Unit Three - Beauty and Performance

Something that stood out to me while reading Phoebe Robinson's You Can't Touch My Hair was the tension between dressing up for one's self versus trying to look good for the rest of society. The issues that Robinson discusses are very specific to black culture, granted, but the mentality that she associates with her presentation can apply to more than black hair.

One issue that's gotten some attention from mainstream feminists, though it has died down some recently, is whether or not it's feminist to wear makeup. Heavy makeup, revealing clothes, and complicated hairstyles have at times been looked down upon and reduced to performances aimed at attracting male attention. While this discussion had died down some as feminists began to agree that women who wanted to wear makeup should, and that what was important was being able to choose for one's self, the argument has resurfaced, especially as a way to denigrate trans women who some TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) have claimed reinforce gender stereotypes by adhering to hyper-feminine styles in an effort to be recognized.

The issue can be conflicting even for women in relatively privileged demographics (such as white women, particularly upper-middle class white women). YouTuber ContraPoints, or Natalie Wynn, discusses some of these tensions in her video "Beauty." In particular, she talks about her experience getting facial feminization surgery (FFS), why it was important to her to get it, and societal views on both plastic surgery and makeup.

While I encourage watching the full video, it's fairly lengthy, so I'll highlight a few parts. Wynn's surgery is a more extreme (and expensive) example of the lengths women go to in order to match society's standards, but some of her experience and quite a bit of her feelings towards it overlap with Robinson's trials with her hair. Wynn describes the procedure as, "it cost a lot of money, the anticipation was, oh, terror like I've never known, the pain was memorable, and the recovery took more than a month" (03:35-03:43). Robinson, on the other hand, describes a continuous experience from a young age where her hair would be straightened, including using a hot comb which she relates could burn her if she wasn't still as her mother ran it through her hair. Robinson remarks, "If you're thinking that's a lot of responsibility for a very young person—to stay still as a piping-hot piece of metal hovers mere inches from your scalp—you are correct" (12). Both women had very different experiences, and yet both demonstrated their willingness—or perhaps how they were pressured—to endure pain for the sake of their looks.

The idea that women will go to great lengths and pains for their beauty is hardly a new one, and Wynn addresses an often asked question, asking, "Why would someone do what I just did?" (05:11-05:14). She mentions some of the usual answers: pleasing men, pleasing society, and for trans women, reaffirming one's identity. The evidence would seem to point towards societal standards and the approval of others being at the core of these practices, but Wynn posits a different answer, asserting that while societal influence is unavoidable, the core of her desire to get FFS was a desire to be beautiful—by society's standards, yes, but largely for herself.

I could go more in depth on Wynn's argument, but I think that's enough summarizing. The reason this topic appealed to me was because it's a very familiar conflict. The "self-doubt, shame, embarrassment, and confusion about who they should try to be and whether it's better to fully be themselves or not" (7) that Robinson describes when talking about black hair is something all women feel. I won't say it's the same experience, because a black woman's experience of having her appearance criticized is very different from a trans woman's experience or a white cisgendered woman's experience; we all experience varying degrees of pressure from society to perform in a certain way, and vulnerable demographics will always be more affected than the more protected ones. What I want to discuss, though, is the conflict. At what point are we acting for ourselves, and at what point are we acting for others? How do we find a balancing act in "a society that pressures women to be beautiful while simultaneously belittling them for caring about it" (Wynn 10:12-10:18) where we can be accepted by others while still accepting ourselves? Unfortunately, for the end of this post, I don't have an answer to that question. I've survived the last few years of my life avoiding skirts, dresses, and makeup, because I was convinced that being feminine and being myself would only undermine my goals in life. As Wynn says, "smart people aren't supposed to care about beauty" (09:06-09:09), and I always wanted to be smart a lot more than I wanted to be beautiful.

I'm starting to wonder why I can't be both.