Transiting through Heathrow last week, my eye caught this headline: “Amal Clooney reveals she has one imperfection — bunions”. Amused and amazed, I glanced through the story, illustrated with pictures of the stunning legal luminary who has specialised in international human law. It said: “Nobody is perfect, not even Amal Clooney! As it turns out, the stunning lawyer actually suffers from bunions — a flaw that she didn’t mind revealing while enjoying a sexy night out with her hubby on Sept 29.”

One of the pictures zoomed in on Ms Clooney’s feet, and we were told that the straps of the high-heeled sandals she was wearing — a pair of $750 Jimmy Choos — “did little to hide the unsightly bumps that protruded from the base of her big toe”. Why this spotlight on the bunions of a brilliant professional whose claim to fame is neither curves nor shapely feet? In fact, when the dashing Hollywood bachelor announced he was marrying the London-based lawyer, and everybody asked who this Amal Alamuddin was, I remember reading that in international law circles the question being asked was who this George Clooney was that this accomplished barrister was marrying!

In her illustrious career she has been on a number of United Nations commissions, adviser to Special Envoy Kofi Annan on Syria, Counsel to the UN’s 2013 drone inquiry , and has represented several governments in high-profile cases. Yet the focus was on her bunions!

Beauty myths

The multi-billion dollar beauty industry and the beauty myths it perpetuates put immense pressure on women — educated, intelligent, brilliant professionals who do not depend on their external appearance to make their livelihood — to go out of their way to conform to prescribed notions of beauty and youth. The pressure on women to look young can be gauged from the fact that at any gathering, there will be men in their 40s, 50s or 60s, greying gracefully, some balding too, whereas most women in the same age bracket will have jet black hair.

This is much more the trend in industries where women have to look well groomed and attractive… showbiz of course, but also hospitality, or aviation, for example. On a recent flight, I was surprised to find a senior stewardess sporting, in her long pony tail, ample strands of grey. I discovered that Angela had decided “a couple of years ago to stop the bother of dyeing my hair. It was too cumbersome”. Her sister was very surprised because “I am a flight stewardess and hence supposed to look young and pretty, but I can’t be bothered”, she said. I told her how quite a few Indian women, including some well-known television anchors — that’s another place where appearances matter! — had stopped dyeing their hair and looking great too. An Indian stewardess, with jet black hair, joined our conversation in the galley and said: “But they can do it because grey hair looks nice on fair skin. But for our dark skin, it looks terrible.”

Ridiculous pressure

Of course, in the last decade or so, the beauty business has embraced men too. There is now a plethora of men’s products that promise to make them look younger, irresistible to women, and, in India, “fair and handsome” (shame on Shah Rukh Khan and other Bollywood icons for endorsing such products). But the pressure can reach ridiculous levels.

The Daily Mail had this headline: “Forget the thigh gap: Kendall Jenner, Khloe Kardashian and Rihanna spur new ‘thighbrow’ trend on social media”! Apparently “thighbrow refers to the skin roll that forms at the top of the thigh whenever you bend forward, sit, or kneel”. Helpfully, it adds: “Before you start drawing arches on the top of your legs, you should know the thighbrow is actually the crease created when your thigh meets your hip. It looks (like) an eyebrow, hence the name.”

For a moment I felt terribly outdated because I didn’t even know anything about “thigh gap”. But the extent to which the beauty industry is going to entrap gullible women to conform to these ridiculous trends is preposterous. It won’t be too long, I suppose, before gyms… sorry, fitness studios… start advertising: “Come here to get the best thighbrows”. Or cosmetic manufacturers go the Bollywood way to advise women to use this cream or that lotion for the best thighbrow in town!

One could snigger at these trends if they remained at a certain superficial layer of society, or were confined to showbiz. But unfortunately they don’t. These beauty myths infiltrate the world of ordinary women and put undue pressure on them to have a certain body type, a certain organ shape, and make them miserable when they don’t fit into this so-called desirable prototype.

Remember the recent storm over the air-brushing of pictures of celebrities that made many women feel inadequate or unattractive?

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