Tuesday, May 15, 2012

My Own Private Beauty Myth

A number of things I once believed to be true about my appearance: I have strong features, I am big-boned, my skin is both very pink and very pale, I am pear-shaped with a small waist, I have oily skin, and I am hirsute.

Here’s the truth, or at least as much of the “truth” as I’m able to come up with today, after 35 years in this skin: My features are neither strong nor delicate, I am medium-framed, I have a yellow tint to my skin and tan easily, I am neither pear-shaped nor hourglassy nor apple-shaped and certainly a small waist isn’t in the equation, I have normal skin, and I’ve got about as much body hair as you’d expect on an Irish-English-Native American woman, which is to say that it’s dark but there’s not tons of it.

“Lots of women have no idea what they look like,” said makeup artist Chrissie Ede
n DiBianco when I interviewed her last year. And looking at this list, it’s clear I’m one of them. Some of these beliefs were rooted in plain old insecurity: When you’re 13 and the thought of anyone knowing you’re actually growing hair in your armpits is mortifying, having any body hair whatsoever may well mean—to your eyes only—that you resemble Chewbacca. Some were miseducation: I got the occasional zit in junior high, like pretty much everyone, so why wouldn’t I use products designed for oily skin since my skin was clearly a grease bomb?

Bu
t what strikes me the most about these personal beauty myths is their compensatory effect. Growing up in South Dakota in the 1980s, the “corn-fed” look was prized: blonde hair, blue eyes, upturned nose, the whole Swedish-Norwegian package. I had none of these, so I drew inspiration from books, where tertiary characters were often described as having dark hair (check), dark eyes (check!), and “strong features.” Now, my features are hardly carved from fine porcelain, but they’re...average. Sorta high cheekbones but not terribly pronounced, utterly nondescript nose and chin, mouth on the small side. There is nothing about my face that would make someone describe it as “strong-featured.” But teenagers are not known for embracing ambiguity: I wasn’t blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and ski-jump-nosed; ergo, I was Maria Callas.

Me, in eighth grade.

This compensation appears in nearly every erroneous belief I’ve had about my body: Growing up heavy-set and then suddenly becoming normal-weight as a teenager meant I had to reshuffle my entire self-image. Naturally I thought I was fat, in that classic teen-girl way, but I could also look in the mirror and see that I wasn’t actually overweight, so somehow I came up with being “big-boned” to make sense of it all, despite coming from a long line of solidly average-framed people. I blush easily, so thinking I had a pink skin tone helped me assimilate that (totally embarrassing!) fact; it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized my skin actually has a distinctly yellow tint. And as for being pear-shaped—well, I’ve covered the whole body-type nonsense before, and it wasn’t until my early 30s that I realized I was both all and none of the main body types, and that the standard style advice for dressing those figures would never apply to me.

B
ut one aspect of the pear-shaped business illuminates something key here. As a faithful reader of all the “dress your body” magazine features published between 1986-2007, I knew that pear-shaped women were always told to emphasize their small waists. And because I believed myself to be pear-shaped (an idea borne more from embarrassment over the size of my thighs than objective evidence), I must have a small waist, right? Never mind that my jeans rarely gapped in the back, or that dresses didn’t hang loose around the middle, or that my waist measurement wasn’t particularly small. I was pear-shaped, dammit, and you can take my small waist from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

It would be easy for me to laugh at what I once believed to be true about my body, but this small-waist thing doesn’t fit into the narrative of teen-girl embarrassment. This wasn’t a case of putting myself down or not really understanding what my best and not-so-best traits were; this was me inventing a positive trait even where the evidence was flimsy. Even in the places where the myths I’d spun about my looks didn’t match up with the beauty imperative, I found these little nuggets that let me feel okay. If my generous thighs and hips made me a pear, I was going to seize the small waist that went along with it. If my weight was always going to be a sore spot for me, why not deem myself “big-boned”? If I was going to be
pink-skinned, I’d spin it into some sort of English rose look and do my makeup to emphasize my pale pallor.

The point here isn’t so much that I was wrong about those things; it wasn’t until adulthood that I was able to see myself a little more objectively, and I’m hardly unique in that. (Of course, there’s something instructive in how off-base I was: How much better-dressed would I have been if I’d veered away from the pear-shaped advice and worn what actually suited me? How much more radiant would my skin have looked at 14 if I weren’t stripping away its oil?) The point is that even where the conclusions were wrong, there was some sort of survival skill at work—something that allowed me to take my imagined beliefs and fit them into the order of things. Something that, underneath all the self-deprecation and imagined detractions, thought m
aybe I didn’t look so bad after all.

The narrative we spin for girls is that they’re doomed to look in the mirror and not like what they see—that the dogpile of unrealistic images of women’s bodies and idealized femininity hits them so early on that by the time they reach puberty, the best we can do is damage control. We spin it that way for a reason—it’s true too often, and if it was ever true of you, that searing feeling of not measuring up has serious staying power.

There’s an alternat
e narrative too, of girls with resilient self-esteem, the sort of confident young woman we look at and think, She’s gonna be okay. But those two narratives are intertwined: My confidence was shaky in regards to my looks, but there I was, coming up with ways to tell myself that I wasn’t totally outside the realm of conventional prettiness, even if I had to make it up. I didn’t know my physical strengths and flaws until adulthood, but I intuited that if I roamed the world believing only my flaws (or what I perceived to be flaws), I’d be miserable, and I liked myself enough to not want to be miserable. So I picked up the odd shreds of evidence from the very things that pained me—my telltale blush, my ample thighs, my lack of Scandinavian grace—and constructed an effigy of myself. It was strung together with scotch tape and homemade safety pins, yes, but it was there: this emergent girl who had internalized all the media ideals, but who, at her core, was able to fight for herself.

Ideally, of course, that fight wouldn’t have been about inventing ways to fit the beauty standard; it would have been about challenging it by daring to think that I looked just fine even in the myriad ways I didn’t fit the template. I’m not holding up my teen self as some paragon of self-esteem, not by a long shot, and I’m under no illusion that my misconceptions were any sort of resistance to the beauty standard itself. But it was a resistance to feeling as though I needed to change in order to fit them, a corrective perspective from a girl who had internalized all those messages about how her body “should” look but who, at her core, also thought maybe she looked just fine. Acknowledging I looked fine as-is, if only to myself, may have been too radical for me at the time (woe befall the girl who thinks she’s “all that”); this was my in-between. It was a start.

25 comments:

  1. I had a moment like this a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a photo of myself as I was about to embrace my husband and I noticed (with delight!) that my arms looked rather thick and substantial. I realized as I looked at the photo that I was still operating with a mental image of myself that was constructed when I was about 12 years old, one that depicted me as scrawny and bony, and that I'd never bothered to update it since then.

    The funny thing is that while the world has definitely put "skinny" out there as a physical ideal for women, I never actually felt that way about my body and in fact hated it because I didn't have any of the curves I thought women needed to have to be attractive to men. Of course, now I actually have a bit of curve and flesh, but like I said, my mental image of myself hadn't quite caught up with my body.

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    1. So interesting! I remember you writing about wanting to be more muscular and doing all the work but not getting there--seems like you did! I feel like we internalize this more with our bodies, because we internalize more with our bodies in general, most likely. When it hit me that I wasn't a heavy-set person after all, it was a weird sort of realization--being medium-sized felt almost like a joke after years of feeling like I wasn't.

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  2. I, also, only actually realized in the last couple years that I have yellowish skin. Recently an ER doctor picked up arm and said, "What do you think of this skin color?" to the nurse. Like he thought I was jaundiced. I had to interrupt and tell him that was actually my normal color, thank you. Obviously he grew up in South Dakota in the 80s. ;) ;)

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    1. Onely, I have had the same experience... two separate doctors, separate occasions, checking and double-checking my liver functions. I always liked that my skin was yellowish when I worshipped the sun, made me 'feel' tan faster. :) Now I just get suspicions about my endocrine system, which is not as sexy.

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    2. That's nuts! Like, seriously, has he never seen someone with olive skin?

      Jessica, I love how you put it: "feeling" tan. I do color easily but I have to spend a LOT of time in the sun before I'm dark, but just a shade of color makes me feel all tan, like I should be lounging on a yacht and/or living in Beverly Hills.

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  3. Interestingly, I have about 3 memories of my physical perception from when I was a teenager, most of which are basically factually true, as far as the facts go:

    1) I have a big nose. On my adult face, my nose is not small, but it feels basically in line with my features. Or at least, I've had plenty of time to become accustomed to it and to recognize that it is the nose of my mother and father combined. On my younger face, it felt more disproportionate (and was, in fact, larger than average by comparison), though I took it to mean I was ugly -- which is very much a subjective judgment on a more or less objective observation.

    2) I am big-boned. In my later years, I would add to that "and muscled to match." Part of this, I'm sure, was how I was encouraged to use my body in childhood and adolescence -- riding and handling horses, playing all manner of contact sports (some unofficial and coed). But part of it I'd only really discover later: I have broad shoulders, wide hips, and just generally do not squish or shrink, regardless of how much fat I am or am not carrying on me.

    3) I have pretty flexible ankles. ("Pretty flexible" as in "markedly more flexible than average" not "pretty and flexible," though I'm not against that second interpretation per se.) This just comes from my memories of riding lessons and -- after my first couple of years of instruction -- having no one (instructors, judges, etc.) complain of my heel placement -- and in fact, having some of them remark favorably on it, even though it didn't seem like I was doing anything strenuous.

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    1. Tori, that's interesting that the definite physical things you perceived actually turned out to be in line with what you saw as an adult. Was there judgment involved with these? I wonder what it means that most of my conceptions of self were erroneous (though not all) while yours were more on-target.

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  4. Another engaging story.

    Here's part of my beauty myth:

    Like you, I cherished the idea of "strong features." All I really meant was "slightly bulbous nose."

    I always considered myself 'short and curvy.' Why? Because my siblings are all taller and thinner than me. Rebranding myself as 'curvy' must have seemed more appealing than identifying as 'the shortest, heaviest kid in the family.' Plus, when your curves are brand new and striped with stretch marks, they can seem much greater than they are.

    I even remember my mom describing me as being "like a sexy little teapot," which is both fun and preposterous. Imagine my dismay upon finally noticing how relatively non-curvaceous I am. Sigh!

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    1. Ah yes, "curvy"! And yep, comparison comes into play here. That survival instinct kicks in again, though--I love that.

      I thought I was curvy too. And while I'm not un-curvy, it wasn't until I was, like, 30 that it sunk in that I was never going to have va-voom curves. Muscular, sure, but I'm never going to walk like a bowl of Jello balanced on Slinkies (my favorite line from a film noir detective parody).

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  5. "Like jello on springs!"

    I don't think I really knew what my body looked like until I started a blog and took full-length photos of myself. A real eye-opener.

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    1. ...and that just might be a reason I don't do that often. Hmmm! A good exercise, but one I'm willing to engage in?

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  6. As someone who's currently teenaged, this post (like the other reminiscent ones of middle/high school times) was particularly interesting to me. I have certain perceptions of my appearance, and I know they're not all completely accurate. Lots of them are formed as comparisons to other people I know, friends and classmates, and I think they might be completely different in different surroundings. It's very curious. Great post!

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    1. Thanks, Alexa! I will say that with age I did get to know myself better, even if I still have all sorts of personal myths--if nothing else, the comparison factor really does alleviate itself over the years. I feel like if you know some of your perceptions aren't really on the dot, you're several steps ahead of where I was!

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  7. All my other siblings had my mom's cute nose, whereas I had my dad's longer, more prominent nose, which my siblings remarked upon on occasion. So I grew up thinking I had this huge nose, when it is pretty average size and pretty normal looking (neither detracting or adding my much to the sum total of my looks). When I was an adult, a friend who had a genuinely distinctive nose that had caused her much insecurity her whole life go a nose job. Our group of friends were sitting around talking about it, and I mentioned that I had always wanted a nose job as a kid. Everyone turned and looked at me with confused expressions and said "why?" Like, not like they were trying to assuage my insecurities, but were genuinely perplexed. That was the moment I realized my nose was not actually some big eye sore.

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    1. Anonymous, this is such a perfect example of what I'm talking about--thank you for commenting. Your arc of perception made total sense in context of your family, and once that context changed it was like, Oh! Normal nose after all! Sometimes comparison works in our favor, after all.

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  8. Fascinating post, thanks! I had a similar experience. It wasn't until I started making my own clothes and actually measuring my body and comparing it to patterns that I realised a lot of the things I'd always believed about my shape just weren't true. I think you put your finger on it with the idea of making something positive out of the 'non-standard' characteristics.

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    1. Catherine, that's interesting that having a sort of "objective" measure could help shake loose some of those fallacies. It makes perfect sense--like, numbers are numbers, you know? And numbers look wildly different on all of us (as My Body Gallery shows--http://www.mybodygallery.com/ ) but at least it's something concrete that you can't really argue with, unlike "too [big/small/pink/round/floppy".

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  9. Being Norwegian with very scandinavian features (minus the blonde hair, light brown for me) I find it a bit funny to hear of Scandinavian grace and so on. Here most people look like that so it's become a bit boring in a way. I've noticed that I find other non-scandinavian features more appealing. I guess we never like our own "normal".

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    1. Heh, that makes total sense! It's like the idea of being "exotic"--there's an appeal there in seeing something outside the realm of normal, and in fact most philosophical writings on beauty talk about how the unique is beautiful. Which is certainly true, but there's also an argument to be made for the familiar being beautiful. Anyway, the Scandinavian look was quite prized here in the States when I was growing up (there was a whole series of "Swedish Bikini Team" beer ads, ugh) so that look was something I aspired to, despite not being Scandinavian in the least!

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  10. I loved this post. It makes me think seriously about all the stereotypes I've attributed to myself, and root out whether or not they're true. Thanks!

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    1. Thanks, Frankie! I'm unsure as to whether we can ever really know the truth about ourselves--it's one place where sometimes paying attention to what other people say can be helpful--but examining those beliefs is what matters. Their origins are often surprising!

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  11. I always figured I was plus-size - and in Malaysia, I am! I'm immediately relegated to the XXXL category; everything else is too tight. Also, I hover around 72kg, which by BMI standards makes me overweight (also 5 foot 5).

    I recently saw some pictures of myself from some recent events and was taken aback at how I looked *slimmer* than I thought I was. I don't feel it, my clothing sizes and fit don't reflect it, but the photos were pretty remarkable!

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    1. Tiara, from your profile it seems like you're not Malaysian but instead live there (though I can't be sure)--certainly when I've traveled in countries where people are far smaller than I am, my body image has been different. I didn't feel *fat* per se in Vietnam, but it was hard not to feel like a big gigantic freak (at a whopping 5'7"!) there because everyone else was so small and only the very largest clothes fit me.

      But in any case, sometimes relying on photos can actually be really illuminative. Best of luck to you in sussing this out, both in figuring out what your body actually is and feels like, and in accepting whatever that answer is.

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  12. I can't say that my perception of my bones as small has changed; it's actually something I picked up from my dad, who was tiny like I am when he was my age. I will always have the smallest hands in the room and darn near the smallest feet.

    But it was Darling who had to point out to my adult self that, even at a lowish weight for my height, I maintain a pronounced difference between my hips and my waist. And I had to discover for myself that maybe some of the rules for short girls didn't apply to someone who had a short torso--my legs are proportional to my height. The hair color I overdyed because I feared being "mousy"? Actually a rich golden-brown. It's like Christmas came late or something.

    The most recent discovery is that I've got my father's skin tone crossed with my mother's paleness... which, yeah, means I have to look at the whites of my eyes to determine whether I'm jaundiced. ;) It's logical looking back: very few sunburns, even if I didn't quite tan, and that struggle to find the right pink (it's more mauve-to-brown). Now, to figure out how to make this work with my mother's blue eyes...

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    1. >The hair color I overdyed because I feared being "mousy"? Actually a rich golden-brown. It's like Christmas came late or something.<

      Cassie, I love this--what a gift! And a big YES to figuring out that the fashion "rules" don't apply in so many cases. It's part of what I hate about those "dress your figure"-type pages in magazines--the advice for petite women doesn't apply to you because of your torso, just as advice for "athletic" women like myself doesn't really work because it always tells me to wear RUFFLES to "soften" my figure, which is plenty soft, just with muscle and a thick waist! Ugh.

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