Botox and Manliness

After reading The Privilege of being a Man, I was struck by a growing number of business men in NZ using botox to improve their looks.

Dr Cattin said businessmen were the main group among Botox patients.

"[They] are unhappy with lines that make them look irritable and it alters the way people respond to you. When you're in a management position it's important that your face backs up what you are saying because we tend to read faces rather than question what people are saying.

"The way people respond to us, especially in a position of authority, is very much influenced by what we look like. I wouldn't say it's vanity at all. I would say it's a practical issue reflecting work needs."

But in the The Privilege of being a Man, the writer argues that vanity is a vice men are generally protected from, unless they find elaborate ways of justifying it as above.

Another special privilege of being a man is that he does not have to be ruled by fashion or be preoccupied about clothes or style. Compared to women, most men own a limited wardrobe and only a few combinations of apparel. Jackets, slacks, shirts and ties do not radically go out of vogue. Other than basic grooming, cleanliness, haircuts, and shaves, manly men do not spend inordinate time preening themselves or modifying their wardrobe to be in proper fashion.

In general, men who are not foppish do not think of themselves as beautiful, lovely, or glamorous and thus are saved from the snare of vanity. They do not gaze at their reflections and ask, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" ...

Hopefully this botox thing won't take off more than it appears to be doing now.