She ought to be pretty......

This is my post for the Indiblogger contest sponsored by Stayfree. One has to describe what makes them feel irritated. Well, I could dish out a long list of happenings around me that irritate me to the core, but for the contest entry, I am hand-picking just one.

And that is considering the adjective "beautiful" and its derivatives as a prefix or a suffix to anything related to the female gender. A "beautiful woman"; "she is really pretty"; or "she is not intelligent, but really beautiful."

The moment a conversation on or about the female gender drifts from her any other personality trait to her face and her beauty, I lose my nerves. It used to happen a lot in my previous workplace. Many external trainers were invited from  statistics and research agencies to hone the company executives on number crunching and data analysis techniques; since the company that I worked for happened to be a leading Media Metrics monitoring and rating agency. I clearly recall that after the intriguing sessions, the topic of discussion would only be which speaker happened to be the best among all. Invariably, the one with the prettiest face would turn out to be the favourite and best speaker amongst all seeking the training. That unanimous decision would come as a surprise because even though people would be taking notes from the speaker who turned out to be more simplistic and patience in her approach towards bringing out the session for her speakers, they would not judge her the best. That was only because she did or did not carry a pretty face above her shoulders. Many of my colleagues would not even remember the names of the speakers whom they found influential, in case they were not good looking kind of; but in the case of a pretty speaker, they would remember her face, name, her brand of watch, her dressing sense, her height, vital statistics et all, though little or no consideration would be on her training style.

More so, if a pretty faced woman is indeed capable of intelligence and is worth of what she achieves in her career or personal life, it is automatically deduced that her life must have been a cakewalk owing to her pretty face. "She must have made it because she looks good...who can say no to her..." This is the standard stereotype and bias towards a woman with a pretty face.

Why should we generalize and criticize the usual, boring corporates in this irritation emanating thread of discussion. This in fact is the trend amongst the so-called well read, well moved out, been there, done that kind of journalists too. I remember reading in the front page of one of the prominent national daily of our country, an article on the real life female spies and infamous women in the crime era of recent past. I was shocked to read that the journalist had mentioned that "only if Madhuri Gupta and Phoolan Devi were pretty, they would have garnered sympathy from the public at large." I agree that the movies makes us into believing that the females in the crime times are sexy, glamorous and pretty, but is beauty the end all of life??

Yes, I believe beauty is indeed the do-all and end-of life. But I am just expecting it to last deeper than just the face. Face is just the logo or favicon of what you really are. Being beautiful is a precious asset, not every one can be pretty or beautiful. But carrying that beauty within one's personality and endeavors is something that takes effort and makes someone truly beautiful. Traits like strength, character, intelligence, compassion, diligence are all adjectives that can also be clubbed with beautiful; only if we are ready to make that change.

Within our Sub-conscious all of us give a preference to someone beautiful; only if we could be more considerate in knowing other forms of beauty in the person; or not judge her only on her physical beauty as a yard-stick. I indeed would be less paranoid and irritated!!!