ruining all our fun, and slagging us. Back off and get your own blog.
But, you know....
Feminism is no longer very 70s - we've come a long way baby - but your view of it sure is.
Feminism isn't spiritual, it's political. It's more akin to admiting you're an "environmentalist".
What do I want out of this? Probably to see more women as CEOs and CFOs etc. And I never want to be called "hysterical" at work (which I have) or harassed (which I've had to deal with, under great suspicion by my boses... I ended up quitting, and he stayed) Because there are definitely some problems with the capitalist form - and I think that considering feminist models, alongside other models, will help make our workplaces healtier and fairer for men and women.
I want equal pay for equal work, which doesn't yet exist.
...I like big words, and that has nothing to do with feminism ... more with those damn French philosophers I so admire - male and female.
And why wouldn't feminism use the rhetorical form? All politics use it - why can't "we"? Do you have a problem with Democrats using big words? Or Foucault?
I want to see a world with no CEOs where we all stay home in our tree houses and read books and raise our children. So in that sense, I don't want to see any women CEOs, because shouldn't they know better ? The white man's world of capitalist business is babylon.
On the other hand, that's so easy for me to say, I work at Amazon! I'd say about 5-10% of our employees are women. The culture of science and technology is totally antagonistic towards most stereotypically feminine ways of doing things. Actually, it's worse than that. Imagine if the boys digging in the dirt in second grade never grew up but they were very, very smart...
Still, you get the idea, or rather the question: if it is this Englightenment style of reasoned discourse that we engage in, can it be anything other than the tools of the dead white men? Is it meaningful, useful, or interesting to have your alternative discourse (especially given that these usually involve ugly people [har har, i don't have to be academically rigourous])?
I'm reminded of the girl DJs I worked with over the years. I remember I DJ'd a rave, and I was about 10 years older than most of the kids there. I played a set they called "old school". It was pretty downtempo and deep. Right after me, a girl of about 20 got on the decks. Immediately she POUNDED the tables, a new record every 30 seconds, turntable wizardry, sparks flashing! She was like Ronny James Dio of techno. It was sick (as in awesome).
At the end of the day though, this dynamic saddens me. Why should you have to be harder and faster just to get taken seriously as a girl DJ? Why is the male way of running a business (metrics, numbers, reports, progress, evaluations) considered the only way?
What I'd really like to see is innovative work places that make money and don't do things the ordinary way. You know, some out of the box shit. And like I said, this argument is in no way limited to women. Yes, the current workplace is unfair, but why bother with it? Why not just make something better? There's plenty of people out there, men, women, and everything in between, that find modern work life to be a stultifying prison of mind-numbing roboticism. Why can't we make a decent wage and not have to be slaves? Yes, in my opinion, the real problem is that the modern workplace sucks. Women just get more of the shaft, so to speak, in it. Mother fuckin hell yeah!
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