Internalizing the obsession with "beauty."
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| But what if I'm fat AND "ugly"? |
Our national obsession with beauty and the "perfection" of form has finally toppled me over. Although I see beauty everywhere and in every face I meet, the face I see in the mirror and in the occasional "selfie" picture fills me with self-loathing and disgust. My natural defense mode is to become a trouble-shooter and determine a plan to "fix" the problem. So, I have spent hours with my trusty yellow legal pad and special problem-fixing pen, trying to determine exactly what I need to do to transform myself into something pretty, or beautiful. The problem with formulating my plan is that it all has to be based on a definition of attainable beauty. Trouble is, beauty holds a different definition for everyone and is elusive and shifting. It's been dictated by a marketing industry that cares little for the damage it has done, also by the gender-driven social "standards" that been in place for centuries. Those standards have been shaken quite a bit in recent years, but the main pillars still hold and refuse to be toppled. In noodling through this issue on scratch-paper, I've discovered I'm not only having difficult defining beauty, but I'm stuck in a pigeon-hole between cultures that define beauty in extremely different ways.
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| I might be more confused now than when I started. |
Like so many good little lesbians, I grew up being utterly inundated with propaganda about what defines "pretty". I was brainwashed to think that without make-up, the correct clothes, and without the proper shoes and accessories, I was ugly and destined for old-maidenhood. Try as I might, I was an epic failure at all those "pretty-making" things. Make-up was baffling to me-I didn't want shit near my eyes. Frilly, softly-colored clothes made me cringe, especially when forced upon me with the often used question: "don't you want to look pretty?" Accessorizing to me meant wearing a whole bunch of gear that could strangle me, damage me, or would be lost/left behind while I was playing sports, climbing trees, riding my horse, getting into mischief, or reading any one of my many books. But I tried anyway, because I didn't want to disappoint the people around me, and because of how much they gushed about how pretty I was on the occasional days when I got the look right. This gushing taught me that I certainly must be ugly every other day when I was just plain old, unaltered me. Until recently, I was unaware of my complete internalization of these societal norms, and how deeply they affect how I view myself and others.
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| What if I'm neither, or both, or some of each? |
When I finally came out of the closet, I was excited because I thought that coming to terms with being gay meant that I got to be a part of community that wouldn't judge me based on my clothes or make-up or accessories, but instead on the quality of my heart and the authenticity behind my smile. DAMN! I was so wrong. Years of experience have taught me that every society and culture contain a set of "norms" that help to keep things "organized" for lack of a better term. There are so many labels for people and how they style themselves in the LGBTQI community that I just had to ask a friend about the current proper set of initials to use (and what at least what one of them meant). However, if you boil it down, with the lesbians, there two general groups: "Butch" and "Femme" and about a 100 subgroubs. (This is all just my personal view of it, so if my understanding offends you, feel free to horsewhip me relentlessly in the comment section, or start a mature discussion on the topic-I leave the choice up to you).
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| Don't fence me in. |
What I don't understand is the seeming rigidity of these groups. I currently have short hair and often wear a hat because my hair does what it wants. It is has been assumed many many times that I am therefore "butch". There are several reasons being labeled this way displeases me. First of all, I don't like being labeled. Don't fence me in. Second of all, I don't identify with much of what I perceive in the "butch" persona. I like sharing roles. I like doing what I want to do when I want to do it-even if it's a traditionally "girly" thing, a traditionally "manly" thing, or just a totally random thing I just made up. Thirdly, sometimes I like to get all girly foo-fooed up because it makes me feel good. And dresses really do make more sense in the summer time (see: proper crotch venting). Honestly, I just like to dress comfortably and am too lazy to work hard on long hair. (I'm also kind of scared of the curling iron-but that's another story). And, the rigid parameters within the assumed "label" I have been sorted into, have led to baffling ridicule when I have innocently made comment about owning a purse, or dresses, or discussing make-up, or anything outside of the perceived norms for being butch. Yes, I also have internalized homophobia about the perception of being "butch" that comes from the LONG LINE of people who have treated me poorly when they see me in the restroom, the earlier aforementioned brainwashing, the well-intended yet totally obtuse questions from straight people (who is the man? etc...), and from the societal perceptions of what is accepted as beauty and what is not. I freely admit to all that.
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| My perception of self. |
But why is all this important to the idea of beauty? It's important because the complete deluge of negative messages that drown each of us daily, are sweeping me away right now. It's like someone stole the drummer I've always marched happily along to. Now I'm frozen by the loathing I have for myself within my own heart because deep down, I've been convinced that I'm not and can never be "pretty" because of all the things I'm not. I can never fit in because I don't fit any of the molds within the LGBTQI community-no matter how hard some try to force me into one. I can't be loved because I'll never have a perfectly blonde, blue-eyed, lithe, and perfectly tanned form. (Shit, I burn if I think about the sun). Just like our current society has become completely blinded to all the beautiful people that don't fit that model-perfect, after-picture, Biggest-Loser-Success-Story ideal, I've become completely blinded to all the things I DO possess that make me uniquely beautiful. I look in the mirror and all I see is a person is too fat, too butch, too unplucked-of-eyebrow, too thin-lipped, too solid, too short-legged, and too pumpkin-headed for even her mother to love.
And that makes me mad! At myself, at the world, at the paradigms and parameters that force us down these little chutes of self-loathing. I have the eye of an artist. I see beauty everywhere. It's not fair that the constant rain of negative messages should encourage me to so harshly scrutinize and judge myself lacking. It's not fair that the world thinks it can set the ideal of beauty FOR ME. It's not fair and therefore, I am going to exercise my right to choose. I'm going to choose what beauty means FOR me and TO me and live that ideal. I'm going to do my very best to realize that I might already be beautiful. Somewhere in there I also need to QUIT comparing myself to others and the societal ideal. And maybe, just maybe by sharing this thought process, maybe I can convince other people who are struggling with the concept of their own beauty to stand up and choose for themselves too. Now where are my yellow pad and problem-fixing pen?
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| What makes you beautiful? |
