freedom from beauty

Women are slaves to beauty.
So are men, of course, but it's more accurate to say that women are slaves, while men are indentured servants. Women's yoke is more overt, and controls their actions in ways that would be painfully obvious to any alien watching from space.
The average American woman spends over an hour a day on beauty, and $10,000 a year. Don't adjust your dials, that's not a typo. I agree, it sounds not possible, but i found three estimates, and that was the smallest (that number doesn't include cosmetic surgery, but it also may be the most obvious instance i've ever come across wherein the mode might be more revealing than the mean).
British women spend only $7000 a year. No wonder they're such an unholy mess.
Women are slaves...and they are not to be pitied. For they sit in their cage, while the cell door swings in the wind.
Are they content in their bondage? No. Two thirds of them report being unhappy with the time they devote to beauty. Most of them simply aren't aware, however, that they could have walked out of the cage years ago.
Is it vanity that chains them?
It is not.
It is fear. Fear of being alone, or poor, or unloved. These fears are not hysterical. Attractive people are measurably more successful in the workplace, in romance, in court aquittals, and in overall happiness.
So what would women have to do to free themselves? Would it be a long, bloody revolution, with unendurable casualties?
Um, no. It could all be organized, carried out, and irrevocably won by this time tomorrow.
By every woman in the world simply agreeing that beauty's chains are no longer needed.
Really. Just like that.
What would stop them?
If every woman threw down her paints, sprays, accessories, heels, and gels, men would look at each other and say, "Uh...okay". And do you know what would change in the relationships between the sexes?
Nothing.
Men would still desire women. They would still pursue them, and woo them. They would still infuriate them, and sometimes rub their little feet. It would take men one week to get used to the change, and two weeks to be thrilled by it.
Men and women would still be under beauty's sway, in some ways that are natural, and some that are not. We'd still have our work cut out for us, in making this a world where intelligence and morals and talent are valued above looks. If we get our act together, that world will be ours in a few generations.
There are many places in the world where women are not free enough for this revolution, many places where such actions would be greeted with the closed fist of an ignorant man. But once free, how much better equipped would the rest of the women be to end that kind of global degradation forever? Once free, how much better equipped would women be to make everything in the world better, starting with themselves?
How much more powerful, educated, and energetic will each woman be? Each one will have instantly given herself a blank check for hundreds of thousands of dollars. What could American women do with the 7 billion dollars they spend each year on beauty? Let's add cosmetic surgery to the mix. There were 12 million cosmetic surgeries in the U.S. last year. Women accounted for almost 90%. If next year there were none, women would have an additional 9 billion dollars.
What mountains could be moved with 16 billion dollars...or with the 160 billion spent worldwide?
More importantly, each woman will have given herself two additional years of life...two round-the-clock, 24-hour-day years, spread out over the course of her adult life (i arrived at that number not by subtracting beauty-hours altogether, but by making woman's burden equal to man's).
What could you do with those 20,000 hours? How many degrees could you get? How many books could you write? How many events could you organize, or offices run for? How many people could you love?
How many songs could you sing?