Next Saturday, China will host the country’s first beauty contest for women who have undergone plastic surgery. Bring on the widened eyes, narrow faces, full lips and artificial breasts. And all, supposedly, in the quest to help the public understand “‘manmade beauty.’”
“'Manmade beauty is a trend in China,'" said Xia Lingsheng, who heads one of the companies in charge of the event. 'We want people -- especially young people -- to understand that they should not blindly seek manmade beauty. They need to understand it.’”
What’s to understand? First, plastic surgery companies want to promote their services to “‘young people’” through the pageant.
Second, regular beauty pageants already give numerical scores for how women look. Ranking how women look after plastic surgery further perpetuates a damaging view of women; they’re to be judged solely on looks, like objects on display. Now, they’ll be held up to an even more impossible ideal of “manmade beauty.”
For instance, a 62-year-old woman in the competition has jet-black hair, a slim figure and a wrinkle-free face (perhaps the result of hair dye, liposuction and whatever complex skin treatment procedures are now available?) This is definitely not normal.
Whatever happened to natural and inner beauty? Hopefully, this type of ludicrous pageant will never, ever become popular.
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