Here is a strange and, when you think about it, disturbing fact about our culture: Girls are more often, and more openly, encouraged to do “boy things” than boys are to do “girl things.”

Can it be a good thing—for our personal relationships and for society—for females to grow up with an awareness of and appreciation for males, without the reverse occurring?

A few weeks ago, I was gift shopping for a boy in kindergarten and his younger sister. I bought three books with male protagonists, thinking that both of them could read and enjoy the books. I shied away from the books with female protagonists, thinking that only one of them would appreciate those.

And then I read the Washington Post article What are we teaching boys when we discourage them from reading books about girls? This article says it perfectly. It is one of the most profoundly important articles I have read this year. It’s not a long article, but every sentence is a gem. I urge you to read it.

How wrong I was in that bookstore! And I consider myself an open-minded person! Ach! I am upset with myself, but the situation is easy to rectify: I’m going to go back and buy the kids three more books—with girl protagonists.

In what ways has society changed since the Stone Age, and in what ways is it exactly the same?

The protagonist of the novel Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata confronts this question upon meeting a dissatisfied young man. The young man believes that society is—and always has been—deeply flawed:

“Nothing’s changed since the Stone Age. It’s just that nobody realizes that. . . . If you ask me, this is a dysfunctional society. And since it’s defective, I’m treated unfairly.”

In this little rant, the young man argues against the common belief that it’s better to be living in modern times than prehistoric times. Nineteenth-century scholars divided human history into three ages. The Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age, which was followed by the Iron Age. These ages roughly correspond to groups of humans using stone, bronze, and iron tools—but they also refer to a transformation from hunter-gatherer bands and tribes to the formation of city-states practicing agriculture, animal husbandry, and various trades, with accompanying changes in cultural and religious practices and beliefs. These ages occurred in different world localities at different historical times, and in different ways. Popularly, the idea of the three ages is associated with progress—and this implication is what the young man argues against.

An alternate view, one that the young man does not mention, is that the world has not progressed over the ages, but deteriorated. Many cultures and religions have a tradition of believing that the creation of the earth was ideal, and that a Golden Age lasted for a time thereafter, whereupon things got worse and worse, culminating in the banal depravity of today. The ancient Greek poet Hesiod wrote that the Golden Age regressed into the Silver Age, which progressively regressed into the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, and the Iron Age. The metals in this worldview—which correspond not to tools but, metaphorically, to the quality of people’s lives—become less and less valuable as time passes. (Though, oddly, the name of one of these ages is not a metal at all!)

The young man’s view is negative and self-defeating; but in one way at least, I agree with him: I do not believe that the passage of time has resulted in a society that is better in every way. I also do not believe that it has resulted in a society that is worse in every way. Society has many facets, and that’s why it’s fun to ask (so I’ll ask it again!)—in what ways has it changed, and in what ways has it stayed the same, since the Stone Age?

Hair styling. Nail painting. Clothes and accessories shopping. Laser treatments. Balancing on heels. Cosmetic surgery. Shaving. Tanning. Dermal fillers. Walking up stairs in a long skirt without tripping. Dieting. Make-up application. Botox. Walking down stairs in a short skirt without flashing anyone. The list of things people do for beauty goes on and on.

In the book Perfect Me, Heather Widdows argues that both women and men worldwide are experiencing increasing societal pressure to do more than ever for the sake of exterior appearance. She notes that women are expected to do more, more costly, and more time-consuming beauty tasks than men. But she also points out that the problem does not end with inequality:

“The problems with the increasing demands of beauty are not just that they are demanded more of one gender than another but the nature of the demands.”

In other words, keeping the beauty standards of women the same while ramping up the beauty standards of men will not result in a better world. The beauty standards are already troublingly high, Widdows says. She calculates that if a person spends 20 minutes a day on beauty between the ages of 15 and 75, that adds up to almost a solid year of beauty-related tasks over a lifetime. Furthermore, she notes, studies have shown that the average woman in the U.S. and U.K. spends about double that daily amount of time.

And then there is the monetary cost of all this beautifying, as well as the opportunity cost of all the things people could spend their time and money on instead. So we’re all on an accelerating roller coaster, unable to jump off without real-world consequences, but also struggling to hang on.

In what ways do you bend over backwards for beauty? Is it worth the time, money, and opportunity cost?

So I did it—just couldn’t help it!—I judged a book by its cover and title and nothing else.

An ad in a magazine caught my eye. The cover was a bold splash of color, which on closer inspection turned out to be face paint on a face. The title was Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal. I was intrigued.

My local bookstore didn’t have it in stock, but I found it at the bookstore across town. After the briefest of flips through the pages, I bought it.

As it turns out, Perfect Me is a scholarly work by British philosopher Heather Widdows. The style is so scholarly, in fact, that I remain pleasantly astonished that it was in stock at a bookstore not attached to a university. The work is about the judging of people, including others and oneself, by how well they conform to modern—and, Widdows argues, increasingly global—beauty ideals. She argues that we should not judge people for either conforming to norms or not conforming to norms:

“Women recognize the extreme costs of rejecting all beauty norms,” she writes, pointing out that adhering to beauty standards can offer real benefits, from career and social successes to the joys of self-improvement and communal bonding. On the other hand, not adhering to beauty standards can save significant time, money, and effort; be better for one’s health; and promote more positive societal values.

Do you sometimes find yourself, despite yourself, judging others or yourself (or books!) superficially?

They call her “Sister Reliability,” or so she says; and I suspect that they really do call her that. However, she’s not very reliable—at least not as a narrator.

In the novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell, the protagonist sets out to solve a mystery. She presents her actions as if they are logical, and yet many of them are counterproductive to her goal . . . or even dangerous to herself or others. The real mystery of the novel turns out to be the reader’s quest to figure out what is actually going on, since the narrator cannot be counted on to present an accurate picture of reality.

Yet, despite her faults, the protagonist is interesting, lovable, and insightful. I can’t help admiring her confidence and determination in navigating the world, even if her worldview is skewed.

Half of me wants to reach out and help her: she could really use some care! But the other half suspects that she needs no help, after all. Must we live our lives logically and cautiously? Must we follow all the dictates of society?