the summer I became a feminist

I wasn't born a feminist. Rather, it has evolved over time. Specifically, a switch went off in my head during the summer after my junior year of college, during one really hot (temperature-wise) seven week period of working at a summer program for high schoolers.

There was a heat wave in New Haven and despite all the great things about Yale being one of the world's most prestigious universities blah blah blah, their dorms do not have air conditioning. As an instructor/RA at the summer program being hosted there, I was contractually bound to sleep in a boiling little room on the second floor, peruse the Quad in search of kids heat-resistent enough to play four square, and roam around New Haven during their free time just to make sure they were being resepectful in the stores and restaurants. Needless to say, other than the few hours I spent in air-conditioned classrooms teaching, I was by default hot, sweaty, and irritated.

It was that heat that got me out of my comfort zone and into the realization there there was more to me than a prettily made up face.

When you sweat from the head as much as my fellow employees and I did that summer, you quickly realize that putting on make-up in the morning is going to be a waste of time the second you leave the little space in front of your fan. By the time you're at Commons for breakfast, it's all been sweated completely off. Even mascara is victim to the sweat pouring endlessly down your forehead.

So what could a girl with not the best confidence in her looks and especially horrible confidence in her skin (the scars from my pre-Accutane days were still, I thought, incredibly visible) do? Absolutely nothing.

And so I was forced to go makeup-less. No stick concealer under the eyes and on each of the dozens of old acne scars, no powder to make it all look fresh and cohesive, no eye shadow or mascara to make the eyes look bigger and bring out the blue. Oh, and the hair situation wasn't all that great either.

It sucked, and I spent a lot of time worrying about how I looked as I miserably walked in the sunlight wiping my forehead, trying not to think about how exposed I felt and how the sun was definitely going to burn me.

But after a few days, something happened: I met a guy and - what? Realized that even though he was really cool and I looked like shit, he was flirting with me.

Then there was another guy. Two? Two cool guys interested in me when I've never looked worse in me life? What is going on? Also, I was making friends left and right. I realized that, as it turned out, nobody cared how I looked.

Needless to say, my confidence suddenly took an upswing. I didn't look my best (I thought) and still had cool guys perusing me and more friends than I knew what to do with. Something was pretty obvious: they liked something about me that did not have anything to do with making my eyes look bigger or how artificially perfect I could make my skin look. Whatever they liked, it wasn't that. And as my confidence started to soar, so did my relationships with all those people I met that summer.

What I should have known all along hit me like a freight train: looks don't matter nearly as much as we think. People like each other for their intellect, their sense of humor, their ability to understand and empathize, their love of techno music and micro brews: in sort, their personalities. It's an unfortunate reality that girls are taught, over and over again while growing up, to doubt that their personalities are enough to get friends or relationships, and to focus on all sorts of appearance-related things that don't actually matter.

This isn't ground breaking news by any means. But for me to live the news personally was.

I'm not saying that I no longer ever wear make up, but a few months later, I did force myself to not try to dramatically enhance my looks on the night of my first date with the guy who I ended up marrying. Because I realized that I was no longer interested in anyone who can't see past a face. And turns out, neither are most other people. I realized that I had previously bought into societal expectations of women, believing that following them was what made me a successful friend and attractor of men. When I suddenly couldn't meet those expectations and my relationships only grew, I realized it was all a lie.

What I encourage you to do is try it. It's scary at first - believe me, I know, and I probably never would have gone without make up had I not been forced to by mother nature. But when you see that the world doesn't end after leaving the house without mascara on, when you still make friends and flirt with guys despite your lack of perfect-seeming skin, things change.

Looking back, it's almost embarrassing to write about how much I needed people to validate me to feel valued, and how much of that I thought was contingent upon my looks. But I see a lot of women who still carry powder in their purses and fix their hair in the reflections of windows like I used to, and believe that I held a sentiment that is all too common among women my age. Whatever awful societal expectations about being a woman had been drilled into my head, a group of amazing friends and a few cool guys thoroughly threw them out that summer.

So try it: go a few days without make up and see how your friends still love you and people still want your attention. See that it's not the end of the world and make adjustments to your life accordingly. You'll probably realize you've been lied to about what it takes to make a successful, happy woman - because it's not make up, nice hair and appearances. It's personality and confidence that you're beautiful without the products.

Also, if you have an event or moment that made you into a feminist, share it! (Especially with me - I wanna hear about it!)

me (left) with a new friend, who, like those boys, I was afraid to even try to get to know without my make up shield. But like them, she really couldn't have cared less.