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Why do we insist on women and transgender people conforming to a certain norm of appearance, to appreciate their value?
Like the different parts of our body, our skin is also susceptible to different kinds of medical issues. There are specialised fields like dermatology dealing with these problems. A dermatologist or a skin specialist is someone that you should consult for taking care of skin ailments and conditions that can prove to be hazardous to your health if left untreated.
Your physical and mental well being cannot be compromised and thus seeking proper skincare with the help of professionals is the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, the problem is that women and transgender people around the world are judged, humiliated and even subjected to physical harm at least a million times more than men when it comes to the way they look. We (read men) are shameless and shallow enough to discriminate against other genders and ridicule them on things like skin colour, body shape, body hair, face etc.
We cannot take refuge in the excuse that we were not aware of our own biases. That may or may not have been true when we were kids but not anymore. Any adult who makes another person feel small by their words or actions cannot has no right to claim that they didn’t realize what they were doing. We all know very well what we have said and done as a society over the years and how we have behaved towards women and transgender people.
We expect them to maintain a particular look to appear desirable to our (read, men’s) senses, not realising that there is something horribly wrong with us for making the other person go through so much pain, just to cater to our whimsical nature.
We tell them to be individualistic and different but we don’t like the way they look, think or conduct themselves.
We tell them to hide what we (again, read men) perceive as flaws within them, using products that are not only expensive but can also cause adverse reactions while endangering their health at the same time. Many of these products have been subsequently banned due to the clear health hazards that they pose to their customers.
Companies and celebrities have often been guilty of peddling such cosmetics to the general public in the name of these absurd beauty standards that no one should have to aim for. Why the hell can beauty be seen as a metric that needs to be standardised and how have we been okay with this nonsense for so long?
If this is what we have become as a society and as a civilisation then I am sorry to say that there is something awfully wrong with us and the way we think.
Shouldn’t we be more accepting towards the other person and create an environment where they are free to live their way without constantly acting as the self-appointed moral police?
Image credits Matt Moloney, via Unsplash
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Many women have lost their lives to this darkness. It's high time we raise awareness, and make maternal mental health screening a part of the routine check ups.
Trigger Warning: This deals with severe postpartum depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
Motherhood is considered a beautiful blessing. Being able to create a new life is indeed beautiful and divine. We have seen in movies, advertisements, stories, everywhere… where motherhood is glorified and a mother is considered an epitome of tolerance and sacrifice.
But no one talks about the downside of it. No one talks about the emotional changes a woman experiences while giving birth and after it.
Calling a vaginal birth a 'normal' or 'natural' birth was probably appropriate years ago when Caesarian births were rare, in an emergency.
When I recently read a post on Facebook written by a woman who had a vaginal birth casually refer to her delivery as a natural one, it rankled.
For too long, we have internalized calling vaginal deliveries ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ deliveries as if any other way of childbirth is abnormal. What about only a vaginal birth is natural? Conversely, what about a Caesarian Section is not normal?
When we check on the health of the mother and baby post delivery, why do we enquire intrusively, what kind of delivery they had? “Was it a ‘normal’ delivery?” we ask.