The pretty trap

Alanis Morissette once said, “What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.” In this brief sentence, Alanis openly challenged the societal notion that all women must be pretty. Oh, come on, we all know it’s true. The pressure for a girl to be pretty is so heavy that if a baby girl is born and she is not “pretty,” the parents are highly disappointed.

And parents of pretty girls are always so very proud. That is a lot of pressure to put on a baby girl to make sure her genetic pool consists of the best of both parents’ physical attributes. Yet that is exactly how most of the world thinks. If a baby boy is not aesthetically pleasing, it is waved off because his brain or his brawn can pave a path to success for him.

However, for a girl, even if she has a brain, without having beauty it means very little. And heavens forbid if she has or wants to have brawn! That blasted box society squeezes women into is shallow on so many levels, but it is also counterproductive to the