On The So-Called "Choice" of Wearing Make Up

To couch the choice of wearing not not wearing make-up in the feminist language of the empowered's woman "choice" does us a disservice. It makes it seem that there are no cultural or societal expectations around appearance and use of make-up - a laughable notion. 

I didn't wake up feeling completely neutral about how my face looks today, and think "hmmm I think I'll have some fun with that new eye shadow of mine today" or, alternatively, "no, I don't really feel like make-up today, I won't wear any." This is not how women are allowed to think. We are bombarded with messages from birth on what we should look like, the appearances we should aspire to, and are systematically taught by ads and movies and TV shows that wearing a good amount of make-up is simply the standard, not a choice the empowered makes on days she wants to "have some fun" with her make-up. (What women on TV or in movies don't wear make-up?)

photo: kiagrafia.com

Is wearing make-up really a choice when everything we see normalizes its use and everyday we are told that little is more important for women than our looks? When we are literally treated better when we have it on? 

No. Of course it's not really a choice. 

What Does It Feel Like To Not Think About Your Body?

Today I read a great essay by a writer named Zaren Healy White called The No Woman's Land Between Fat and Thin Shaming. She muses eloquently on the somewhat radical notion that for the most part, she's pretty ok with her body - sometimes she wishes she could fit into normal pants, or that she hadn't given into a food craving, but not all that much, and she doesn't really share those thoughts with others. It brought up something that I've been thinking a lot about lately: how most men have the luxury of not critically examining themselves on a daily, hourly, or even more frequent basis. 

Although the preposterous and impossible beauty standards that all women are familiar with failing to fit into are starting to exist for men (and that's not a good thing), for the most part, men escape the brunt of mental energy and emotional toll that self loathing for one's own body takes. 

These thoughts usually come while I'm waiting for the train, idle for a few seconds before I pull out a book or my plug my headphones into my phone. I see a guy who is completely average - possible nice-looking, maybe has a little tummy paunch, maybe is rail-thin, but it doesn't matter. I look this average guy and wonder if he ever feels self conscious about his tummy paunch or his flat stomach but lack of abs or his butt or his chin or any of the long menu of body parts that I feel self conscious about on any given day. 

Something tells me he doesn't. Or maybe he does worry about X body part, but most likely he doesn't obsess over it on a daily basis. And if he does, he doesn't share those thoughts with a friend who would half-heartedly deny that his body part is unfavorable and then recite the list of parts he find unacceptable on his own body, setting off a cycle of self loathing and feeble, ineffective "support" for the friend he's conversing with. Men's body issues do exist, but not to the extent that women's do. Women are conditioned to loath their bodies, to obsess over the smallest of our "flaws," to the point where reaching a place where you're mostly ok with your body, as Zaren Healy White writes about, is a state worthy of celebration.

I make no claims that all men find themselves perfect - far from it - but as a whole, I'm comfortable stating that men aren't conditioned to examine their bodies on a daily basis and spend mental energy thinking about the parts they don't like. And I often wonder how that must feel. How does it feel, average-bodied guy on the train platform, to shower and get dressed in the morning without thinking about how your butt doesn't look the way you want it to look, or how you can't wear a certain shirt with certain jeans because it's too tight and will reveal parts of you you find unacceptable, to weigh your clothing choice in terms of how much want to worry about your stomach throughout the day? How does it feel to brush your teeth without thinking about how you wish to god your neck and chin were slimmer? What is it like to go a whole morning without these thoughts? A day? A week, even, before you take the time to unfavorable consider your body? What does it feel like to go for a long period of time not thinking about the appearance of your body at all, but to have the privilege of only thinking about it in terms of your fitness, or being hungry, or bandaging a cut? What does that feel like? 

I hope someday I know.