In the heart to Dallas, there’s an upscale beauty salon called Milagros.
This is where women who want to be seen as ‘beautiful’ are told that they are not a beauty saloon.
The owners, Mariana and Carlos Milagro, tell us that they were told by the owners of other beauty salons in the area that they’re not a salon and have been harassed for years.
It is a common refrain in Dallas, where many businesses are run by people with a reputation for being ‘white, rich, straight and straight-laced’.
There’s also a pervasive culture of misogyny in Dallas: men, who have traditionally had a dominant position in the city, are seen as the gatekeepers of beauty.
The idea that women are not beauty-oriented is not something that comes up very often, even in these privileged communities, said Milagra.
It’s a culture of white supremacy and a belief that women’s bodies are not worthy of a man’s attention, she said.
A recent survey of women by the Harris Poll found that one in four women felt they were not a ‘good role model’ in the way that their men and other men’s bodies were presented.
For women who do not conform to this culture, they are seen to be “insecure” and “unsure”, said Milajro.
In order to get better, she suggests, women start to wear make-up and try out new products.
She said that this is what they’ve done in the past and that they’ve even been given advice about how to go about their day-to-day lives.
The women are trying to get away from their culture, and this is why they are struggling, said Mariana.
But women in Dallas are also struggling with their own self-image, said Carlos.
Women feel that they have to keep trying to prove themselves in a world that seems to see their bodies as nothing more than ‘gifts’.
That’s why they’re choosing to come to Milagraz, and they are taking their journey to a new level.
In the beauty salon of Milagrossa, the staff is full of women who are young and active.
They talk to each other, they ask for advice and they listen to what Mariana has to say.
When I asked them about their personal lives, they told me that they had always been very self-reliant, but that they started feeling insecure because of their lack of socialisation in their community.
I asked what they do to try and be more successful, and I was met with a lot of silence.
They didn’t seem to be aware of what I was asking for.
They said that they felt very ashamed and ashamed to be women, they said.
They’re not ashamed of who they are, said Marta.
“The women in this salon feel that what we do is not acceptable and that women shouldn’t feel like that,” said Marjorie.
“This is the reality, that women can’t feel that we’re not beautiful,” said Marti.
I saw a woman with her hair in a bun.
She came in, and she was so confident that she didn’t feel her own hair falling out.
She was not shy about it, she was very comfortable.
The salon owner told me she thinks this is a cultural thing and that she has been told that women should be ashamed of their bodies.
This idea that you are a woman or that you have to wear a dress to get noticed and be appreciated is not in our culture, she explained.
And yet it’s very difficult to understand why this is the case.
“Why do we feel this way?
Is it that we have been conditioned to think that women don’t need to dress like that?
Is that what they tell us?
Is this really what it feels like?
We don’t feel this,” said Carlos, when I asked him about this perception.
When he’s in the salon, he said that he feels very lucky to have the experience that he has.
He also said that when he sees women dressed up in the latest beauty products, it makes him feel very happy.
For him, this experience of being at a salon with a woman who looks like this is very meaningful.
“I think that for women who come to us, this is not a problem, it’s just the way they feel.
It feels like they have a better life, because they don’t have to look at other women’s beauty,” said Milagni.
“We feel like this doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world, so we need to make it here.”