By Vincent Van Ross

It is only in the case of human beings that women woo men. And, spend billions of dollars to do that!

Beauty is the name of the game. And, attraction is its business.

In the animal kingdom, it is the other way around. It is the male who tries to attract the female bird or the animal and woo her.

The deer grows antlers, elephants exude a scent, lions have their manes and so on. Among birds, the process of wooing is even more pronounced.

The peacock grows beautiful tail feathers. It fans its tail feather and dances around the peahen to woo her. Cattle egrets assume a scarlet hue and develop a crest before the mating season. Baya weaver bird keeps building beautiful nests from reeds till the female he is wooing approves one of them.

When it comes to women, they spend hours and tons of money on beauty aids to beautify themselves.

Starting with hundreds of cosmetics for face make-up, ornaments, designer ensembles,foot wears and even undergarments, the list of beauty products is almost endless.

In the animal kingdom, beautification is a natural process and nature is the beautician. Most of the beautification is seasonal. It happens before the mating season. The male birds usually become more colourful and beautiful before the mating season. But, that beautification process is temporary in most cases. It ends with the mating season.

The cattle egret returns to its original white plumage after the mating season. Peacocks discard their tail feathers during the molting season and new tail feathers grow before the next mating season. The deer drops its antlers.

Not so in the case of human beings. For women, beauty is a 24-hours-of–the-day,365-days-of-the-year obsession! While there is nothing to prove it, it could be because human being is the only living being who is known to indulge in sex which may not be aimed at reproduction. So, attraction becomes a round-the-year necessity.

The cost of the most expensive men’s suit could never be anywhere near the cost of the most expensive women’s ensemble. The cost of the most expensive men’s vest could never be anywhere near the cost of the most expensive women’s lingerie. The cost of a men’s razor could never be anywhere near the cost of face make-up for women.

We all know that there is a booming market for beauty aids. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. It mainly caters to women. Did we ever realize that there is a multi-billion dollar industry to wo(o)men?!