Beauty Burdens

In line with my new-found love of feminism, I went to a salon and chopped off my hair! Cliché? A little. Freeing? YES! I've explained the drastic change to others as a rejection of the burdens that society puts on women in order for women to be beautiful. To which one co-worked replied "you're about sixty years too late!" This is true, but now I am also able to dance and lie on the floor without a ponytail getting in the way!

But this got me thinking about all the ways in which women are burdened in order to be beautiful (should any woman choose to conform to the US concept of beauty). I began a list:

1. Long hair, as mentioned above. Which takes more shampoo, more products, more time, can be grabbed (for fun and not for fun), and can get stuck in doors/jackets/fingers.
2. Long nails. How do long nails help women? And then we are expected to paint their nails, which always leads to annoying chips.
3. High heels. Yes, we become taller, but then we walk slower, sink into the grass, turn our ankles, and injure our shins.
4. Dangly earrings. While I often wear these, I worry about them catching in a foreign object and tearing my earlobe.
5. Dresses and skirts. All right, this one has both pros and cons. We can go to the bathroom easily, and stay cool in the summer. However, we are cold in the winter and must watch out so that we do not show off our panties.
6. Thongs. Duh.
7. Giant diamond rings. As someone who has recently become engaged, I'm hesitant to go for the big rock. Besides the controversy over diamonds and the cost, I just know that I would scratch myself on the face and probably dent furniture with it.

This is non-comprehensive. I'm open to more ideas.

In the vein of inclusion, I have also started compiling a list of ways in which men are burdened to be "handsome":

1. Neck ties. I imagine that these can get stuck, pulled, and dropped in food.

This is also probably non-comprehensive. Let me know if you think of anything. But why are the "beauty norms" of today's women disproportionately lacking in function and logic? Who solidified these norms? Where do we draw the line between fashion and function?