Botox before and after: Can I be a feminist and love how I look, too?
Because I spend an ungodly amount of time sitting in front of my computer, its desktop has become like a window into my soul. Scattered across the digital expanse are screenshots of things that, for various reasons, have caught my eye: A recipe for green curry, a woman suspended in crow pose, multiple examples of “French girl hair.” The desktop is like a mood board assembled by the better angels of my nature — a place of clean eating, inner peace, and effortless style.
In the lower-left corner is an image that, despite being shrunk to the size of a thumbnail, still looms very large. It’s a portrait of Susan Sontag in her later years, her face a topographical map of life’s long journey. Every line we are taught to fear is etched deep into her skin. Beneath the photograph is a quote from Sontag’s essay, The Double Standard of Aging:
“Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.”
I came across the image one day while mindlessly scrolling the socials of people I’ve never met. Immediately inspired by the feminist call to action, I resolved to embrace my age and eschew all cosmetic intervention in the name of sisterhood. “Fuck the patriarchy,” I probably said as I saved the image to my desktop, vowing to henceforth wave my age like a flag.
But just a few clicks on the very same screen will reveal a browsing history that stands in stark opposition to the sentiment:
Botox near me
How much Botox
How long Botox last
Do French women get Botox
If the internet has given me anything, it’s the power to confirm any bias that I’m holding at the moment. And when it comes to my beliefs about Botox (or Dysport, Juvederm, Kybella, et al), I am a study of contradictions.
Because I want two things: to embody Sontag’s feminist principle and to look nothing like her while doing it.
Of course, those propositions are completely incompatible, and the result is a kind of moral paralysis. How can you possibly weave two completely disparate ideas into something resembling sustainable, livable truth?
The Barbie conundrum
My inability to act on either impulse may have something to do with the fact that I am among the roughly 50% of people born into a woman’s body at some point during the course of human history. Whether being burned at the stake for being unable to prove that we’re not witches, or shamed for not figuring out how to be a CEO and stay-at-home mom all at the same time, women are forced into a hopeless double bind.
The experience was succinctly described in a devastating monologue halfway through Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film Barbie:
“It is literally impossible to be a woman … You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin … You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass … You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean … You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time.”
Read the entire story here on The Midst Substack.
