Your Nose as Your Destiny

Consider, for a moment, your nose. For the vast majority of us whose noses might be a plastic surgeons ‘before’ shots, we some how make peace with our profiles and carry on with life. But for some unfortunate Afghan women, the shape of their noses can spell doom.

Nineteen-year-old Banafsha from Kabul isn’t that different than some young American women who have handed Glamour magazine photos of Charlize Theron’s slim nose to plastic surgeons in the hopes that surgery would transform their lives. And maybe they’re right to do so.

In America, those whose noses are more like Barbara Streisand’s are likely to believe — true or not — that they have paid a price. Prom invitations did not always arrive, and numerous studies tell us that pretty people get more opportunities, more successful and attractive spouses and bigger salaries.

And that’s probably as bad as it gets for those in the West without perfect profiles. For Banafsha, an ugly nose by Afghan standards can lead to much worse — a public humiliation like none other.

In arranged marriages under local Islamic law in Afghanistan, women’s faces are not revealed to the groom until the bride is at the altar. At that heart-pounding moment when he pulls aside the veil, the groom can reject the bride if displeased by her looks.

The fear of a such a deeply shameful moment that could change a woman’s life is driving women to seek out the services of a rare Kabul practitioner of rhinoplasty to avoid just such a fate.

Reporter Greg Warner found Benafsha seeking a nose job in, at the time, the only clinic in Kabul doing nose jobs. Benafsha said she had suffered a lifetime of ridicule. “Mostly, it was my sister that would mention it. When we got in arguments, she’d say, ‘your nose is like the fist of a cat’!”

Benafsha is Hazara, an Asian-featured ethnic minority. Their noses are generally flat. In Afghanistan, they are not looking for noses like Charlize Theron. The standard of beauty is set by Indian and Irania actresses on soap operas and glamour magazines. They want straight, long aquiline noses.

So, the winter that Benafsha turned 19, she decided would take no chances at the altar. She collected the 60 dollars she’d saved and borrowed another 200 from her uncles. She took the cash to a primitive, private clinic in a decrepit building in the capital.

She returned days later to the clinic to have the bandages removed. Then came the moment of her big reveal. This was the moment that would define her destiny. She could not have anticipated her own reaction.