My wife was kick-ass remarkable in every way, and she was beautiful, but she was not 'conventionally beautiful' by the world's standards. She always, always felt uncomfortable and insecure about her appearance, but she rarely wore makeup. She knew that no product purchased could make her look like the women in cosmetics ads.

She resisted beauty programming, but she wasn't immune to it. She told me that simply seeing an ad with some beautiful woman selling beauty saddened her, and angered her, and hurt her.

Of course, it wasn't just her — I've heard and read the same complaints from many women, written more eloquently than anything an old man like me can type.

It's a near-universal struggle for women to accept bodily 'flaws' that aren't really flaws — a nose judged 'too big', eyebrows 'too bushy', a mole, a scar, an extra few pounds, whatever. It's always something, and also something else, but for only $29.99, here's a product that promises to help. If it doesn't help, there are thousands of other products to purchase.

Always the unspoken message shouts, If a woman's face and body isn't perfect, then it isn't good enough — so buy something to fix yourself. Well, my wife was unfixed and didn't buy it, and that's one of the many things I loved about her.

This morning, L'Oréal shouted at me, "We design beauty technology that makes life easier." For the ad I've vandalized below, they rented a beautiful woman's face to sell their "beauty technology" to women who don't and won't look like the advertised image.

What would "make life easier," L'Oréal, is if the makeup industry was about 1% as huge as it is, and didn't always promote perfection, trying to make every woman feel 'not good enough'.

I'm a man, so I can't really understand any of this, and maybe I'm not supposed to notice or care, but on behalf of my wife I want to say: Screw everything about all of this.

1/28/2022