Beauty is Elusive Commodity

 

By Eugene Mwea

There is considerable evidence that women’s physical attractiveness is judged more harshly than men’s, this abnormal situation has over the years, made women extra-concerned on the way they look and others’ perception of how they are supposed to look.

At the moment women are very sensitive of their facial looks, hips size, lips size, the size and shape of their breasts and even their body weight. It is a feminine characteristic to be beautiful, yes, but there are instances where nature becomes superior in light of our likes and needs.

Men do not make this any easier for women, instead of encouraging them to accept their selves, they demand that beauty lies from the outward appearances. It is a fact, that men react from what they see and that vision affects their reactions and decisions, but women are known to be more critical thinkers and analysts of issues before making decisions, but it is a pity that men influence women’s impression of themselves and their looks.

Recently, Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) launched a campaign against cosmetics that are in the Tanzanian market aimed at increasing the size of buttocks for the women. One user of these cosmetics appeared on national TV claiming that such cosmetics should be left in the market for the women to decide to or not to use them. This lady, despite her probably excellent state of mind, was evidently unaware of the side effects of such cosmetic usage on the user which include cancer and other heath issues.

This lady is not the only person in our community who values beauty over health. Other females forgo food and undertake very low–calorie diets or take on diets that require them to cut out whole food groups so as to become the so-called “beauty queens” or to attain the “perfect” body. They usually do this not knowing that such diets may place them at be at a risk for bone fractures, osteoporosis and other health abnormalities, and sometimes even death when the body exposed to these diets is lean and poorly-fed.

Beauty has turned from being a God-given attribute to a financially attainable value whereby it nowadays seems that money can buy beauty. Cosmetic surgery is very expensive but it is slowly gaining favor and attention in our African cultures. In the developed countries like the U.S.A, there are surgeries performed to reduce the size of lips, ear lobes, nose, buttocks, thighs, abdomen and breasts. These might not all be present in Tanzania but, a critical observer may assure you that it will not take a decade to meet your friend on the streets of Kariakoo with a nose larger than the one you have known for years.

Most cosmetic surgery has been proved to be performed on women in pursuit for beauty rather than on men. These kinds of surgeries are very dangers and though many people only realize the mental health benefits of these procedures, such as that of manipulating the outward appearance, they are ignorant of the potentially serious side–effects involved; especially when and if general anesthesia is necessary.

This leads me to ask a question, how should we define beauty? It has bean estimated that about 2 million  American women have undergone breast argumentation surgeries, 80% of the procedures were purely for cosmetic reasons so, should we use the size or shape of the breasts to define beauty?

This is a cause for argument one with no foreseeable solution because the word beauty is a universal word with various translations and connotations, as many as the population of the world is, because each individual has their own perception of beauty. As the famous saying goes “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” therefore a frog may be beautiful in my eyes, but not to yours.

The Kiswahili phrase, “Mwanamke ni urembo” (female is to beauty), is totally true, but the males in the society should make women believe that beauty is innate in every human being. Every human being is beautiful in their own peculiar, unique and astounding way. It is from this knowledge that we should focus our energies on developmental issues, rather than the image of self. However much one spends on beauty it will fade away with time. It is the legacy we live on the development aspects we put up today that will be remembered, very rarely does our beauty remain as the legacy when we die.

Na Eugene Mwea