The Anti-Aging Woman

Dear Racheli,

I understand that modesty is considered to be an important part of Judaism. However, I don’t agree with it. Most modestly-dressed women are simply unattractive, and I think it’s repressive and archaic. There’s nothing wrong with looking good, especially since it makes a woman feel good when she looks good. Honestly, I see no problem with wearing a nice dress and looking attractive. Why do you?

Stella

Stella,

I totally understand your point, because I used to feel the same way. As a previously “modern” feminist, I looked at the whole modesty thing with more than slight distaste. I actually hated it. I told myself I would never, ever wear anything that didn’t accent my perfect figure. Then, when I started covering up more, I told myself I would never, ever wear a scarf instead of my gorgeous wigs. Then, when I started showing less skin than my grandmother, I promised myself I would never, ever stop wearing makeup (unless it was for a simcha).

Well, you can tell what happened. And let me tell you that I have never felt more beautiful.

Ultimately, there are two issues with dressing sexy, attractive, or whatever you want to call it. The first issue is that you’re attracting the wrong kind of attention. I can’t stress this enough. A woman, particularly a married woman, has no business turning the heads of other men, especially if they’re married themselves. What does she hope to gain by this? A few seconds of an ego boost? And for what? Is she not getting the attention she needs at home?

Marriage is already complicated enough- but to add other peoples’ desires and feelings into the mix, that’s asking for disaster! It’s like this: if you’re a married woman who unwittingly attracts the attention of a man walking by you on the sidewalk, you’ve just stolen a part of his heart from his wife. A man’s mind can’t be in two places at the same time, so if his mind is on your curves, I can guarantee you that it’s not on his wife’s! I wrote more extensively on this in my article, “Stealing  Beauty.”

Now let’s say you’re not married, but you’re looking to get married. How much are you focusing on getting your future husband with your looks? Be honest with yourself! Don’t most women look their best when they’re dating/engaged, and then things start to slide downhill from there? All of a sudden, one morning the poor husband wakes up next to a puffy-eyed, mascara-free wife with less than perfect skin, and he’s thinking he woke up in the wrong house! Is it really his fault he’s spending the next hour hiding in the bathroom from his Bridezilla?

There is a bigger, more personal problem with the whole modern idea of beauty- it’s destroying women’s self-esteem. Let me tell you about a character called “The Anti-Aging Woman.” She’s real, she’s about 70 years old, and she’s addicted to cosmetic surgery. Her face is beautiful at first glance, until you look closely and realize that one eye is about half an inch lower than the other, and the skin on her cheeks pull in a very unnatural way when she smiles. Her lips can double for a life-preserver, her nose has been reduced to two nostrils, and there are two skin-colored watermelons on her chest. She barely eats so she can still fit into her size 0 jeans. All in all, she looks like a caricature of her former youthful self.

You might say, “So what? As long as she’s happy…” Well, you would be wrong. I challenge you to find me one woman who’s as obsessed with her looks that can genuinely say she’s happy. Why is she spending so much time and money focusing on her looks? And I’m not just asking about her- why are so many women so obsessed with looking perfect?

Do you see where I’m going with this? When a woman is obsessed with beauty, there is no drawing the line. She will never say, “I’m beautiful enough. I don’t need to try to be more beautiful.” And the problem with this is that the need to look beautiful grows as the woman gets older. She’s in a constant race against her age and gravity, trying to outwit both with her arsenal of anti-aging creams, lasers, girdles, and surgeries. Ultimately, who wins?

A few months ago I went to a simcha where there were a lot of older women. One woman in particular got my attention- she was sitting in a wheelchair, overweight, obviously with health issues. But, boy, did she have the most gorgeous wig on her head! That wig hair couldn’t have been a day over 20, with its silky dark brown hair without the slightest hint of a gray hair. The curls bounced around her shoulders as if they were attached to a spunky cheerleader. Can you imagine how ridiculous this looked? Why was this woman who was over 60 years old wearing the hair of a 20-year-old?

To me, it all comes down to this: the modern ideals of beauty are a direct attack on the woman and how she feels about herself. It’s saying to women and girls, “If you’re not beautiful, you’re not worth much. If you want to succeed in this world, you have to be gorgeous!” Don’t believe me? Here’s an experiment you can do- go around to any woman and ask her how she feels about herself. How much does she value herself? How much of that value is placed on her looks? How much value is placed on her accomplishments? I think you will find that the more beautiful the woman is, the better she feels about herself and vice-versa. Furthermore, you’ll most likely find that no matter how many degrees she has on the wall, she still feels deep down that she doesn’t have it all if she’s not Dr. Barbie, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.O.G.

Not being taught to accept who we are as we are leads to an inevitable crash later on in life. At some point, every woman has to come to terms with the fact that she’s getting older, and is not as physically beautiful as she once was. But when a woman focuses on maintaining and enhancing her beauty for much of her life, what happens when she finally realizes that she just can’t achieve the impossible- looking 20 forever?

Furthermore, why are men allowed to age naturally but women aren’t?

Stella, you’ve been sabotaged. Just look at the way you assumed that Judaism is oppressive to women. If you came to my town and took a poll of women’s feelings of self-worth, I am confident that you will find that most women here have much less issues with feeling unattractive. That is because over here, the focus on outer beauty is nothing compared to the focus on inner beauty. Women here value themselves for their acts of kindness, for their work, for their efforts in raising their families and doing everything women do.

And you know what the most ironic part is? Speaking for myself, I feel more beautiful now than I did when I was wearing skin-tight jeans and 4-inch heels! And I know I’m not alone. How can this be? It’s because I’ve switched the focus on to what really counts- who I am, and not what I look like. Therefore, my inner beauty is what makes me feel beautiful.

It is my sincere hope that all women free themselves from their life-long slavery to physical beauty and follow the advice of the Torah: focus on what’s inside and accept yourselves as you are, because that’s the way G-d made you!