Just Another Pretty Face?

Americans expect more from women.  It’s not enough to be bright or have the ability to multi-task.  We also expect them to look good.

Ann Althouse took this us with the image above (click to see article) in a discussion about a series of statements Rush Limbaugh made about whether the American people would like to watch a woman age in office.  And I think that her commentary on the issue is spot on.

We’ve Come to Expect It

One of the current television shows that I’ve taken up watching¹ is ABC’s Flash Forward.  It’s an interesting story about a period of time that happened at the beginning of the season where all the people in the world blacked out for roughly 2 minutes in which time they saw their future.

When I read the reviews early on, I saw that one of the main critiques was that there were too many “perfect faces” on the show.  They all had perfect body types and the starting cast were all good looking people.

But this is something that everyone knows.  People want to look at and watch attractive looking people.  We talked about this before in terms of the Fox News Anchors.

We Put a Burden On Our Ladies

This puts a burden on our ladies.  They know that we put worth in how they look.  And because we live in a “small world”—smaller than it ever was—our ladies are comparing their looks not only to the “people in their small town” but to every girl in the world as well as every airbrushed photo and even some virtual women.

It’s a heavy burden to bear, with many women opting for what seem to be unnecessary surgeries that they deem necessary because how they look can impact what jobs they get or do not get.

It’s expectations that are being set every day about what is the right clothing to wear, the right makeup and the right figure to have—and it’s unfair.

We Cannot Control What We Were Born With

Well, at least we can’t right now…  The fact is that our height, looks and intelligence are not defined by things that we have control over.  Yes, we can eat healthy, exercise and study hard—but our DNA is formed without any input from us.  To some degree we cannot even control our surroundings, and certainly not our parents and their choices.

This is all the more reason that we should be looking internally instead of externally.  It’s why modesty is an important thing, even if you don’t believe it’s something that God wants or expects of His children.

Defining a person by how they look—what dress size they have, what hair color they have, and what kinds of clothes they wear—is, in my mind, equivalent to judging people by their skin color.  It’s not that it is wrong to be attracted to people or the way someone looks, but it is wrong to judge them or think less of them because of it.

What do you think?

1. That is, until it went on hiatus until March 2010! [↩]