sebastienne: (dresden)
[personal profile] 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?

Date: 2009-01-16 04:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

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sebastienne

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