Women Under 30- Read This!

An essay as to why you shouldn’t change your face, inspired by transcendentalism of the 1800s.

I am branching out and sharing my true feelings, unapologetically, in today’s essay. Everyone can read this, but I am specifically gearing my message towards young women living in the age of social media. To the girls that have ever felt insecure about your outward appearance, this is for you.

I will begin by saying the point of this essay is not to tell you what to do or pass judgements on people’s personal decisions. As a woman, 23 years of age, I am merely sharing my perspective on the plastic surgery and dermal filler epidemic we are seeing in America, in hopes that maybe one young girl might read this and realize that she doesn’t need to change a single thing for “society.”

Note that I put society in quotes. This word is a hot topic on the internet and the main arguing point in defense as to why women undergo cosmetic procedures. We hear the phrase, “Don’t blame her, blame society,” and others like it often. But the question I am posing is Who is society?

I am going to save everyone a lot of time and prevent us from going in circles- society is us…we are society. It is not plastic surgeons pushing procedures on clients, it is not celebrities who are being marketed as flawless, and it is definitely not the male patriarchy that is forcing women to get their lips injected and their cheek fat removed. The problem is us women. Yes, you heard that right. We are the problem.

Ok, before everyone gets up in arms- let’s clarify. I support women 100%. It breaks my heart to see girls my age getting work done. The fact that someone has been pushed so far to feel insecure or put so much emphasis on their outwardly appearance, to the point of injecting chemicals and mutilating their face, is tragic when put on paper. I would not be writing this if I didn’t feel it was my responsibility to communicate how detrimental (to society and to all the women I love) cosmetic enhancements are.

Now that you, the reader, know where my head is at…let’s get into it! Starting off with a quote by transcendentalist Emerson (ladies swap out the man for the woman.)

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion;”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

We are essentially killing ourselves as soon as we try to copy the features of others. Think about a tract home: plain gray walls, perfectly square rooms, white cabinets, and everything proportional. Now picture a custom home, maybe one built in 1920: small doorway with warped wood molding, checkered tile that has lasted a century, oddly shaped windows, and most importantly…charm. We are built custom; we are not meant to be molds. As soon as you get rid of that “big nose” or those “thin lips,” you have lost the features that make you charming.

To put it into perspective, imagine the face of someone you truly love. (Doesn’t have to be in a romantic way.) Would you change a single thing about them? Now imagine you loved yourself as much as you loved others…would you want to change a thing now? All those unique features give your face character. I have grown so bored of seeing character washed away from bright, youthful faces to be replaced with protruding mouths and sad eyes.

To ensure I am not insensitive or hypocritical, I will share an insecurity of mine. I always felt my nose was too big. This started at around age fifteen when Instagram really took off and Influencer was a fairly green term. After seeing pictures upon pictures throughout the years of girls with upturned, small noses, I grew to hate my nose. Yes- hate it! I let that ugly feeling fester inside of me to the point of begging my parents for a nose job (numerous times) and trying every hack there was out there on how to contour your nose to appear smaller. Then one day, it hit me. The ridiculousness of it all. The sick obsession with appearance. The shameful view I had of myself. It all came together in the clearest way when I came across the concept of dermal fillers and nose tip lifts. Non-surgical nose jobs have been highly promoted in recent years a.k.a “the five-minute nose job.”

Aha! I thought. I finally found the solution! Until I did my research…

Long story short, if injected in the wrong place on your nose, you can go blind. Yes, you can go blind! For that to even be a side effect widely talked about and people still going through with the service is the perfect example of how toxic cosmetic culture is. “Hey, I got a new nose…but I can’t see it. Well, at least everyone else can!”

This should be a wakeup call. Young women…wake up. This is not normal. You are weak and giving in to peer pressure, rather than standing up. If no one else is going to be honest with you, I will. What these influencers are telling you looks good, does not. If you switched the phrase “influencer” or “public figure” to role model, would the statement still ring true?

No matter how “low risk” anything is, there is still a risk. To gamble with your life for the sake of having a barbie-like look is tempting fate. To prioritize the curve of your jaw over the constellations in the sky or the shape of your nostrils rather than their ability to smell the oak burning around a campfire or the smoothness of your temples rather than the laughter that has imprinted itself on them from people you love, is irrevocably wrong. Nothing is permanent, including the new, excited feeling you’ll experience when you get that new face but still have that same old soul. Now, let’s look at this on a macro scale.

“These American states strong and healthy and accomplished shall receive no pleasure from violations of natural models and must not permit them. In paintings or mouldings or carvings in mineral or wood, or in the illustrations of books and newspapers, or in any comic or tragic prints, or in the patterns of woven stuffs or anything to beautify rooms or furniture or costumes, or to put upon cornices or monuments or on the prows or sterns of ships, or to put anywhere before the human eye indoors or out, that which distorts honest shapes or which creates unearthly beings or places or contingencies, is a nuisance and revolt. Of the human form especially, it is so great it must never be made ridiculous. Of ornaments to a work nothing outré can be allowed ... but those ornaments can be allowed that conform to the perfect facts of the open air, and that flow out of the nature of the work and come irrepressibly from it and are necessary to the completion of the work. Most works are most beautiful without ornament... Exaggerations will be revenged in human physiology.”

-Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)

Like I stated before, we are society and we determine how far we will push the limits. With already unattainable beauty standards being displayed nowadays…how far will we go in the future? Speaking of the future…to all the future mothers out there, what will you say if your biological daughter asks you why her features don’t match yours? Now, take into consideration she is born with your features, pre-surgery. Will you tell her you didn’t like your nose or that there was something wrong with your chin? What will you say when she lifts her hand to point to her chin and asks you, “Mom, is there something wrong with my chin?” Have a pit in your stomach yet?

Why is no one is talking about this!

Because insecurity sells. Remember that.

“They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at-”

-Henry David Thoreau

You are solving a short-term insecurity, while creating a long-term problem. To the young girls that have read this through, you are beautiful. The thing you may not like about yourself right now, you will grow to love one day. Once you change your face, you can never truly change it back. Conformity has become a major issue once again. I look at someone who has had fillers or work done and it makes me sad. All I see is an incredibly insecure person who gave into a false narrative, rather than a beautiful woman who didn’t let “society” tell her what to do. One’s soul truly reflects upon their face. If you live your life seeking the beauty in others and speaking with kindness, your appearance will be no other than alluring.

“Dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem…”

-Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)

I will end with this- if you are thinking about getting work done, don’t touch your damn face and go read a book.

Stay tuned for my upcoming novel “North of Sunset” where this topic is discussed from the viewpoint of characters living in 2125.

Share this essay with a young woman who needs to hear this.