Being a girl is expensive.

Unless you like the Charlize Theron a la Monster look, keeping up with the constant maintenance that is being a woman is not only time-consuming, but a big drain on the wallet, too.

When I take a moment to consider all of the money I have spent in my adolescence and young adulthood on sheer vanity, it disgusts me.

And I’m not even one of the higher maintenance girls.

Sure, I can go into Target and walk out half an hour later having blown $50 on make-up and moisturizers alone, but my bet is that most girls my age can make similar claims. After all, to most of us, that’s just basic upkeep.

Yet while I’m griping about how much it costs to get highlights, other girls are blowing hundreds of times as much money on breast augmentation and liposuction. And they’re not even batting a (meticulously curled and painted) eyelash.

What I am about to preach may seem obvious. I don’t mean to say that all of we women should boycott all of our usual products, throw away our curling irons and burn our bras.

What I do think is that we are being oppressed by a vicious cycle that we are not really even in control of anymore.

Girls learn early on that if they want attention from boys, they will have to wage competition against one another. As shallow as it sounds, unless you look like Angelina Jolie immediately after you roll out of bed in the morning, most girls accept that this just may mean that they have some work to do.

They understand that if they are more attractive than the next girl, they stand more of a chance of being asked out.

(Admitting this to male readers, of course, does undoubtedly provoke my gag reflexes, but for the sake of the column, I, too, will confess to having such thoughts in my lifetime. But only, like, two times. Ever.)

This is where the vicious cycle of primping begins. It begins innocently enough in a girl’s pre-teens. She starts wearing some eye shadow or lipstick to school because it makes her feel more grown-up, more womanly.

But soon, the habit goes out of control. The girl becomes completely pre-occupied with every flaw she thinks she finds on her body, and begins devoting a ludicrous amount of time to fixing it.

If she can’t fix it to her liking, then she simply obsesses even more. She despises herself for a petty imperfection that no one else even notices.

I don’t think girls have to accept this fate automatically.

I understand that women like to wear make-up. We like to look nice, even when it has nothing to do with the desire to win a man’s affections.

After performing a daily beauty regimen for a few years, going a day without wearing mascara just feels crazy. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like a mad person.

I have to warn people that I’m not responsible for my behavior, because it’s just so foreign. Foreign as in, half the time I expect to open my mouth and start speaking another language.

It’s hard to convince yourself that you can be truly happy without your daily rituals. However, if you cut some corners, you will eventually adjust.

I promise your life will not fall apart if you shave some time off of putting on make-up in the morning. You’re not going to prom every day of your life. No one expects you to look like you just walked off the set of a music video for your 8:30 a.m. class.

In fact, when I used to have morning classes (i.e. when I was a freshman and routinely got screwed by scheduling), my eyes still weren’t fully opened by the time I left for class.

At that hour, I could barely find the building I needed to get to, let alone apply eyeliner. So, I didn’t. Problem solved!

As females, we really need to get over all this. This whole, “I need to look pretty every day,” thing isn’t working out. Does Courtney Love look pretty every day? Heavens no. Sometimes she looks downright homeless!

That’s because Love knows that sometimes, she cleans up really nicely. So what does she care if the paparazzi snap the occasional shot of her with broken blood vessels and bags under her eyes?

There’s just no reason to get so hung up over how we look.

But there’s also no reason to abandon the little things you do that make you feel like you. Just as long as it’s not interfering with the productivity of arguably more important things.

You know, like your livelihood.