Some women have the perfect hourglass-shaped body, baby smooth skin and a pearly white smile, but they are still missing something. A company in India said not every woman in the world has a perfect vagina and it wants women to “rejuvenate” it.

Recently Ultratech, a pharmaceutical company in India, released a product called 18 Again that will “rejuvenate and tighten” a woman’s vagina. Ultratech’s owner, Rishi Bhatia, told BBC reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan the product “empowers women” and makes them “feel like a virgin.”

A cream to rejuvenate a woman’s vagina is a product a woman should not have in her medicine cabinet. Women should embrace their natural vagina because, after all, what is better than having it natural?

Unfortunately, a natural vagina is the last thing on Bhatia’s mind.

“It’s a unique and revolutionary product which also works towards building inner confidence in a woman and boosting her self-esteem,” Bhatia told Vaidyanathan.

This is pure garbage. A woman should not feel empowered if she puts a cream on her vagina. Empowerment does not come from a person’s genitalia. It does not speak for the person. It does not do the job of the brain. Instead of it making women feel comfortable in their own skin, it makes them insecure.

Rachel Symons, outreach coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center at Sacramento State, concurs.

“Women are being told that they should feel younger and more pure if they want to have any worth in society,” Symons said.

There are too many beauty standards for women already. Women need to have a wrinkle-free face, perfectly smooth skin, perfect smile and a perfectly shaped body. Adding a cream to make the vagina look perfect puts more pressure on women to look perfect. No one is going to enter a beauty pageant to be judged by a panel of vagina experts.

However, there should be an understanding as to why some women have vagina rejuvenation surgeries, because the cream is not the only way to rejuvenate.

According to Dr. Michael Goodman’s obstetrics and gynecology website, women have labiaplasty, vaginoplasty and perineoplasty surgeries to modify or reduce labial size. He said women who feel discomfort or irritation in their vagina lips and women who are born with large labia or develop it during childbirth are likely to get rejuvenation surgery.

The same understanding can be said for women in India. Vaidyanathan said doctors, women’s groups and social media users in India disapprove of the rejuvenation cream because it reinforces the patriarchal idea in India that premarital sex is something to frown upon. So, some women in India might use the product to “feel like virgins again”. They will conceal the fact they did have premarital sex.

Many students at Sacramento State agree on how ridiculous this product is presented.

“What has society come to?” says Danica Lewis, senior child development major.

Biology major, Oscar Rodriguez, said the product is just a scam.

“I don’t think things like that can be reversed,” Rodriguez said.

There is no need for such a product when it is something hidden and has no effect on who the person is. It’s weird, crazy and senseless. The vagina does not have to look pretty in order to function correctly.

Pharmaceutical companies need to stop imposing beauty ideals for women around the world. No product should make women question their beauty and make them follow beauty standards. Instead of creating beauty products, pharmaceutical companies should create medication to cure terminal illnesses.

Self-esteem, empowerment and inner confidence should not come from looking or feeling physically beautiful. It should come from how a person presents himself or herself. Attitude, communication and intelligence should count more than physical appearance. A line should be drawn for society to stop setting standards for women. A vagina does not speak for a woman.

 

Elizabeth Ramirez can be reached at: [email protected]