Over spring break I read a book by Ariel Levy titled Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. The book, published in 2005, speaks to the tension between old and new wave feminists over their different perspectives on female sexual expression. Levy argues that while old wavers worked to deemphasize the female body as a sex object, millennial feminists objectify themselves and call it empowerment. Although the normalcy of female sexuality is important, is flashing for Girls Gone Wild, supporting artists whose music videos feature practically naked dancers, and handing out blow jobs like they’re candy really the best way to do it? Through witty commentary and a plethora of interviews with women from all ages and walks of life, Levy discusses the importance of broadening our cultural definition of female sexuaity beyond old wave taboos and new wave strip teases. We must, instead, discover on an individual level what makes us happy, satisfied, and comfortable in the bedroom and beyond.
I think Levy makes a very important point in her book that can be generalized to any aspect of life: it is important to distinguish cultural expectations from personal preferences. Whenever I see a fellow Gustie woman walking around with a face of makeup I wonder if she does it because she thinks she’s more beautiful with it on (a cultural expectation for a specific look of beauty) or because she is an artist who loves experimenting with line, color, and composition; or when I see a drunk girl at the Flame, I can’t help but wonder if she genuinely likes wearing a bra that squishes her boobs together or if she is showing cleavage to try to get a guy’s attention and/or affection. And then I started thinking about my own life; which of my thoughts and behaviors are guided by external pressures to be a certain way, or be seen a certain way?
The first thing I thought about were my eyebrows. A woman’s eyebrows in western culture are always expected to be “on fleek,” meaning full, dark, and identical with any stray hairs strategically plucked. This beauty standard is something I have always been very self conscious about because of my OCD related disorder, trichotillomania (or hair-pulling disorder). For almost ten years I have struggled with this disorder. Similar to self harm tactics, hair pulling is a physical action that provides a feeling of release or relief from mental and emotional pain. Whenever I am really anxious or feel out of control, my automatic response it to pull out my hair because, in the moment, it helps. But after an episode, I look in the mirror and feel deeply ashamed of my inability to resist pulling. Over time and with the help of therapy, exercise, and medication, the symptoms of my OCD related disorder are much more under control and I have learned to see my episodic moments of hair pulling not as weakness but as signs of progress. However, after examining my life for choices that reflected cultural rather than personal choice, I realized that my daily routine of filling in my eyebrows with pencil and powder and using black eyeliner to fill in the obvious gaps in my eyelashes was me trying to hide my disorder so that I could fit the beauty standard expected of me as a woman, to look “normal.”
But why? Who was I really doing it for? For me, normal is NOT full, flawless eyebrows and eyelashes; it’s uneven texture and hair length, rogue hairs, and bald spots. So if that’s my normal, what benefit is there for me to try and be someone else’s, or culture’s, normal? Is it so that I don’t gt made fun of or embarrassed? Well, first of all, why would a good person judge me of make fun of me for the way my hairs look? If they did that, they would be making fun of my OCD related disorder; they would be emphasizing the superficial and the surface; they would be ignoring ME as a human and instead focus on one tiny physical piece of me; they would be holding me to the unattainable beauty standards set by society; they would be trying to diminish my worth; they would be focusing on something that does not matter in the slightest. I don’t value society’s impossible, sexist, racist beauty standards, so why should I resort to fit that mold whenever I have a hair pulling episode? Makeup does not make the hair grow back. Makeup does not make me more valuable or worthy. Makeup does not increase my intellect, wit, love, drive, passion, faith, soul, ambition, human or anything else about me; all it does it change the pigment of my skin where it sits, and that means absolutely nothing. Sure, the extra pigment might fool people into thinking my eyebrows and eyelashes are fuller than they actually are, but it’s not authentic and there is no reasons for me to hide my authentic self. Because although my authentic self may not fit cultural standards, I am beautiful for character, my heart, my mind, and my soul; my beauty is not restricted by a prejudice and impossible social construct.
My eyelashes are thin and my eyebrows are patchy, and that’s awesome because that’s me.
That’s authentic.
That’s normal.
That’s me —
And I hope you find you.