Changing your looks

[Amy Z]

Re: that thread on Hermione at the ball on HPfGU.

I like to look pretty as much as the next person, and I admit to a 
weakness for clothes that is frankly a spiritual peril, but whenever I 
hear someone say "I did X (dyed my hair, got a nose job, bought a new 
wardrobe, wore makeup, etc.) for myself, not for anyone else," an 
inner voice says "Oh, really?"  Appearance is almost entirely for 
other people, and the pressure not to look a certain way comes from 
the fact that the people around you don't like that kind of look.  If 
people regularly told you you looked gorgeous without your changing a 
thing about your looks, would you feel the inclination to? 

Looks are such odd, arbitrary things.  Our self-esteem becomes 
dependent on the random cultural beliefs that surround us.  In my 
culture, unlike others in other times and places, fat is deemed ugly, 
so overweight people tend to feel lousy about their looks and 
themselves.  If I lived in a culture that thought red hair was ugly, 
I'd have a whole self-esteem challenge that I don't currently have to 
deal with.  Could I really say that dyeing my hair brown was a purely 
aesthetic, personal choice, when in =this= culture, which thinks my 
hair's a nice color the way it is, I have no desire whatsoever to dye 
it brown?

What we do "for ourselves" has an awful lot to do with what will gain 
us praise and acceptance by others.

Amy Z
donning asbestos, because I have never found an issue that gets people 
as riled up as this one