You Know What Would’ve Been Really Cool? If There’d Been a Miss Universe Contest Circa 1782

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Oh Heeeyyyyyyyyy….

Throughout history, women have always had things done to them to make them “beautiful.” Nowadays,  we pluck, wax, shave, inject, and silicon bag ourselves all so we can be pretty. But the saddest part is, due to globalisation, everyone kind of looks the same.

When traveling and visiting historical sites or archaeological digs, you quickly start to realize that that chick to the left in the  Santa suit would’ve been passed over by pretty much every guy on the planet a few hundred years ago. Back in the day, before airplanes and all that, beauty was pretty subjective and every region had it’s own idea of what was hot. Most of which we’d find pretty hideously fascinating today.

Take for example the Mayans. Now they used to think women with flat foreheads, crossed eyes and razor sharp, piranha like teeth were the shizznit. So, according to my guide in Chichicastenanga (Guatemala), when Mayan girls were very young, boards would be tied to their heads with a bead hanging from it (so the eyes would be trained to cross) and their teeth were filed to sharp points to look like Jaws. Don’t even get me started on what their talent would be… I have no clue. But the imagination boggles – biting through trees? Severing chicken heads? Pillaging neighboring Incan villages?

Hello, gorgeous…

This is how they would do it:

 

The end result was the Mayan looked similar to this:

when she smiles, you will scream

Then we have the British – who, for hundreds of years thought having a five-head (as opposed to a forehead) was hot. They also had some seriously disturbing hairstyles and bathing habits. As in not bathing at all. For months.

Stone cold smelly fox on the left

Representing Asia would be the Chinese – who liked to bind their daughter’s feet at birth (small feet were a huge turn on – and, side benefit, made sure that later in life, a woman couldn’t run very far away no matter how much she hated her mother-in-law who lived with her). In addition, they used lead based make up so when their faces weren’t painted white, they turned blue. And, you know, gave them lead poisoning.

Talents include singing, lute playing… but no track and field

In Africa, there was the Mangbetu tribe, which would (and still do) bind their daughters heads, because nothing says “Marry Me” like a long cylindrical head (this looks so painful):

okay, seriously – that baby has got to have one hell of a headache.

Can you imagine what that would be like to have real women from all over the world from back in the day on one stage? Now THAT would be my idea of a good time. and BTW: I’m never going to bitch about shaving again. Because damn did I luck out being born in the 1970’s, Farrah Fawcett hair aside.