March is International Women’s History Month and March 8th marks International Women’s Day. So, congrats to all my fellow femmes.
I love being a woman. As a sex, we’re strong, we’re capable and we’re powerful. Don't get me wrong, there's still a long way to go until we're finally - properly - recognised as equal, but we're on our way - and it's about time.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that many of us have a tendency to judge other women too quickly.
"What is she wearing??!"; "Is she really going back to work that soon after having a baby?"; "She's waaay too old to be going out with that guy!"; "Has she put weight on again?"; "She's lost too much weight!".
And it's the same when it comes to aesthetic treatments (tweakments). "Ugh! How dare she use Botox/ fillers/ Profhilo! That’s cheating!".
But the thing is, when it comes to clothes, work, family and tweakments (among many other things) we, as women, have a right to do what we feel is best for ourselves. I mean, it's our own decision, right? So we certainly don't need to feel shamed by others.
You see, the problem with shaming others is that we never know how someone is really feeling on the inside.
You may not like Sarah's dress, but it might be the only item of clothing that actually makes her feel confident. To you, it might seem inappropriate for Jo to go back to work 4 months after having her baby, but there are countless reasons why she might have. You might think that Celine is cheating by having Botox, but maybe she feels like she frowns too much and this is having a negative impact on her mental health. And really, is she doing anyone any harm? The way I see it is that we're often just dealing with enough stress in our lives to then have to face the judgement of others too.
Women are still heavily judged on a huge variety of things - especially on the way we look. Whether famous or not, it's a huge amount of weight to carry around on our shoulders.
What’s interesting is that dyeing our hair, getting our eyebrows microbladed, wearing makeup (including semi-permanent) and buying expensive skincare products is seen as the norm. But mention aesthetic treatments and it’s a whole different situation. So, why is it suddenly a problem when we talk about getting tweakments?
If a woman chooses to get tweakments, let’s just allow her do that without feeling the need to criticise. Isn’t it her face? If she wants to brighten her skin with Profhilo, restore a bit of lost volume or get rid of dark circles with dermal fillers - so what? It’s each and every woman’s right to do what she wants with her own face.
My face, my choice. Your face, your choice. We might not necessarily agree with each other, but let's not judge each other.
Aesthetic treatments and negative press
Understandably, criticism around tweakments often happens because people only associate them with the ones they've seen in the press - the swollen lips that are at splitting point, the frozen faces of the occasional celeb who's taken it too far... but in reality, tweakments done safely by a medically qualified practitioner are, generally, subtle and effective. By placing too much negativity on tweakments, we scare people into not wanting to tell their friends and family that they are having them, no matter how safely.
Transparency = empowerment
The more people feel shamed for having tweakments, the more they hide the fact that they've had them. And all this does is continue to perpetuate the idea that all treatments cause people to look fake and over-done. When, in reality, most treatments are undetectable when done by a medical professional. You can see that someone looks better, but you can't pinpoint why.
Let's stop pretending that our new face cream is the main reason for our great skin, and let's just be honest about the fact that it's really down to our fave tweakment.
I was really happy to see on Instagram that many clinics, beauty salons and hairdressers are finally ditching the gossip mags - because let’s face it, they just promote bitchiness and judgement that we just don’t need in our lives. So, let's do the same with people we know too. Let’s work together to raise each other up rather than pushing each other over.
Let's be women's women. And let's empower, not judge.