Everyone has heard stories about the oppression of women throughout the world. In Africa the spotlight seems to be on female circumcision- the cruel practice which involves removing the clitoris of a woman for traditional and religious purposes. The continent of Asia has its own struggles. In Thailand one of the biggest problems facing women is the ridiculously large sex trade. It is estimated that 2.8 million women are involved in the sex trade.

The western world frowns upon these practices, and they are such visible forms of oppression of women the only reaction one can have when hearing about them is disgust and horror. First-world countries such as the United States and Great Britain have surely jumped leaps and bounds in terms of equality since their founding. Less than a century ago in the United States, women gained the right to vote. This means for the majority of the United States’ existence, women were thought too incompetent to vote. Considering this, it is amazing the equality women in America now enjoy.

For a quarter -century women have outranked men in terms of enrollment in colleges. According to the Department of Labor statistics for 2008, women comprised 46.5 percent of the total U.S. Force. American women enjoy the liberties of voting, obtaining any job they could desire (aside from being an NFL lineman) and having the freedom to be financially stable and not to have to rely on a man for financial security.

Women in America don’t have to undergo female circumcision and they are legally protected from sex trafficking. This brings about the question of the oppression of women here in the good ole’ U.S.A. What could women possibly be enslaved to that rivals the horrors of female circumcision and prostitution?

The answer came to me as I was perusing a People magazine that featured the reality TV star Heidi Montag on the cover. Apparently she had ten plastic surgery procedures in one day. These long lists of procedures range from something as common in Hollywood as a Botox procedure to the very bizarre otoplasty, which is having your ears pinned back.

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, there were 10 million cosmetic procedures in 2008. Of those 10 million procedures, 9.2 million procedures were had by women. That’s a whopping 92 percent.

The huge percentage of women using cosmetic surgery isn’t the only indicator that perhaps something is awry in the psyche of American women. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five women struggle with an eating disorder or have had some form of disordered eating during their lifetime. Ninety percent of those women are between the ages of twelve and twenty-five.

The fact that eating disorders greatly affects college students is no real news. The National Institute of Mental Health also cites that 91 percent of women on a college campus attempted to control their weight through dieting and 19 percent of college-aged women are bulimic. Some of the statistics that I looked up would almost be humorous if they weren’t so very true. According to one study, half the females surveyed would rather be run over a truck than be overweight and two thirds would rather be mean or stupid than be overweight.

The American ideal of beauty is so ingrained into women’s minds we would rather die than be considered something “unworthy” in this society!

I am very aware of the effects the societal ideal of beauty has put on women. I see it everyday in magazines such as People that chronicle the descent of a normal-looking woman into an extremely top-heavy Barbie. I also experience it daily in my life when I decide to skip a meal to make up for the Rusty’s Frozen Custard I had earlier that day.

Even being educated on how damaging the illusive pursuit of beauty can be for a woman in America today and even though I am angered and saddened by it, I still fall victim to its promises of worth and happiness.

There is definitely no easy solution to this problem, as there are usually no easy solutions to any major problem. Who knows why women such as Heidi Montag, who have virtually no talent or brains, could be identified by your token middle school girl when women such as Flannery O’Connor would most likely draw a blank in their minds. Image has become America’s highest virtue, and until that is replaced with something more substantial, American women will continue to be tortured by a silent oppressor.