It’s about damn time someone said it!
I love Lizzo. Period. I have been an insane fan since before she became famous. I’ve been wanting to see her for years, but up until recently, I had no one to go with since she wasn’t that well known. So, when my best friend surprised me with floor tickets to her upcoming show in Milwaukee, I completely bawled my eyes outI truly looked even more pathetic and ridiculous than it sounds. I’m just that much of a fan. And no I don’t give a damn that half of her stuff is cheesy. I love it. And you know what? She is that b*tch. I admire that she has a positive purpose for her art and that she is unapologetic about sticking to her convictions. Whether you like her or not, you can’t deny that her message is clear: love yourself. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that I, uh, don’t. Tolerate seems to better describe how I view myself, but we’re getting there.
Just like so many other cis women my age, I nitpick myself about anything and everything. One of the things that I’m hyper-aware of is how much body hair I have. Being half Black and half-Mexican, there was absolutely no genetic way that I was going to escape the clutches of thick and dark body hair. Historically speaking, we’re in fact characterized by this coarser and more prominent hair. So why is it, then, that I spend a heck of a lot of time and money trying to act like I simply don’t have hair follicles aside from on my scalp? I wax. I pluck. I tweeze. I sugar. I shave. I spend hours upon hours in the bathroom and in the salon working to make myself appear like a baby seal when I was not born a seal, but in fact, a human. Being covered in fine hair is one of the things that distinguishes us from other animals. Google “vellus hair”. Now tell me why I feel this pressure to strip myself of something that fundamentally categorizes me as human?
The unfortunate part about this is that I *know* that it makes no sense. But I don’t want my community to write me off as dirty. As unhygienic. So I lock myself in the bathroom for hours and book salon appointments and research how to stave off ingrown leg hairs and soothe razor burn. I maybe consider threading instead of tweezing and ponder if I could save more money if I purchased a wax pot myself. I must be a good American woman. A worthy and desirable American woman. I must obey the rules of the American body ritual.
There’s this very scarcely known, sort of underground Mexican painter who went by the name of Frida Kahlo who had a unibrow and mustache. Obviously, I’m oozing sarcasm here, but the point remains that she capitalized on not removing any of her facial and body hair, and to this day a blank image of her face is instantly recognizable, profitable and even trendy. I love Frida damn near as much as I love Lizzo; I literally have Frida artwork hanging above my desk. And yet, whenever I’m wearing a sleeveless top or have gone just a bit too long without waxing or plucking, I always try to get ahead of people noticing by quipping, “God, I’m really channeling Ms. Frida today.” I say this as if it’s a bad thing, as if I’m not a fan or as if it’s not admirable that she said “F*ck all of you!” in a sickeningly “traditional” and machista society. Yet, the truth is she was being authentic in every way possible, embodying resistance and finding power in getting to choose how she presented herself within her culture and the larger world.
So: Dear Lizzo, Frida and all the other feminine presenting and female identifying folks out there who make the radical, conscious choice to exist as they are,
Thank you for working to empower people, to let them know it’s okay, and to remind them that they always have a choice about their lives and their bodies. Choosing not to participate in an arbitrary standard for a day, week or even lifetime does not make them any less beautiful.