I am the Girl Anachromism...

[sebastienne]

Ah, the street-heckling has begun again. I must be being myself once more!

Of course, by dying my hair green and wearing neon-pink jumpers, I am doing exactly the same thing that I used to do when I was fifteen and would dress head-to-toe in purple and walk around London. (And I mean head-to-toe. Wig to boots, via make-up, miniskirt, and military jacket.) Sometimes the heckling was the only way to alleviate adolescent ennui, and I never really understood why until now.

People judge people. I'm not blaming anyone for that; it's pretty much impossible not to. But if I'm going to be judged, it will bloody well be because of choices I have made. My green hair, like my glam-goth purple once did, signals that I do not subscribe to mainstream beauty ideals, and thus that it is meaningless to judge me by them. (When I am judged by mainstream beauty standards - and this is the default way that I will be judged unless I am weird enough - I am judged as someone who has tried-and-failed to attain them. How pitiable. How sad. Poor silly fat girl, no-one will ever love her.)

So my hair is my war-paint. I realised today that this compulsion I have always felt to distinguish myself and stand out in this way is not attention-seeking - I exist as a woman in this society, the scrutiny is always there - it is a demand that the inevitable judgment take place on my own terms. To make you heckle me for the clashing colours I shove in your face, rather than pity me for failing to live up to someone else's standards. To be hated for what I am, not pitied for what I am not.

And if this all sounds very adolescent, well, that's where this behaviour has its roots, after all. But I wonder how many of you can relate to this, or something like it?

Comments

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely, this.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

By which I at least partly mean, I am happy when I have the courage to live my life like this, or rather, to project this image, rather than attempting to conform.

[robot-mel.livejournal.com]

I found the easiest way to avoid street heckling when I had waist length purple hair was to walk around with the guy with the 12 inch blue mowhawk. Then everyone just commented on his hair and I was left alone. :)

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

I admire you for it. I was always too scared. I didn;t mind fighting against people's words but I've never wanted to draw attention to my appearance unless it's pretty damn conformist.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.

Did I become such a habitual skirt-wearer because I work in very male-dominated subjects?

Or because I like wearing boots and I never quite got the hang of trousers+boots?

It may be mostly the latter. But think I know something of what you mean.

[nerdcakes.livejournal.com]

I have never been someone who does this (while I also fail entirely at mainstream beauty standards, I've never had the interest or the self-confidence or the sort of friends who'd want to do it or whatever) but my sister has almost done almost exactly what you describe in this post and I've always dismissed it as being an attention-seeking thing. So this has given me a new perspective. Thank you!

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating. My perspective is somewhatdifferent, i think - after afairly confident and happy mid-to-late-teenage period of gothhood, when i was deliberately trying to align myself with a particular subculture as i felt it espoused my values (hell, i*was* 15!), i then a) got seriously emotionally fucked over in ways that stirred up a lot of fundamentally unresolved childhood identity/selfworth issues and b) got ME, soi for afew years tried desperately to struggle for a genuine sense of selfhood thatwas good enough. During which time i went terribly mainstream, bc i felt the illness marked me out enough - i didn't want to stand out more. Now, i don't necessarily think about anything other than clothing being a) practical (I live in jeans, mainly) and b) a valid projection of my fairly eccentric self (eg, the otherthingscould be *anything*, including nightwear, wolly jumpres, dresses, floaty hippy stuff, goth stuff, or some combination ofthe above.) And i'm lucky enough to conform if anything rathertoo much to cultural expectations of feminine smallness etc, so usually the thing that fucks me off is not being noticed, peoplewalking straight through me, that kind of thing. And interestingly enough, these days i'm increasingly more aggressive about it - no i won't get out of yourway justcos you're bigger than me/male/busy. And it's weird theways people react - like i've betrayed them, oram being deliberately antagonistic for not liking being stepped on. And somehow dressing *extra* noticeably just so i stand out more wd be just as much a betrayal ofself as dressing to fit in. does that make any sense, or have i wondered COMPLETELY off the point? Hmmm... :oP

[notintheseheels.livejournal.com]

Yes. Completely. I made a choice at about 16 that if I was going to be judged it would be because I looked so glittery and fabulous that other people couldn't get their heads round it rather than because I was tubby and plain.

[like-achilles.livejournal.com]

It's something I tend to fail at. I admire it enormously.

[darwinian-woman.livejournal.com]

*loves* :D

[gatty.livejournal.com]

Wow, okay, reading this really made a hell of a lot of sense to me. I could never quite explain to people that actually, I don't like being the centre of attention... unless it's on the stage... or cause I'm wearing an entirely gold outfit... or I have three foot long neon pink hair. I thought the only reason could be that I was just making a safe outside face to show people - and I suppose what you're saying ties in to that, as in, I choose what you judge me for, rather than letting you actually see me, and getting hurt by judgement on that. But that latter half doesn't mesh, because neon pink hair and head to foot in gold /can/ be me. It's just... that well, like you say, I'd rather get heckled for something I thought HAY THIS LOOKS LIKE FUN, than for just failing to manage something I don't give a shit about (ie looking 'normal').

This has cheered my day right up. Thank you, o font of wisdom.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I've never done this - but, on reflection, I think I know why already. It's because I already don't conform to Western beauty standards because I have brown skin. So even if I do things that are mainstream for me - i.e., don't try and look white, then I can be seen on my own terms without the need for, say, pink hair. Does that make sense? And when I'm in India, I will not wear a sari or any make-up, I won't wear anything but my jeans and scruffy t-shirts and boots, I'll be much more performatively butch than I ever am here, and I think it's just for the reasons you mention. There, I conform to the standards enough to be judged by them. That is some good analysis, there.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

In a slightly patronising-anthropologist manner, it is interesting to see the extension of this analysis beyond the "mainstream culture" that I experience. I think we're on to something, here!

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, good old Indian standards of beauty (http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk/fair-and-lovely-cream_1_26088.html), how we love them...

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

I most definitely know what you mean!! Though I have to be vaguely conformist at work (though most girls here wear frills and faffs, whereas I wear a decidedly blokeish suit and waistcoat combo and am happy to be judged accordingly), I am never happier or more joyous than when striding round dressed as a pirate, or with one of my fabulous wigs on. And I like the persona that I'm helping people create for me in their minds :-)

May I post a luxembourg-based request for pics of your new and fab hair?

[sugar-and-space.livejournal.com]

*glomp*

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yesyesyesyes.

I'm never really sure how far I jumped into the Goth subculture and how much I was pushed, to be honest. You've seen pictures of me when I was a kid; I basically looked like Wednesday Addams from the age of five onward. I was only a bit older than that when I realised that my black frizzy hair and my pale-pale skin meant that I would always, always Fail At Being Pretty, and my seriousness and stroppiness meant that I would Fail At Being Popular unless I spent my entire life struggling like grim death to hide them... BUT then I discovered that in the Goth scene, these attributes of mine were the standards of 'beautiful' and 'cool', not the markers of failing at it. You can bet I wanted as big a piece of it as possible as quickly as possible! (Plus the fact that since half the little harpies I went to school with were convinced that I was 'scary' and 'a witch' anyway, I figured I might as well have the game!).

The love for the music and the dancing and the literature and film came along later, for sure, but I still wonder how much I latched onto Gothdom simply to escape the 'automatic fail' that I'd been branded with as a supremely un-conventionally-attractive teenager.

Also, just my $0.02, but I don't think your post is adolescent at all. It touches on issues stemming from that time, yes, but it's a bit foolish to pretend that this stuff stops affecting us the minute we turn 18 (or 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29...).

**edited for spelling**

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I suppose I do something similar, but I go for comfortable-and-scruffy rather than bright-and-in-your-face. The opinion of anyone who judges by looks doesn't matter to me, so I semi-deliberately filter them out.

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Having had a look at the public entries on your LJ and your webpage, I'm assuming you identify as male - many apologies if I've got this wrong.

It is my general experience from talking to/observing lots of male and female friends, that being able to filter out 'the opinion of anyone who judges by looks' is a lot easier if you're not being read as female, and judged on your success/failure at living up to conventionally feminine notions of beauty as a result.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Having had a look at the public entries on your LJ and your webpage, I'm assuming you identify as male - many apologies if I've got this wrong.

Indeed.

It is my general experience from talking to/observing lots of male and female friends, that being able to filter out 'the opinion of anyone who judges by looks' is a lot easier if you're not being read as female, and judged on your success/failure at living up to conventionally feminine notions of beauty as a result.

Sounds highly plausible. Being (or if you prefer, identifying as) male has some definite upsides :-)

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Being (or if you prefer, identifying as) male has some definite upsides :-)

Yeah. We can get away with a lot more, and won't be looked down on per se for "not being pretty". I expect it's rather a different set of lenses that people put on, looking at guys.

Although it's rather easier to be prejudged as dangerous if you're a guy -- wear comfortable (and by extension scruffy) clothes, and people will give you an extra half meter or so of personal space... same goes if you're Asian and wear a beard, like me...

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Although it's rather easier to be prejudged as dangerous if you're a guy

True, that.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[countess-rezia.livejournal.com]

Yes! Very much so. My whole wicked queen persona and look developed from feeling "other", embracing this and making it very clear that I was

As an extension of this, I dress in different costumes to reflect different parts of my personality and different heros none of which are mainstream characteristics / ambitions. I dress to express myself - I literally wear my soul (if not my heart!) on my sleeve...and my legs and hands and face. If people judge by appearances then I want to make sure their judgement of me is valid!