The Feminine Price Tag

I can’t seem to get off my mind lately how much the things tagged as evidence of femininity are evidence of financial well-being in our society. It is bothering me every minute of the day. I would love to stop thinking about it, but every second it is there again.

My grandmothers both had 7 adult children. Evidence of lots of sex. But I can tell you that as poor rural women in the south, they didn’t wear a lot of cosmetics (one didn’t ever wear any at all, or any perfume due to her religious husband.) They didn’t have pretty, feminine hands. The years of summers without shoes meant that they didn’t have pretty feet. They never had a manicure or a pedicure. They worked in the farms they were raised on and then lived on as married women. The years of exposure to elements and work, helping to butcher hogs and cows and deer, the hot work of canning food, and not having money for any luxuries… it doesn’t invoke a life of glamour. They didn’t “exercise” and my paternal grandmother was always taller and plumper than her husband. In terms of home decor, they made do with whatever they could afford, find, make. My maternal grandparents were exceptionally conservative. My mother was taught that you aren’t “supposed to” shave above your knee. I’m not sure what the mysterious consequence was supposed to be, but that is what she said to me as well when I started shaving sometime around the late 1980’s.

(Note: I didn’t believe her. )

Women are hit with messages so regularly about the things they must hit to be considered acceptable. But a lot of the messages we hear now are quite new. My grandmothers weren’t going to get pedicures or get their lip waxed or eyebrows professionally threaded. These were the women who made do at home. They cut their kids hair and rolled it and set it themselves. A $7 bottle of nicer drugstore body lotion would have been as much a luxury to them as a an expensive handbag is to me. I can buy it, but Lord knows I shouldn’t.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a cheerleader. I really really did. But the uniforms were particularly expensive at my school and my mother balked at that. She was shocked and angry because when she was in school, the mothers in the community got together to make the cheerleading uniforms. And her mind just couldn’t understand why they would be so expensive. Or why we couldn’t, for example, wear cheap, white canvas shoes instead of the actual athletic shoes that were in the school colors.

There were some local branches of two different southeastern chains of department stores, J.B. White’s being one of them, that had “modeling classes” in our area. Two of my friends participated. It was pretty silly- they had a group of kids that took lessons on walking and turning and did a fashion show a couple times a year. I asked to go as well, but the 45 min drive was just too much and my mother refused for several reasons, one being the cost of the gas to drive. The other, she “needed to be at home” when “dad got home”… not that my father even really cared at all and would have possibly been happier with her out of the house. She was raised in such an ultra-conservative manner that she needed to believe she needed to be present.

A couple of my friends also tried doing pageants. I wanted to do that too. My mother wasn’t wild about that idea and all the work and driving it would represent. It represented work for HER, so I wasn’t allowed to participate. I wasn’t allowed to participate in a number of things because my mother thought it was “too much”– selling girl scout cookies, school fund raisers that would win prizes, etc.

I went to school with a lot of girls my age who didn’t even have what I had. My cousin got a pink room only by default because her parents moved into a house that was already furnished with a room with a pink bedspread and curtains. They weren’t about to pay to get new stuff. Her previous room had been an amalgamation of whatever they could find.

For the 80’s and early 90’s, was woman-ing wrong, and I wanted badly to do a different group of things, but I had no options. I had to go with what I could do and make the best of it.

And I suppose I still am.

The pedicures, the manicures, the hair salons, the waxing, the perfect homes… how far is the needle going to go? Am I woman-ing wrong for doing my own yardwork because I can’t afford to hire a yard service? Am I woman-ing wrong by being financially literate? Am I woman-ing wrong by doing my own hair, my own mani-pedi’s? Am I woman-ing wrong by making practical choices instead of impractical ones? Am I woman-ing wrong if I choose to use Ivory bar soap instead of something like Calypso Lime Explosion Body Gel Mousse– the kind of product that didn’t even exist in most stores in the US until the 90’s? My great-grandmother made her own lye soap. Was she woman-ing wrong?

The best analogy I can use is this: I used to live in a world where women were wore pantyhose- you can easily fake smooth legs in them. The fashion expectation in recent years, Kate Middleton notwithstanding, has turned into the expectation that your legs are always perfect enough to be shown without pantyhose. The expectation is that your legs are always smooth, hair-free and ready to be presented to the public without the slightest covering. It becomes almost implicit that you are expected to be able to afford regular waxing, or at the very least, the type of razors that don’t come 12-to-a-pack for $1.50.

The women you know, the women you see every day, the ones you think of as being “unfeminine” may not be that way by choice. They may not have the resources to have developed into the kind of woman that is seen as “correct” in the current climate. They may not have the resources now to maintain what is demanded as “proof” of playing the game the “right” way. They may have been raised in a very different socioeconomic circumstance. They may live in a circumstance that requires them to have a different approach to womanhood.

Unpacking Beauty

I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days about beauty.

I am trying to re-examine how I got here.

My parents never told me I was pretty. Ever. That isn’t a thing that happened in my house. My mother was not raised that way. You weren’t supposed to tell children they were pretty. It might make them end up vain.

But I was given makeup at an early age. Because enforcing gender norms was also important. I took to makeup very easily. I had my mom’s lipstick samples that she didn’t like (mostly freebies from my aunt, who purveyed Avon at the time).

My mother stopped keeping my hair trimmed when I was about 5 or 6. Then she hated that my hair had split ends. She would get angry that my hair wouldn’t stay in Laura Ingalls-style braids using just water alone to style it, because she was gullible enough to believe the wig that Melissa Gilbert wore was real hair. In her mind, my hair- my perfectly nice, normal, straight hair, was not “right” because it wouldn’t stay in a braid. My hair is relatively thick in terms of quantity, but has little to no texture. If you braid it, all the shorter ends stick out all along the braid. This frustrated my mother nearly to the point of crying. I remember her on the phone discussing it as if the world had committed a crime against her. The crime that my hair wouldn’t behave like a custom tv wig because that was, in her mind, what my hair was “supposed” to do. She acted like it was a fault within me. She didn’t blame me outright, but you could see a certain fracturing start to begin. The elements of my being simply refused to behave in the way that she thought things, based on the barest of information, “should” be.

Fast forward a few years.

Boys. Beautiful, gorgeous boys. So many that I knew seemed to be quite good looking. I realize that now the person I think of as average would have been quite stunning in many other places. Perhaps it was growing up in the south- the exposure to sun and the outdoors. Of the many attractive people in my school, I was just one of a number. Something that blended in. Our homecoming queen looked like an actual, living Barbie doll and wore a long, fitted sequin dress fit for the set of Dynasty to our prom.

Pretty was easy. All the girls were pretty. No one even thought to call you pretty. Mostly, the boys told you what was someone else had that you didn’t. They commented confidentially to you which girls they thought were attractive, which girls other boys thought were attractive, and you were never on the list. You weren’t wearing the right clothes. You weren’t from a private school. It was painfully obvious these boys had been told by their parents to date “up”. Sex with someone on the same plain or beneath you was okay, but for real dating, you should date someone who was the “right” kind of person. I cannot tell you how much this social jockeying for position fucked me up, but it absolutely was an added layer of adult feudal-era drama that no one in 1992 needed. The guys my parents approved of quite frequently made it clear their only intent was to have sex with me. Anyone clued in could have seen it. I was far more aware of this than my parents were. They wondered why I didn’t go out with those boys.

My hair was sporadically taken care of. Permed a few times and forgotten about. Then let go straight and cut here and there. Sometimes good cuts, sometimes awful. The makeup I had in high school was mostly what I bought with my own money. All drugstore, all the time. A couple nail polishes that were in an Easter basket one year. The same 4 lipsticks for all of my high school years. All from Wet N’ Wild. I used powder to get the flat matte look of the time. Sometimes, I even used body powder instead of face powder. I used drug store mascara. My mother was horrified to find out that I would throw it out once a year. She kept hers for years and kept adding water. She had no idea about eye infections. It never occurred to her. Bought only the cheapest hair care products. Wondered why I didn’t have perfect tv-commercial hair. Why my hair wouldn’t hold a curl.

Then Grunge happened. For a few years. And it ran into Goth. I got away with not having the finances for the beauty industry because everyone looked kind of hip and unwashed for a while. And then everyone looked like they had slept in their makeup and I substituted baby powder for face powder when I really wanted to look super pale. At some point I bought green lipstick from a Phar-Mor drug store (Brand: Sweet Georgia Brown). And I also had been given some actual Elizabeth Arden from a well-meaning Aunt, the one who had originally given my mom Avon samples. She gave it to me as a graduation gift, based on the assumption that now that I was graduating I might be getting interested in makeup. I was NEVER NOT INTERESTED in makeup. My mother would just always get really negative about me wearing makeup to family functions. I realize now it was part of her attempts to tone me down, keep me from being seen as an adult.

I had class photos done with red Wet N Wild lipstick at one point in high school. For about a year, it was my favorite color.

Photo after photo of me, at school, with a face full of makeup. And knowing the boys around me didn’t give two shits about me if a girl representing a better social opportunity were to walk by.

Then it was college.

Living in the age of “Reality Bites” actually did bite. The sex was good. That was true. Very, very, very good. But, men in my age group simply did not compliment women. They would flirt with you. They would act all complicated at times. They would act like Troy in “Reality Bites” and tell you what was wrong with your outfit. But they would not … compliment you. Ever. But you would definitely hear everything that was wrong with you. Troy is not a bad analog for what most young men were in those days: Sexy, but shitty to a fault, and you were supposed to be appreciative to be in their orbit. And read their mind: No one would compliment you on anything about you (my hair) and then they would complain that you did something different (I cut it off and dyed it blonde, which led to gnashing of teeth). While my hair didn’t revolve around a semi-attached, on-again-off-again boyfriend with whom I had clear compatibility issues, the notion that someone would have a breakdown over hair they never seemed to give a shit about to begin with was mind-boggling.

When thinking and behaving like that hits a whole generation, confounded with the other factors in my life, it is simply not surprising that I find myself where I am. That I skidded into my 30’s with sexual self-esteem but not self esteem in other key areas. That I sit here at 43, struggling to identify what was, in fact, social gaslighting by insecure women older than myself and boys who had no idea from the common vernacular that they were supposed to put effort forth in a dating situation, and that these same boys sought high-minded and philosophical reasons to keep doing nothing. And every time you felt confident, happy and were supposedly in a committed relationship, something would get trotted out to smack you back into the zone of feeling unsure of yourself. Get dressed up and hear, “Hmm. Not bad.” and a shrug. Or sit there, enjoying your favorite tv show and hear… “you have a gray hair….” One of them told me once that I sometimes talk to myself. And accused me of thinking I was attracting men when really these (theoretical) men were just looking at me because I looked like a crazy person.

It is hard for me not to pick myself apart and wallow in imperfections. I was taught to do it from the beginning. I wasn’t called pretty, I was told I “looked nice”. It was always a function of the dress, not the girl in the dress. I battle with myself over letting my more obtuse sense of “fuck off” confidence or my beat-down and limited version of myself rule the day. My brain speaks in double-speak, over examining my face, my hair. Getting angry if I can’t magically make it all happen with minimal effort. Expecting genetics to give me all the breaks, and being upset and feeling cheated when it doesn’t work that way. Feeling embarrassed that my face, skin, hair has failed on this day or that. And then feeling angry that I feel that way.

I write this as a person who is conventionally attractive. But the harsh truth is, I look at these photos of this pretty girl in high school… this girl in the 90’s era maxi dress and the big white smile. This photo wears my features and has my eyes. And still, in those photos, I see the tension. In the eyes.

In a sea of pretty, no one gave a shit unless you had something extra to offer: the right parents, the right last name, the right clothes, tickets to Lalapalooza…

Dear Stylists: My Hair is Fine. Stop Trying to Ruin It.

My hair is glorious.  I have good hair.  A remarkable blessing of color and softness and the ability to grow.

I Love My Hair.

What I don’t love is the way it is cut now.  I don’t love the hairstyling industry and what it purports to do.  I hate it, in fact, with a black bloody hate.

I would cut my hair myself, except that it is straight and long– any mistake would be very obvious.

Or, it was long.  Until yesterday.

Tiring of the usual cheapo places I go to, and wanting to treat myself, I went to a slightly nicer place for a haircut.  I needed a trim.  Just about an inch or two off.  Just an evening -up.  Just a trim.  All the same length.

However, what I came out with something entirely different.

She pushed layers on me.  Layers I didn’t want or ask for.  She assured me that you wouldn’t even be able to tell that they were there.

Now my hair looks like early era Rachel from “friends”.  Not something I wanted.  Not something I asked for.  Not a look I would have ever chosen.  First of all, because it is now 2018.  Secondly, because I like my hair the way it was.  I was not looking for a change at all.

I kept voicing my discomfort and was very clear that I thought she was cutting off too much.  I almost got up and left several times, but was afraid it was too far gone at that point.

Hair grows back.  Mine will grow back.  In 6 months time, this disaster will be all but gone.  And I will look for books on cutting my own hair to avoid this utter fucking disaster from happening again.

I don’t … understand… why … they… don’t… listen.  But they never do.  I have yet to find any hairstylist that will actually listen to what I say.  I know what I like.  I know what I want.  You do not magically know better than me what will be something I like.

Why don’t any hairstylists ever listen?  You don’t listen, then you charge a lot.  Why?
Why rob me of the thing that makes me feel confident and sexy and like I own the world?  I don’t know, but you all seem dead fucking set on doing it.

My head is MINE.  It isn’t your entertainment.  I know you like being creative.  I know.  I know you like feeling like you are doing something artsy.  I know.  But YOU ARE IN A SERVICE INDUSTRY.   I am paying you to do a job.  If I was paying you to trim my hedges, and I didn’t want them in the shape of a dolphin, and you made them in that shape, I”d look at you like you were completely insane. My hair is the same.

All I ask is that you stop being batshit insane. If someone clearly likes their hair long, respect that.  Don’t get all cutting crazy.  Why would you do that?  What would possess you to do that to someone who clearly has voiced that they do not want it?  Who has been very upfront about what they want?   What kind of hard-headed stubborn jackasses are you people?

My hair has been mine my whole life.  MY WHOLE LIFE.   Not yours.  It doesn’t belong to the bloated whale that is the beauty industry.   It is stunning without YOUR HELP.  The only thing I need you for is to trim it and otherwise leave me alone.  I’m so so sorry I don’t fall into your bucket of needy females.  I don’t have hair insecurity.  You can’t upsell me on products or repeat services that I don’t need.

None of that is an excuse for you to find ways to seek to give me hair insecurity by giving me a bad haircut, bad color, or whatever because you just want to shit on me.

Go shove it up your ass.  And never touch my fucking hair again, stupid.