I am the Girl Anachromism...
Jan. 16th, 2009 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sebastienneAh, 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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 01:15 am (UTC)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 :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 11:59 am (UTC)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...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 08:15 pm (UTC)True, that.