MIND MOVES Marie Murray'Vanity thy name is woman." How sexist of Shakespeare. How unkind. How untrue. Attention to appearance is not the exclusive province of women. Nor has it ever been.
Did not Narcissus of Greek legend fall in love with his reflection in a still pond and remain evermore enchanted by his appearance? Alone, unobserved except by the gods, he scrutinised himself, as men have been doing in their own way throughout the generations.
Just because men don't talk about it doesn't mean that appearance is not an obsession for them too in our image-driven world. It may not be their way to say that they have nothing to wear or to phone each other for fashion advice, but of course they consider what is appropriate attire for business or social occasions, which clothes convey what impression, what casual look can be carefully constructed, what meticulous appearance can be nonchalantly attained or what message might be conveyed by designer stubble.
Men are unlikely to ask if their skin is clear, their hair in place or to utter the proverbial question: "Does my bum look big in this?" But that does not mean that they are unconcerned or that they do not gyrate before the mirror for that last secret self-scrutiny before social events.
And this surreptitious attention to appearance begins in early adolescence, as any parent near asphyxiated by aftershave and body spray (for men) can attest. What thoughts go through the male mind during those protracted teenage ablutions? Self-critique and wish for greater height, a sharper, more chiselled countenance and more powerful physique are certainly part of the ruminations.
From that first unfair male gender definition, that males are made of "rats and snails and puppy dog tails", to atavistic memory that only the strong survived, males have before them the ideal of Adonis, loved by Aphrodite, he of perfect physique, pectoral perfection, muscled manhood, immortalised and unattainable. Men are victims of media generated impossible images of masculinity, of physical prowess, mental stamina and emotional stoicism.
The most recent research report commissioned by The Harley Medical Group shows a huge increase in the number of Irish men seeking cosmetic surgery to enhance their looks and to make them look younger.
Most popular among men is eye-bag removal, followed by abdominoplasty, ear reshaping and liposuction, face-lift and neck and brow lift.
Who would have thought the Irishman, formerly caricatured as soil-swarthy, sweaty and generally unkempt, whose concession to cosmetology was a weekly bath and a bit of Brylcreem, would transmogrify, not just into well-groomed desirability, but also into someone desperately seeking cosmetic surgery?
Studies show just how vulnerable men are about their looks: that they too suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and all the self-disdain engendered by a culture that measures the man by his image and his worth by material success.
Requested male plastic surgery can include pectoral and calf implants showing that Action Man is as much anathema for men as Barbie is for women: both inhuman, unrealistic yet oddly desired.
Men have been found to be inordinately upset by acne scarring. Thin hair and baldness are particularly traumatic as evident by the cruelly obvious attempts at camouflage by drawing long strands across the balding pate. The argument that balding is a sign of high male hormones fails to reassure those whose hairlines are receding.
Interesting, given the number of younger men who intentionally shave their locks, it would seem that it is okay to be voluntarily bald if you are young but not if you are old.
Men suffer some of the same emotions as women about age. They too worry about bags and sags, Botox and bleached teeth. Nose size and shape are significant for men and, of course, their preoccupation with size is well documented. Less known is the extent to which their BDD may be focused on muscles. This so called muscle dysmorphophobia, or fear of being puny, is as ancient as those early American ads whereby tall, tanned, muscular men kicked sand at puny white-bodied victims who slunk away, dismissed from the attention of the fickle females nearby.
It is not surprising, therefore, that those males who cannot conform to aesthetic perfection, who are informed that this is their primary goal for popularity and love, who are presented with ever-increasing icons of masculinity, should feel humiliated and depressed when they are unable to attain the impossible.
Because while women have long been oppressed by cultural messages of cosmetic perfection, it is more recently that men have been explicitly defined in this way and it has yet to become permissible for men to publicly articulate that they share common fears and phobias about their bodies, age and attractiveness.
Beauty is no longer truth. It has become a falsehood when it moves from the province of enhancing oneself to changing the self. So perhaps it is time for a combined co-operative gender challenge to those that oppress either men or women with impossible icons or ask them to deny and defy their age?
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview.