When we utter the word beauty, what comes into our minds? As for me, I would have thought of Cleopatra, the Hellenistic ruler of Egypt. She has been known as the most beautiful woman on Earth since medieval times. The name Cleopatra has been synonymous with the word beauty, thus many people use the term to depict the art of beauty. Today, we have so many so-called ‘beauties’ posing for the magazine’s cover, modelling for the top fashion designers and also on advertisements. I think that the modern day beauty is too different from the medieval beauty.

According to Wikipedia, beauty is ‘a characteristic of a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction’. This is true; however, now that we are no longer in medieval times, the phrase should be changed to beauty is ‘the state when a flawless woman who is willing to bare her skin for the pleasure of men’. It is not a surprise to see many half naked female models grace the covers of the top rating fashion magazines. The modern world has taken beauty to a new level and a level that every women want to achieve but only a handful of them are successful while the others remain to be deceived into thinking that they are not beautiful.

How do we measure beauty? When everything is so advanced now, we have a system called ‘the beauty contest’, the easy way to determine who shall be given the title of ‘Miss Universe’. Who would be the judges? It is none other than a panel of the self-proclaimed professionals who have been working in ‘beauty land’ forever. Of course, there will be requirements before the girls are short listed in the Top 10 or Top 5. Still, when has beauty become a contest? Do we need beauty contests to determine our beauty?

I would say this is all meaningless and there are consequences when young girls are lured into joining these contests. Of course, that would be another story.