Beauty Without Borders

We watched a movie in Gender and Women's Studies today about a group of American beauticians who opened a beauty school in Afghanistan in an attempt to empower women. I think it's great that they are helping women find economic opportunities, but do they really think they are making groundbreaking social change? I mean, call me a bluestocking, but I tend to think it is more important to provide Afghani women with education and quality healthcare than to rescue them from their eighties hairstyles and unpolished nails. Perhaps I'm just an enemy to all that is fabulous.