Looking Glass

Still from Marine Billet's short film What is Beauty?

Femininity, presentability, attractiveness. Loaded words with messy histories of their own. This is a story of my brief exploration, and denouncement, of these themes over the past few years.

When I started college as a freshman, I found myself incredibly preoccupied with the things that people said and did. Naturally, I wanted to understand my new environment better – become versed in its dialect and mannerisms so that I could eventually behave like the confident upperclassman I looked up to, rather than the measly shrimpy freshman that I felt myself being. Despite this almost obsession with observing the new people in my life, I seemed to be heavily neglecting one large aspect; presentability.

Due to whatever laundry list of reasons my past had conjured together until that moment when I became a college freshman, I had been feeling particularly confident in my appearance. That’s not to say that I had never struggled with my appearance, far,far from it really, but rather that in that given moment of my life, I felt at least okay.

Subconsciously or not, starting college with a boyfriend does something to your self-assuredness that I’m convinced starting it as single does not provide. For those first four months of college, until inevitably my high school boyfriend and I broke up, I felt as if I had a superpower up my sleeve. And what, exactly, was that superpower? The feeling that I didn't need to impress anybody with how I looked.

While the actual breakup did not radically change how I felt or presented myself – I did not suddenly dress differently in any way – I realized that that feeling of power was there to stay. Denouncing my appearance and the need to uphold it felt like a symbolic way of holding my head high. It made me feel like I was more powerful than the lustful eyes of the frat boys that littered our campus’ every corner. In my mind, if I didn’t want the attention that I may or may not receive, I was winning.

This feeling that I was beating the claws of unwanted sexual desire (which let’s be clear, I’m not even saying I was getting!) quickly turned into feelings of evading consumerism, capitalism, and the patriarchy. If you’re familiar with feminist movements of the past 10 years in any way, this is not a surprising thought. Many women forgo shaving, hair dye, nail polish, etc. in an effort to push back against what is commonly expected of women appearance-wise, especially in the United States.

But for me, this was a new terrain that I was exploring. With the fervor of a typical college freshman who learns a new concept and immediately feels like an expert on it, I was passionate in my desire to push against the ideals that I felt the world was pushing on me and women in general. As I became more aware of the insidiously pervasive ways in which capitalism touched every facet of my life, I felt that by at least pushing back in ways that I could personally do so – not doing my hair, not wearing makeup, not wearing fancy clothes or clothes that even made me feel attractive - that I was effectively sticking it the man, as best as my 19 year old self could.

However, what I failed to comprehend was how deeply unhappy this way of living was making me. I was both internally and outwardly judgemental to other girls who I felt were conforming to these ideals. Having all that judgment in one’s heart and in one's mind does not bode well, for neither the beholder nor the beheld. Funny how what I thought was a very feminist move proved to be the source of more animosity towards my fellow girls, what a catch-22. (I am positive that there are women who denounce these ideals without these feelings of judgment that I was having, and more power to them, but I sadly, was not, especially at age.)

Spending so much time thinking of how my actions were affecting others and pushing back against theories also meant that I was neglecting to recognize the fact that none of the ways in which I was behaving were making me any happier. I eventually hated how I looked and lacked self-confidence in any sense of the word.

When COVID came around, I reached a breaking point. I felt awful everyday and couldn’t stand it anymore. I slowly began to exist as a normal person, whatever that means. I worked out, ate healthier, and all the other things that aren’t interesting to write about.

The hardest thing about change for us, especially now, is that we want results by yesterday. We want our newfound workout routine to change how we feel and look faster than we can get packages delivered to our front door. And when we’re faced with the reality that change takes time, we find ourselves shying away and giving up. In order to take advantage of this vulnerable period, I decided to do what many women, and men, have done before me and will continue to do forever – I drastically changed my hair.

I got bangs and dyed my hair a rich auburn-red color. I feel like a caricature of a woman having a mental breakdown writing that but it’s true! Doing those two things felt like I was expressing a new part of myself that I had never been able to beforehand. The hair change was an effective catalyst to sticking with my other changes.

While there is copious amounts of beauty in the mundane, the reality is that how I maintain my sense of self-confidence is most likely truly boring. We all know what steps we are supposed to take to feel better, both mentally and physically, and whether they will truly make a difference sometimes feels like a shot in the dark, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.

These days, I find myself behaving more like my six year old self would – viewing each day and occasion as an opportunity to play dress up. I don’t conform to ideals because they are ideals, but rather I pick and choose what makes me feel more like myself and more confident. I still, of course, have issues with the topics that I was so passionately averse to before, but now I choose to evade them in new ways that don’t come at the expense of my well-being.

I paint my nails ice-blue because it reminds me of a bird’s eggs. I wear metallic lilac eyeliner, alone in my room, because it makes my green eyes pop and reminds me of my grandma and amethyst. I pursue beauty, in my own ever evolving terms, for myself.