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

[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!