From the time we are little girls women are pressured into believing that we must be beautiful. We are pressured into thinking that we must be super thin, that we must have perfect hair and that we must look great. We see it on television, in the movies, in magazines, and in the actresses that we idolize. In fact a girl’s first real doll, that could be called our role model has the perfect figure, perfect, hair and long slim legs. She also never ages, and always looks great no matter what. Barbie is beautiful and has that tiny waist, and that ever so perfect body.

For women the pressure is always on to look beautiful. We go on diets, where we practically starve ourselves in the effort of trying to get that Barbie doll figure. We diet so much so, that the diet industry makes billions of dollars from us. There are diet pills, herbal diets. diet drinks, colonics, enemas, spas to help us lose wieight, work outs to lose weight, and so many other ways to lose weight that the list is endless.

We get our hair done as often as possible to try to look beautiful. We feel horrible all day when we have a bad hair day. Women get hair extensions, wigs, and we do everything we can to make our hair look beautfiul so that we can look beautiful. We wash our hair everyday and dry it and style it until it becomes dry and frazzled. We try hair strengthening shampoo, hair thickening shampoo, shampoo that adds shine and shampoo that adds highlights and luster.

We read magazines from the time we are preteens to the time we throw in the towel and give up. We read the magazines to discover how we should look. We take cues from the thin models on how we should wear our hair, and what clothes we need to buy to look in style. We buy the makeup advertised so that we can look just like the model on the cover. But little do we know at a very young age. that those models in the magazines have a professional hair stylist, a professional makeup artist and ten other people to make them look so very beautiful.

We don’t have a cadre of people following us around making us look beautiful every day. Society pressures women in every way to look beautiful. It is everywhere we look. Almost every television show has thin beautiful women with perfect hair and terrific makeup showing us how we should look.

By the time women enter menopuase and the estrogen wanes, women are cast aside from society and thrown into a bin as carelessly as old clothes are thrown into a bin of used, unwanted garments. Once we become older and have gained larger stomachs, many wrinkles, and our hair turns gray and falls out, women are pushed aside for younger, prettier women.

That’s one of the many reasons women either accept how we look as we age, or women get cosmetic surgery to try to look younger. As our faces wrinkle and fall with age, and our breasts become saggy, older women are not looked at by men anymore. Men look at beaufitul, thin, young women. We don’t see women who are in their 50’s strutting around in sexy lingerie on a Victoria Secret’s runway. We see young girls floating around looking ever so beautiful. Possibly the oldest Victoria’s Secret model is Heidi Klum who is in her mid 30’s.

We are a society literally obsessed with being beautiful. We are a society that wants every person to be beautiful. It’s a sad thing that societal pressure forces people into being the same. People are different and there’s a reason for that. Not everyone is going to look like a supermodel and weigh 120 pounds and be five feet ten inches tall. Young girls are under so much pressure to look a certain way. It’s starting earlier and earlier with girls trying to stay thin, and look pretty way before they start becoming teenagers.

Teenage girls are getting plastic surgery done for breast enhancements and getting their noses fixed. Does a girl of 16 really need to get her breasts made bigger? As women get older, we start accepting ourselves for who we are. It’s basically just coming to terms with who you are and finding things in your life that make you happy-inside. When you feel good about who you are on the inside then, you become a confident person that just naturally looks glowing and happy.

We need to accept the fact that our bodies are a certain way. The more you do in your life that makes you happy, will make you feel better about who you are. Work at a career that you want to do. Start hobbies that make you happy. Society has created this image that women should look and act a certain way, and we don’t have to take it anymore. Work on the inner you and outside you will follow. Then all those TV shows, magazines and celebrities won’t matter. Besides did anyone ever see Posh Spice, (Mrs. Beckham) smile?