Strike a Pose: Vogue, Eating Disorders, and Desire

Vogue stopped using bird models in 1921.

Several years ago, after a long day at the magazine I was freelancing for at the time, I hailed a cab and cried the whole way home. The chief cause of the crying was the last task I’d had to do at the office before departing for the night: Communicating to the art department that a top editor wanted to digitally slim a celebrity whose former battles with anorexia were well-documented in the press. Transcribing her request onto the circulating page proof, every stroke of every letter felt like it was being scratched upon my skin. I hated that anyone would look at this particular picture of the (trim, lovely, recovered) celebrity and want it trimmer still, I hated that it was part of my job to communicate this request, I hated that the editor was so high up as to make it improper for a lowly freelance copy editor to question her, I hated that the people reading the final product wouldn’t understand all the labor that goes into making beautiful people look beautiful on the page. Most of all, I hated that the celebrity might look at the story, spot the digital manipulation, and yearn for her days of hunger. I hated it.

So you would think that I’d be thrilled about Vogue’s recent announcement that they are no longer going to work with models who appear to have an eating disorder, will encourage designers to consider their practice of unrealistically tailored sample sizes, and will be “ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.” All 19 global editions of the world’s leading fashion magazine signed on to the pledge, this after an international flurry of other body image actions in the world of high fashion: Italy and Spain’s leading fashion coalitions banned models with BMIs deeming them underweight, and in March Israel recently passed a law doing the same. And indeed, I felt a wash of righteous joy when I read about the announcement: I mean, this is Vogue we’re talking here. Vogue! The emblem of why the fashion world is so often hostile to women’s bodies, the embodiment of the severe impact the thin-young-and-beautiful imperative has on women worldwide. Let’s be clear: This is a good thing. But for the reader, it’s not as good as it seems.

The impact here appears to be significant, yes. Its largest actual impact is on the labor force in question: In addition to no longer working with models who “appear to have an eating disorder,” Vogue will not work with models under age 16 (and will ask casting directors to check identification), implement mentoring programs for mature models to give guidance to beginners, and encourage producers to provide privacy and healthy food backstage. Modeling is precarious work, a fact often overshadowed by its glamour in the public eye; for Vogue to publicly acknowledge that its success is partially built upon the backs of young, precarious laborers, often émigrés from developing or unstable nations, does a real service to those workers, and that fact shouldn’t be lost.

It’s the last item on Vogue’s six-point list that nags at me: We will be ambassadors for the message of healthy body image. To herald Vogue as a game-changing ambassador of healthy body image is to forget that fashion photography is specifically designed to elicit a response—yearning—within us, and few things in our culture inspire yearning like thinness. To point out the obvious: Thinness will never disappear from Vogue’s pages, only ill, underage models. Fashion photography is transportive, both real and unreal. The point for the reader has never been to be able to actually imagine ourselves in the photograph. Let the fashion still lifes do that; we can step into that empty dress, slip our arms through that stack of bracelets. The point of fashion photography is to synthesize distance and reality as we recognize it: It has to be close enough to what we recognize as real to trigger our response, but far enough away to make sure that response leaves us wanting, not contented. This is what fashion photography does; this is what makes it compelling. Longing built into its very function.

“The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives,” writes Susan Sontag in On Photography. “[B]eautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth-telling, which is measured not only by a notion of value-free truth, a legacy from the sciences, but by a moralized ideal of truth-telling, adapted from nineteenth-century literary models and from the (then) new profession of independent journalism.” Fashion magazines epitomize both of these imperatives: Grace Coddington’s magnificent styling certainly falls into the realm of the fine arts, but fashion magazines are always ultimately selling and promoting products that actually exist and are for sale—that is, they have an amoralized ideal of truth-telling. (Not that selling is without morals, but the sort of truth that advertising purports is quite different than the sort of truth we get from photojournalism. A seller’s intent, even if it’s a positive one, doesn’t stem from morality.) Even if few readers of Vogue are actually able to purchase the clothes on its pages, they can buy the fast fashion knockoffs; they can be inspired by the looks on the pages.

And, of course, they can be inspired by—and aspire to—thinness. Thinness became encoded as a part of the creation of desire, for all sorts of reasons that, if you’re reading this, you probably understand. The thinking here is that Vogue’s move to not use models who appear to have eating disorders will help separate that encoding; certainly Vogue will remain a manufacturer of desire, and they have all sorts of talent beyond emaciated models to do so. I’d love to see thinness separated from desire just as much as the next woman. But the Vogue announcement, on balance, is never going to be a part of that, for on the most basic level, simply refusing to work with models who “appear” to have an eating disorder hardly means the thin imperative will vanish from Vogue’s pages. We have encoded acquisitional desire as thinness—you can never be too rich or too thin—and the entire industry is predicated upon acquisitional desire. Yes, yes, magazines should do their part to end the conflation of thinness and desire, and on the most perfunctory level, Vogue has done so. But the work—the real work—must go far deeper.

For as significant as it is that it’s Vogue, with all its class and tastemaking connotations, making this announcement, it’s also a double-edged sword. If the go-to reference for the absurdity of the thin imperative has always been Vogue, and then Vogue says it’s switching up the game, we’ve suddenly lost our reference point. Yet the referent still exists. Models are going to remain far thinner than the average woman, fashion images will continue to do their job of creating longing and desire, and otherwise sensible women will keep doing the master cleanse. All that has changed besides models' labor conditions is that Vogue gets to seem like it's doing the right thing, and those who have been agitating for body positivity get to feel like we've made progress. Vogue is doing nothing truly radical to change the thin imperative, and to pretend otherwise is to silently walk in lockstep with the very system that put us in this situation to begin with.

There are other concerns with the announcement as well. Some argue it doesn’t go far enough, and I’d agree; certainly not everyone who has an eating disorder "appears" to have one, and when you’re talking about a workforce whose livelihood depends upon skilled manipulation of self-presentation, that risk runs even higher. I’m also a hair suspicious of the timing—both as a PR move to smooth over damage done by “the Vogue mom,” whose controversial piece in the April issue detailed putting her 7-year-old on a diet, and as a reaction to where Vogue is positionally. The circulation of American Vogue dipped 1.7% in the first quarter of 2012 (though it did extraordinarily well in 2011, earning the title of Ad Age’s magazine of the year), and the slow decline of its readers’ personal income may be figuring into their outlook. From 2008 to 2011, Americans’ average per capita income grew slightly (with some recession dips); in that same period, the Vogue reader’s median income dropped, from $64,429 in 2008 (which in and of itself was a 2.3% dip from 2007) to $63,094 today. This keeps Vogue readers substantially above the national per capita income, but I can’t help but wonder if this is an acknowledgment of the behind-the-scenes middlebrowing of the title. For all its prestige and class connotations, Vogue hasn’t been as highbrow as we might think; when I worked at a teen magazine a few years ago, I was surprised to find that readers’ parents were slightly better off than Vogue readers. And let’s not overlook that Conde Nast’s truly highfalutin’ title, W—which has a median reader income of $155,215—has made no such announcement. W has the luxury of doing whatever the hell it wants; Vogue needs to stay relevant to people outside the inner circle in order to continue its success. I’d like to think that prestige audiences care about body image diversity as much as the average American woman, but I’d be thinking wrong.

Despite my arguments here, I am pleased that Vogue is making efforts to stay relevant and on-point with a growing national conversation about body image. I’m critiquing, not criticizing, the announcement. It’s at least a gesture in the right direction—and it’s showing that a critical mass of complaints and activism can actually work, which is enormously encouraging for all the body image and media literacy advocates who work tirelessly in the face of some daunting and culturally embedded issues. And, again, the labor impact here is significant. But as far as its larger impact on readers, I’m not ready to cheer. Short of a complete and total ideological overhaul, there is nothing Vogue could do to truly change the story, for it’s a business that revolves around creating and sating acquisitional desire; it’s why Gloria Steinem referred to the relationship between advertising and women’s publications as the “velvet steamroller.” The policy changes won’t hurt women’s body image, I don’t think. Neither will it truly help. As long as Vogue is a part of the machine of desire—and there is no way for it not to be—the narrative will remain the same; imagery, truth, and beautification will continue their morality play; and readers will receive the same message they always have. And a very thin band will silently play on.

Edith Wharton and Yo Momma

...aaaaand, I'm back, after two weeks of a blogging break. What's happening, internet? 

Edith Wharton, whose looks were the only thing that made her sympathetic,
according to Jonathan Franzen, Great Observer of The Human Condition 

I'll be posting actual content this week, but for today I'm just getting into the swing of things, so here's my warmup: For only two dollars—yes, two American dollars!—a month, you can get a subscription to the digital magazine from The New Inquiry, a journal of thought and criticism where I'm proud to syndicate The Beheld. This month's theme? Beauty. I was enlisted to play the role of co-editor this issue, in part because several of my favorite interviews have been repurposed, and in part because it features my response to Jonathan Franzen's assertion in The New Yorker that Edith Wharton's lack of physical beauty was one of the few things making her sympathetic. 

You'll have to subscribe to read my whole critique of his (baffling) position; unsurprisingly, I think it's shortsighted nonsense. But here's a recurring thought I had when writing it that I didn't put in there because I didn't want to detract from my own argument: Edith Wharton wasn't ugly. I don't usually make proclamations about any individual woman's beauty on here, but what the hell, she's dead. 

Now, I don't know enough about early 20th-century beauty standards to proclaim that with historic authority, but I didn't know what Wharton looked like when I agreed to write the piece, and it was only after I started the draft that I Googled pictures of her. From the way Franzen painted her, you'd think she was a gargoyle; instead, photos show a perfectly normal-looking woman. Too normal-looking to be considered beautiful, to be sure; there's nothing lush or exquisite about her features. Plain is probably the word you might use, but plain in the literal sense, not as a synonym for the butt of yo' momma jokes. But Franzen hinged his argument upon Edith Wharton being sympathetic only because her looks make us see what she was striving for with repeatedly torturing the beautiful characters she invented—and then you look at pictures of her and the argument makes even less sense than it does at first glance. In her day, Wharton's detractors accused her of "defeminizing" herself, and that seems to be true according to her biographers; she doesn't have the soft waves and tinted lips possessed by the women of the era who were considered beautiful. And she didn't age particularly well, but then again, neither did Sarah Bernhardt, widely renowned for her beauty.

The obvious argument that I tried to circumvent in the piece was that female writers will forever be judged on the way we look, something my own experience has backed up when I've published on sites other than those explicitly aimed at a female audience. But when I saw Wharton's utterly normal features, I actually guffawed, because it illuminated another point entirely: It doesn't matter what female writers actually look like, and not just because we're screwed either way (too pretty to be taken seriously/too ugly to hook in the public to read what she's actually written). We've come to the point where we all understand that women's looks must matter to her creative work, so Franzen can assert Wharton's appeal and use that as a baseline for his argument, regardless of the looks in question. It wasn't until my mother, who has read far more Wharton than I have, pointed out that the photos she'd seen didn't show an ugly woman that I thought to look at photos of her; I was prepared to accept the baseline Franzen provided. He never calls her ugly, just points out how un-pretty she was—but in a piece that hinges upon Wharton's looks, I'd argue the implication is there. And yes, yes, looks are subjective and beauty standards change and blah blah blah. But, I mean, look for yourself. Should this woman's looks inspire 2,000 words in The New Yorker? (Should any woman's looks inspire 2,000 words—words not written by a female writer, incidentally, which I suppose isn't a surprise—in The New Yorker?)

I should note that I'm hardly a Wharton scholar. I don't know her self-perception regarding her looks; I don't know if people treated her as though she were grotesque. And obviously portraiture of the era camouflages flaws to the point where if we had access to snapshots of Wharton I might see the validity of Franzen's assertion about her looks. As is, though, it's bollocks. 

*   *   * 

Even in a self-proclaimed "break" I couldn't help but collate links over the past couple of weeks. (One point of the break, after all, was to catch up on my reading.) Speedier and more streamlined than usual because of this roundup's Very Special status; usual link roundups will resume Friday.

The micromarketing of discontinued products.

France has the best hairdressers, and the best beauty workers are in...Britain? Brits are lovely but I suppose I'd never thought of it as a place one would get a luxurious scrub.

Procter & Gamble withdraws support for the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which supports gun-friendly bills like the one that meant the Trayvon Martin case would have gone quietly buried had the public outcry not been so large. Good for you, P&G.

Have you received a chain e-mail about an Estee Lauder boycott from Muslims, and why that means if you're pro-Israel you should go out and buy more Estee Lauder? Bogus.

Y'all know I'm skeptical of beauty "studies," but this one (courtesy Jessica Stanley) is piquing my interest. Attractive women who attach photos to résumés receive lower callback rates than "plain" women and women with no photo—if the person looking at résumés works for the company the applicant is submitting to work at. Résumés sent to employment agencies, on the other hand, had a far more diminished effect, regardless of attractiveness. And of course the study authors go to female jealousy as the reason, because bitches be cray-cray. I suspect that the motive here is less "jealousy," as the researchers imply, and more something along the line of the "she thinks she's all that syndrome," which is arguably different than jealousy.

Aaaaaand keeping with the beauty research tip, one of my worst fears about beauty science reporting comes true, with the winner of a British "natural beauty" contest being dubbed as having a "nearly perfect face." And you can't argue with it, because it's science, peeps! The width between her eyes is 44% of her entire face, and 46% is PERFECT. It's basically like the discovery of radium, don't you think? Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Blisstree nails another point: "Celebrating 'natural beauty' as the ideal—while it may be based in a desire to reject over-emphasis on cosmetic enhancements—implicitly (and rather unfairly) prizes people who happened to win the luck of the genetic lottery." All this is a good reason to point you toward Maggie Koerth-Baker's rundown of how to read science news, which you should all bookmark as reference the next time you come across some beauty science piece that makes you feel like crap, or that just generally seems suspicious.

Ads (and potentially other content) projected onto bathroom or salon mirrors. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a worse idea, but gimme a minute.

Minute's up. Eyebrow implants!

Beauty shop opens at Cornton Vale women's prison. "Prison officer Carol Maltman had the idea for the shop after asking prisoners what kind of products would make their lives behind bars more bearable. She was hit with a staggering 1444 suggestions – every one of them relating to cosmetics or toiletries."

This piece on how the Roma people have come to be despised and displaced is fascinating, particularly the section on the creation of the sexually free and alluring "beautiful Gypsy": "The 'beautiful Gypsy' alienates through her secretive unattainability even at the most intimate moments and her withdrawal into a concealed, uncivilised order or animalistic sphere."

All-girl prom!

Bin Laden dyed his hair!

Burt Reynolds' 40th anniversary of appearing nude in Cosmo. Am saddened to learn that bearskin rug was intended to be ironic.

Nanoparticles! I don't know what they are exactly, except that they're genetically modified, and the FDA is looking into their use in beauty products. Nanotechnology on your face, yo.

Feminist Philosophers calls bullshit on the "brides are using feeding tubes to lose weight!!!" trend story.

Slate asks if ladymags' insistence on featuring celebrity body woes from women who already fit the beauty ideal is helpful. I waver on this: I think it actually can be a useful stopgap measure, but its effects should be short-term. Seeing someone who looks media-perfect say that they struggle in the same ways I do is a reinforcement that absolutely fucking nobody fits that level of perfection—but as the Slate piece points out, it also provokes the question of, "My god, if she describes herself as hippy, what am I?" 

I've got lots of thinking to do on the New Aesthetic and the male gaze, and I'm going to begin with Madeline Ashby and Rahel Aima.

Hair and makeup to camouflage you from digital surveillance. Effin' brilliant. (Thanks to Danielle for the link.)

What's up with Beyonce's whole earth mother thing? Bim Adewunmi looks at "fake authenticity."

Did the public persona of "Black Dahlia," the victim of a highly sensationalized (and highly gruesome) 1947 murder case, begin before her death? Crime historian Joan Renner—who happens to run a vintage cosmetics blog—thinks so, and it's because of her makeup. (Thanks to Sarah Nicole Prickett for the tipoff.)

She rarely writes about beauty so I never have a chance to include her here, but I've gotta give a random shoutout to ModernSauce, the only design-ish blog I read, which I do because the writing makes me laugh out loud, which is potentially hazardous given that I'm often eating graham crackers when I'm reading, and I live alone, and could choke and die and nobody would find me. But despite the hazards, it's so sly and offhandedly insightful, I read on. I read on.

Rebekah gives what might serve as an epilogue for the body hair discussion that took place here a few weeks ago, showing exactly how complex of an issue it is.

Gala Darling's riveting, exploratory, searingly honest piece on self-harm is a must-read for anyone who knows someone who has self-harming behaviors (like cutting). Without glamourizing self-harm in the least, she shows the ambiguities of what it gives its sufferers: "The majority of women who wrote in were not embarrassed by the remnants from their days of self-harm, but instead saw their scars as an integral part of who they are; part of the journey towards loving themselves entirely. In fact, some women were almost proud of their scars, choosing to view them as proof that they could overcome something horrendous & go on to not only survive, but thrive."

The Blind Hem continues the discussion on modesty fashion blogging, this time from a modesty blogger, penned as a response to their earlier piece on the matter, which took a more skeptical view of modesty blogging claims.

An excellent trio of questions from an excellent trio of bloggers: Does your clothing fight your body? Do you wear more makeup when you're down—or, for that matter, up? And what does it mean to "try too hard"?

Unplugged

People! It has come to my attention that I, like many citizens of the Internet, indeed need to occasionally unplug. I'm going to take a short break from blogging (like, a week), the idea being that a week spent actually reading articles instead of skimming them, having a chance to replenish my well—and, hey, maybe sitting down with a book and finishing it instead of flurrying off to write up a blog post—will do both my well-being and my writing here some good.

But never fear! You want more Beheld, you say? Yes, I can hear the cries from the mountains to the forests to the oceans white with foam—and as it happens, I've got it, unless you're the rare reader who has gone through my entire archives. This blog didn't get much traffic in its early months, so I'll point you to entries you've probably missed because they were published in The Beheld's infancy:

• The economics of selling hair.
• The trouble with the "male gaze makes women stoopid" study. Worthy premise; bad reporting.
• More iffy science: Do other people determine what we find attractive?
• Are conservatives better-looking than liberals? (Bonus material: My secret, shameful crush on Donald Rumsfeld, The Man.)
• What is the connection between happiness and personal-care spending?

Also, my Marie Claire essay on ED-NOS is currently on stands, as well as online here. I'll be back soon, ready to rock. Until then, Internet, stay safe, and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Beauty Blogosphere 4.23.12

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between. (A couple of days late, apologies!)

From Seat Assignment: Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style, Nina Katchadourian

From Head...
Doin' it Flemish style: Artist Nina Katchadourian makes awesome Flemish-school-style portraits using airplane toilet paper, seat covers, and the occasional travel pillow as accessories. (via)


...To Toe...
Playing footsie: The "whoda thunkit?" chatter on men getting pedicures continues, this time inching a hair toward the idea that maybe it just, I dunno, feels nice? I don't like the bumbling tone of this Daily Mail chronicle of a man getting a pedicure (and the headline, "Should you send your other half for a pedicure?" rankles), but at least it's not trying to paint footsie-wootsie care as somehow strictly medically necessary and therefore legitimately dudely.

...And Everything In Between:
Spending state: "Frugality fatigue" has apparently meant a good quarter for high-end brands like Estee Lauder. But wait! Does this mean the lipstick index could at all be a crock of hype? Naaah.

War cry: What a bidding war over Avon could do to the company's future, merged or otherwise. (But word up, Motley Fool: Did you really have to compare Avon's inflated share price to a woman who doesn't look so hot the next morning? What, you're too good for a makeover pun like every other news outlet?)

It's dude perfume week!: New York supreme court judge orders Prince to shell out nearly $4 million to a perfume maker that made a scent that the artist then neglected to promote as promised. And Donald Trump releases his new fragrance, Success, which features a conspicuously low level of Trump branding. "Some people, they see the name on the bottle and are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to smell like him.’ " You don't say.

Tour de chine: This piece about American luxury outlets catering to Chinese tourists (who spend about $6,000 on each visit to the States, compared with $4,000 for tourists from other nations) is interesting, particularly because it never points out the obvious: About half the brands mentioned are luxury brands specifically for women. On a side note: How much Advanced Night Repair do you think I'd have to spend to get a tour of Estee Lauder's original office? If I have any wealthy Chinese reader-shoppers who want a tagalong on their next visit, holler!

Bazak: Intricate rundown of bridal beauty rituals for traditional Persian weddings. (Thanks to Zoe for the link!)

Mixed choir: If you enjoyed last week's post on race, identity, and being "exotic," you may enjoy Hapa Voice, a site where people with mixed Asian and Pacific Islander descent candidly share their thoughts on being mixed, and how being visually "othered"—or not—impacts their sense of identity. (Thanks to Savages in Memphis for pointing me to it!) I'm also enjoying Sheena Roetman's piece at The Blind Hem about appropriation of indigenous culture—and if you want more of that, there's always the excellent Native Appropriations blog.

From Princesses in a Land of Machos, Nicola "Ókin" Friol

Two interesting photo series exploring gender: "Princesses in a Land of Machos" by Mexico-based photographer Nicola "Ókin" Friol, focusing on Los Muxes, or gay men in the Oaxacan city of Juchitan, where their presence is considered good luck. Some of the Muxes make a living in appearance-oriented industries, like cosmetology or fashion design, which is often encouraged by families because it makes them good providers. A separate but thematically related project: "True Men," by Brian Shumway, a portrait series of men who are privately (and publicly?) exploring what it means to be a "real" man. (via Mikkipedia)

Weird science: This piece on science reporting has nothing to do with beauty, but I get all jazz-hands about beauty science studies here often enough that it's relevant. Scientific American takes a recent piece by a seasoned NYTimes reporter about the (not necessarily existent) link between exercise and addiction and compares it to the actual study, and lo and behold, science writers aren't scientists and sometimes get it wrong. And if that applies for pieces that aren't sociologically loaded, what could it mean for science reporting about work that might go against the gender bedrock of society as we know it?

I think I have a Maltese balcony: Normally I'm against christening "troublesome" body parts with nicknames (I never thought twice about my upper rear view until I heard the term "back bacon"). But I admit to being downright charmed by Rebekah's recent find of the 1940s-ish version of the pot belly: the "bay window."

Non/toxic: The willy-nilly nature of cosmetics regulation came into sharp relief recently when it turned out that "nontoxic" nail polishes and other products weren't nontoxic in the least. Virginia Sole-Smith takes a critical look at what's going on.

Context collapse: We can't have a discussion of thinspo without looking at the new ways in which the images that make up their core are spread. Stripped of their original context through sites like Pinterest (which has banned pro-eating-disorder communities) and Instagram, pretty much any photo of someone slender can become thinspo, and Rebecca Greenfield at The Atlantic looks at what that means.

Plus, cool accents: Turns out Europeans aren't just terrifically glamorous at all times including REM sleep, they're also more aware of natural and organic beauty products than Americans.

She-bulk: Caitlin on women who resist weightlifting for fears of "bulking up": "Listen, ladies who bulk up—your bodies are telling you something. Your bodies are saying, We want to be strong, we want to be muscular, we want to be ripped! If your body puts on muscle this easily, it’s because your body wants to be muscular. If your body thought muscle was a bad thing, it wouldn’t build it so easily."

What, me hoard?

Hoarders: This article isn't terribly interesting in and of itself, but I'm intrigued by the sentiment actress Kate Walsh expresses about holding onto old makeup (guilty!): "The biggest tip is to throw out your make-up. I think as women even if we don't mean to be hoarders, when you buy make-up it's just so juicy you're like, 'Oh, I'll keep it forever!' and it's like no, no, no, it all has an expiration date on it and you have to be really careful to get rid of it." I'll hold onto anything until it stops working, bacteria be damned, so don't listen to me...but I do think there's something here about hoarding makeup because of its emotional implications. I don't hoard anything else (well, papers stick to me like glue); even if I had the psychological inclination to do so, I live in a restricted New York apartment so it would be difficult to do so. But makeup—yep, I save it all, and the "juiciness" Walsh fingers here is part of why.

It's what outside that counts: How much does cosmetics packaging matter to consumers? Given that so many products are repetitious, I'd say a whole lot.

"You show them by being more than your looks, even if that’s all people comment on": This "Dear Daughter" letter about girls kicking ass has been making the rounds, and it's a great read. What drives this home for me is the heartbreaking exchange described between the letter-writer's preteen daughter and an adult man who tells her she's pretty. She thanks him, and then—oh, just read it.

Stop in the name of love: Rosie Molinary nails it again, with her signature way of giving readers concrete tools to funnel into amorphous concepts of self-love. At Voxxi: How to put doable, reasonable limits on appearance obsession.

YouTubed: With all the recent buzz about teenagers using YouTube to ask if they're pretty, I'd sort of forgotten about the positive ways young women use the medium. My aunt sent me a link to this photo of a woman doing a half-face makeover (thanks, Michele!), which led me to this video of a makeup tutorial on covering cystic acne. The transformation is dramatic, yes, but what really stands out to me is the honesty here: Acne can have a severe psychological impact on its sufferers, and she's using this space to both provide solutions to its visibility and to sort of educate people on what acne "really" looks like, hopefully lightening the burden of isolation however subtly. (Late addition: It turns out I'm hardly alone in noting the openness of this vlogger; she was on the Today show talking about isolation from acne: "Makeup is what helped me break out of that sheltered period...Confidence is beauty, essentially. You can't have one without the other. And I think that makeup is that gateway for a woman to feel confident until they overcome whatever insecurities they have so that they can feel beautiful with or without." I think it's more complicated than that, but this is an excellent platform to start from.)

"And so modest!": With the rise of modesty-oriented fashion bloggers, The Blind Hem asks if it's a contradiction in terms. "The blogger is showcasing their sartorial talents in the most prideful, vain way possible—endless pages of photographs of their self, of their body, of their gently smiling face staring off into the horizon in that damned ubiquitous field they all seem to live near. They are displaying their selves in a way that screams 'Look at me! Look at what I am wearing! Look at how amazing I am!' In the case of modest style bloggers, they are also screaming 'Look at how modest I am!' We could (and I do) argue that this negates the idea of being modest." I don't agree with the thesis here—I think that when modesty is constructed as being about women's bodies and their inherent licentiousness, it only makes sense for modesty bloggers to apply "modesty" judiciously—but the contradiction is undeniable. Our culture's definition of "modesty" is tricky indeed (note how it's never applied to men being modest in where their attention goes) and the conversation needs to not be binary; this piece does a great job of looking at the complexities and contradictions of the term.

Bobbed: I love it when I see people making an appearance change that goes against what the magazines say is right for their face shape, as Kourtney does here with the big chop for her hair donation. (Spoiler alert: The jaw-length bob! Looks great! Why any magazine would say otherwise is beyond me.)

Royal vision: Danielle continues her series on fashion queens. Up now: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Eleanor of Aquitane, and Nefertiti.

Pajama party: Terri of Rags Against the Machine is having a virtual pajama party, and she probably won't even freeze your bra. This is also a good opportunity to point you toward her window shopping project, in which she'll be working her way up the class scale of retail outlets to see how far a dollar really takes you. This month: Kohl's.

The Conundrum of Body Hair

1933 ad for underarm-specific razor with curves, which I can't believe isn't a thing now.

It’s skirt season again (my favorite), which means the body-hair feminist conundrum is cropping up again. I shave year-round, and at this point I don’t particularly examine the “why” behind it anymore. But it’s a loaded topic, and for good reason: The traditional feminist arguments in favor of performing beauty work fall flat when applied to depilation. It has little to do with fantasy, play, or self-expression; it’s expensive, occasionally painful, a time-suck, and just sort of a pain in the ass (actually, it’s a pain somewhere else). Sally successfully argues for the role of confidence in deciding to depilate—certainly that’s why I do it, more on that below—but in reading comments it struck me how loaded the whole body hair thing really is. And in some ways the answer is obvious, but I still have to ask: Why?

People have been manipulating their body hair for centuries; an excavation of a Sumerian tomb dating from 3500 BC contained tweezers, and there’s evidence of techniques like sugaring (still used today) and quicklime depilation going back just as far. But pit shaving as we know it came about after a Harper’s Bazaar ad campaign in 1915 started up with ye olde pit shame. The idea was, of course, to sell depilation products, but it was also a way of managing the fact that women were now showing more skin than they ever had. If pits were now shown, pits must now be problematized, and if pit-showing meant that women were beginning to think that maybe they didn’t need to be managed in every facet of their life, well, we’d better come up with a way to make sure they had to manage them pits, eh? (We see something similar now with Dove’s “Your Armpits Are Naaaasty, Girl” ads for their armpit-beautifying deodorant.) Leg shaving followed, after an uncertain era of fluctuating hemlines, and as for pubic hair—well, that’s another post altogether.

So I get that body hair policing is a way of adding onto the list of mandated beauty work, and I get that there are certain connotations of youth—dangerous youth, prepubescent youth—that make depilation particularly troublesome from a feminist perspective. But when you think about it, isn’t the whole thing...weird? I mean, most adults are attracted to other adults, not to children; hair growth should be all rights be a symbol of mature adult womanhood. Body hair should be a sign of sex, or at least sexual readiness, the same way evolutionary psychologists want to trot out our cultural fascination with breasts as being about our animal instincts.

Yet unlike breasts and hips and plumped-out lips and breath voices, body hair remains verboten for women because it breaks the ultimate taboo: gender. In my conversations with various women about what beauty work they conceal from partners, by far the number-one item done behind closed doors only is depilation. We’ll let partners see us in goofy face masks, but to let them see us plucking a stray hair—especially if that hair is in a place other than the legs or pits, like, say, the chest or toes—seems a step too far. It’s like admitting that sometimes hair grows on our toes is just a step too masculine, a threat to the status quo, even if that status quo is within a relationship of equals. Body hair contains a threat, and in fact maybe it’s a combination of its embedded masculinity and its embedded female maturity that makes it such. Body hair is thriving proof that gender isn’t entirely binary (testosterone prompts its growth), and it’s also proof that women’s sexual characteristics aren’t limited to just the curves that make such nice statues.

All this is nice rhetoric, but where does that leave us? Well, in going to the post that prompted this one: It leaves us ambivalent. Like Sally, I feel much better when I’m depilated according to my own standards (which, in my case, are legs, pits, and a very literal bikini line, as in everything that would show in a bikini), but I also see, as Sally puts it, the “baggage and hypocrisy” that surrounds it. And I hear the argument about how nothing will change about beauty standards unless we actively challenge them...and then I think about picking my battles, and how this isn’t a battle I’m willing to spend energy on. In fact, it’s a battle that has actually wound up giving me energy once I’ve withdrawn: When I was struggling with a particularly bad bout of depression, I realized that part of feeling so gross on a day-to-day level was that I hated feeling stubble on my legs from not shaving daily. I could either spend even more energy than I already do trying to deconstruct the relationship between stubble and “gross,” or I could just fucking shave my legs and spend my energy—energy I would not have were I to stay in a depressive mode—thinking about the larger picture. Shaving my legs didn’t cure my depression. But it was one of many small things I did to take care of myself, and the more I take care of myself in the small ways, the better I’m able to take care of myself in the big ways, and the better I’m able to care for those around me and give my best self to the world.

There’s also an argument about feminism and body hair that gets lost. It’s actually a non-argument, and it’s this: I’ve never personally known a feminist who has refused to shave her legs or pits because of her politics. I've known plenty of women who don’t do it because they don’t like the act of it, or they have sensitive skin, and I suppose the refusal to participate for those reasons is to some degree political. Point is: There are probably plenty of hairy-legged feminists out there, but in my entire 35 years as a feminist (okay, okay, 34, there was that one year in junior high where I really wanted to fit in), I’ve never met one. (That is, I’ve never known that I’ve known one. And while I could count Rebekah’s Body Hair Laissez-Faire month, I get off on a technicality because it was just a month. It’s not even really a technicality because the point was to examine these issues, not reject them wholesale, so, hey!)

So while body hair has political implications, I suspect that the caricature of the “hairy-legged feminist” is actually more responsible for the intense feelings surrounding body hair than the actual politics of the stuff. (Look at the intense discussion on the three posts Sally has done on the topic for proof of how provocative the topic can be.) I think conversations about body hair are absolutely worth having (in addition to Rebekah's series and Sally's work, I also recently enjoyed this piece on how skipping the pit-shaving actually wasn't an identity act for Kate Conway). I just want to make sure we’re not being “bra-burned” into imbuing it with an importance it might not need to have—and I want to make just as sure that we’re not fooling ourselves into thinking that it’s some sort of post-Beauty Myth “but it’s for me!” act. Yes, it’s for me; my boyfriend couldn’t care less. But I know full well that I wouldn’t have dreamed this up—this irritating, time-consuming, and occasionally bloody act—on my own.

Concealer: Makeup and Addiction

Hope in a jar.

If I use the phrase "addicted to makeup," I'm usually referring to how uncomfortable I feel going out in most social situations without the stuff. The reasons I'm uncomfortable are a post of their own, but they boil down to the same old story: feeling as though what I'm bringing to the table isn't quite good enough; wanting to conceal "flaws." There are plenty of other reasons I wear makeup—and I'm pleased to report those reasons are generally more positive or at least less of a psychological downer—but as far as using the word addicted, that's what I mean. More important, that's how I most often hear it when others use the word.

Reading this interview with Cat Marnell—the beauty editor at xoJane whose extraordinarily candid pieces on her ongoing experirences with drugs are painful, provocative, and radically subjective—prompted me to wonder if there are other forms of makeup addiction. "I'm bad all of the time, and beauty products are fixing me," she told a reporter from New York. "Without beauty products, I would have never gotten through my life. I owe everything to them. They've afforded me unlimited debauchery." The interview took place on the eve of her entering rehab, heavily suggested (mandated?) by her employer; she was apparently high during the interview. "Unlimited debauchery" in that context means something different than it might to a casual user. To be blunt, it means something to be concerned about, not something to slap a extra coat of blush over.

I don't have any personal experience with drug or alcohol addiction, Two-Cocktail Makeovers being about as much of a party gal as I get. But I do know that makeup and other forms of artifice took on added responsibility when I was at my worst with my eating habits, particularly with bingeing: I'd feel so gross the day after a binge that while on one hand I wanted to disappear, I also felt like if I was going to be able to look anyone in the eye, I'd need to look as stellar as I could even if I felt sluggish and uncomfortable because of what I'd done to my body the night before. That's actually why I picked up daily eyeliner in 2009 after years of only wearing it on special occasions; it made my eyes pop, something I'd cling to as proof of normalcy when my eyes sans liner were puffy from poor nutrition.

Now, I still wear makeup almost daily—including that eyeliner that I picked up to help camouflage my problem—and, in fact, I wear more of it than I did during that time. It's not the amount of makeup that's the problem; it was the motivation. I can't say that I'd have sought help any sooner if I didn't have the mask of makeup available to me—but I know that my feelings about makeup shifted when I was at my worst. I went from approaching makeup as something almost businesslike to something desperate. And not to minimize eating disorders in the least, but in my case my problem was neither as physically damaging nor as physically evident as it is for the average drug addict.

I don't want to speculate about Marnell herself, or her experience with addiction. My thoughts here are prompted by the interview with her, but her mental health isn't the point of this post, and I'm not trying to say any of my musings here apply to her. But I'm wondering if experiencing makeup as a much-needed tool to cover one's tracks, even a sort of pass into "unlimited debauchery," is a common experience with drug users. I also wonder if it changes contextually—if women who are into a sort of "glamorous" drug scene (blah blah drugs aren't glamorous, but you know what I mean) would be more prone to treat makeup as a part of the entire experience of drug use than women whose addiction wouldn't resemble a documentary of Studio 54. And what about high-functioning addicts—can cosmetics play a key role for women whose livelihoods depend upon maintaining a drug-free image?

My experience with alcoholics and drug addicts has been limited but painful, and one thing I've taken away from various relationships with addicts is that they are fantastic liars. Makeup itself isn't a lie, but part of its intended function is concealment. In order to get sober, addicts need to stop lying—to others, to themselves. I'm wondering if there are times that makeup actually becomes an integral part of an addict's lie, to the point where an extended sobriety—or permanent abstinence—from it would be beneficial. And at the same time, I'm guessing that if there are female addicts who might take something from "makeup sobriety," there are just as many who would reap the benefits of other intended functions of makeup: self-expression, play, pride. It's hard enough for most of us to know why we wear makeup. I imagine that reentering the world without the numb cushion of using would make it even harder.

Beauty Blogosphere Freaky Friday 4.13.12

What's going on in beauty this week, from head to toe and everything in between.

From Head...

National arch: Benefit, the company that dubbed itself "the brow authority," proclaims April 16-22 National Brow Week, during which all participants are encouraged to grow eyebrows, think about eyebrows, groom eyebrows, promote eyebrows nationwide and globally, encourage safe eyebrow play, host cross-eyebrow communications, heighten eyebrow visibility, facilitate eyebrow sustainability and stewardship, and foster the fundamental rights of all eyebrows.

...To Toe...

Man-icured: Yes, Media, Tim Tebow got a pedicure (as have Charles Barkley, a defensive lineman with the Detroit Lions, the governor of Indiana, and Michael Jackson's doctor). But just in case you thought these dudely-dudes were being (ew!) girly, never fear: These are sports pedicures, and MSNBC is here to assure us there's nothing girly about them.

...And Everything In Between:

Also, it's not common use so I can't put it here but I love this pic of her in her "This is what a feminist looks like" T-shirt, which she sported for both Glamour and Ms.

This is what a feminist looks like: Can we all agree that Ashley Judd is freakin' amazing after reading her forceful rebuttal to "news" outlets that discuss her looks? "That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly." Want bonus points? Try reading this as though you're reading a response to the Samantha Brick nonsense, and suddenly the brouhaha goes from being ridiculous to being oppressive.

Blush direct: The direct sales approach seems to thrive in Latin American nations, though the clock may be ticking as citizens of developing economies tend to foster a higher emotional satisfaction from buying from a "real" store. We see this through Tupperware--Tupperware!--and its branching out into cosmetics (illustrated with a bizarre analogy by its CEO: "There used to be a bank robber called Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks would answer, 'That's where the money is. That's why we did beauty down there"). It's also a reason that Avon is appealing to Coty in the latter company's wooing for acquisition.

The real McCoy: Johnson & Johnson exec Sherilyn McCoy to head Avon, replacing Andrea Jung as CEO.

New face on the block: Dolly Parton starting her own cosmetics line! I'm not even her biggest fan but I respect what she stands for: an unembarrassed, unabashed acceptance of one's desire for taking things over the top. Very curious to see how/if this will manifest itself in a line, or if it'll just be a slap-on branding.

Birched off: Birchbox, the subscription service that sends users a box of curated samples of beauty products once a month, now has a service for men. Men's skin care, yes, but the men's boxes also include "lifestyle" items like watches, which my lifestyle certainly doesn't include, as I go by CMT (Central Menstrual Time). Really, people, "lifestyle" isn't code for "men," nor is "general interest"--not that (industry tangent ahead!) the American Society of Magazine Editors knows that, nominating GQ for excellence in the "General Interest" category while the ladies get their own special ladycategory. This wouldn't irk me so much if onceuponatime ASME hadn't offered excellence awards in categories based on circulation, not theme, meaning that Glamour competed alongside (and beat out at times) other large-circ magazines like Time and National Geographic. But now there are ladyawards and then "General Interest" awards, which is bullshit. /rant  Anyway, dudes! Enjoy Birchbox! (For more on ASME and gender, read Lucy Madison's piece at The Awl.)

"Avonski calling": Why, despite responding well to door-to-door sales, has Avon foundered in Russia?

Say big cheese: "Smile and the world smiles with you" might be true, but that doesn't make it accurate, as per this study about how having high status makes people think others are smiling at them more. How this relates to beauty: When I feel pretty, I tend to think other people are smiling at me more, doing nicer little favors for me, etc. I suppose prettiness is the closest route I have to feeling "high-status": I'm self-employed and don't have a social scene that involves me trying to work my way into some pecking order.

Plastic hassle: Barbie has thrown her hat into the presidential race, in some sort of bizarro Mattel bid for (legitimacy? or just profit?). It's easy to get frowny about this (especially when the press release headline actually reads "Turn the White House Pink," and I'm a pink lady myself), but as Sady Doyle points out, "As far as female presidents go, Barbie is about the most realistic candidate we’ve got."

Leftovers again?: What happens to the lipo after it's been suctioned?

"My beautiful cushy tushy": Naomi Shulman puts her money where her mouth is by sharing how she navigates helping out her daughter's body image by improving her own. "[I]f it’s not enough to stay mum with the self-critique, then I actually have to start to self-praise—and give voice to it regularly in my girls’ presence. Of course, children come equipped with finely tuned lie detectors, so I’m trying to not just mouth the words, but mean them. I tread forth hesitantly. It feels pretty silly—but also a little bit amazing."

Friendly face: The Quaker Oats dude gets a makeover.

Momma don't take my Instagram: This (excellent) essay is about the construction of the aesthetic self through Instagram, social media, and the like, but it's resonant with personal beauty as well in the ways it explores historic notions of "authentic" beauty versus constructed beauty: "What is beautiful to the eye in the ephemeral stream of (mostly) unmediated experience may be different from what is beautiful in its mediated, documented form."

Slimed: Got wrinkles? Put a snail on it! (Yes, I've used this joke before, about frogs and acne. Tell you what: They stop putting critters on our faces, I stop with the rehashed jokes. Deal?)

Bad research of the week: Tulsa is the most beauty-obsessed city in America, says that bastion of controlled research, Foursquare. Listen, I'm a sucker for the whole "people who live in state X are more [insert quality] than people who live in state Y" but really, we can't come up with better methods than Foursquare check-ins? Maybe women in Tulsa are just collectively setting a snare trap for people who use Girls Around Me?

Weightless: Sarah Hepola on how nobody said the word "weight" to her when she lost 40 pounds. It's a variation on what I discovered when I lost a significant amount of weight: That by being in the normal-but-veering-toward-heavy zone, I escaped comments about my figure; when I lost weight, suddenly my body became a free-for-all. (And now that I'm exactly in the middle, nobody says a word again. Hmm.) The point is, women's bodies are open season in a variety of ways, and it's disconcerting to find that out when you've been loosely protected from it.

Hold onto your hats, folks: Research has proven that music videos objectify women. Shocker, I know. But what's interesting here is how different genres of music do it: "While pop videos were more likely to contain sexual objectification related to movement, such as dance and the gaze that is likely to result from dance performance, hip hop/R&B videos were more likely to contain sexual objectification related to styling and dress," says the study's lead author.

Resistance isn't futile: In the first moments of this "Shit Men Say to Men Who Say Shit to Women on the Street" I was all, "As if men would ever say this to other men." But then I watched the whole thing, and recognized that the things I have heard men say or do over the years--"that's embarrassing," "has that ever worked for you?" "You're giving men a bad name"—in response to a holler just may be resistance. I don't want men to be my white knight on street harassment, but the fact is, men who are likely to harass women are probably also going to be more likely to hear an admonishment from their bros as what it is. Nice work here.

Attention economy: And for another solid take on street harassment, the Blind Hem looks at how some women might absorb it because we've been taught that attention from men is the only "real" attention out there.

Razor's edge: How do companies shill razor blades seen as durable but not durable enough that you don't need to keep buying blades?

Meet Chandy.

Interior landscape: Long-time readers may remember my interview with artist Annika Connor, whose thoughts on mirrors, self-portraiture, and fascination continue to resonate in what I do here. Something we didn't address directly in the interview was her painting series of "decadent interiors"—which have now been turned into a line of special edition wallpaper and textiles (the gorgeous chandelier wallpaper is my personal favorite).

Brick house: The ever-excellent Sarah Nicole Prickett on the Samantha Brick brouhaha: "Let the delusional older woman think she’s beautiful, christ. It’s not nearly as sad, or as damaging to the sex as a whole, as the other delusional older woman’s idea that she has lost her erotic power (and that 20-year-old girls, who, I’m sorry, barely even know how to fuck, have it all). She would not feel she had lost so much had it not counted for all that, for and against all of us, in our disconcerted female youth." What I love about this response is that it refuses to shame Brick while also refusing to valorize her, instead seeing her piece for what it is: a sort of last refuge of the woman who is confident enough to proclaim her beauty but not confident enough to fully understand the ways the sociological implications of attractiveness are still used as a weapon against women.

Rah rah girls: Why are adult women pretending to be high school cheerleaders? More specifically, what is the lure of the cheerleader all about?

But no rompers, please: How can a grown woman incorporate child-like elements into her wardrobe without looking creepy? One of the few concessions I made to turning 30 was ruling out pigtails (except not really! but I was with my momma, so maybe I reverted to pigtail-age?). Overall I prefer a more mature aesthetic so this wasn't hard for me, but I wouldn't want everyone over 18 to rule out knee socks just because. Sally's guide makes sense to me.

Beauty, sexuality, and the good book: Hugo Schwyzer explores the biblical teachings on lust that we conveniently forgot because they just didn't serve the patriarchy enough. "Because we refuse to take seriously men’s ability to not lust in the presence of loveliness, we shame the great many women who—whatever their other fabulous qualities—also want to be affirmed for their beauty. If every man is 'fighting a battle' against lust, and if few men are capable of distinguishing appreciation for beauty from carnal longing, then every woman who dresses to be validated becomes a traitor to the cause of spiritual purity."

Concealer: Venusian Glow asks how much of your beauty routine you reveal to your partner, something I've been giving a good deal of thought to lately. I think it's as telling the stuff I won't let my fellow see me do (say, tweezing) as the things I don't mind if he watches (makeup, hair); it's like it breaks a sort of code or something.

"Wizard of Oudh": Read this account of oudh, the intoxicating perfume used in Qatar, and tell me you don't want to book a ticket to the Arabian peninsula stat. (via Terri)

Race, Recognition, and Exotica

This is not me. (It is, however, a Caddo headpiece.)

The central idea behind my examination of the word exotic was hardly difficult to pinpoint: Calling a woman exotic is calling her the Other. And putting women into that category—particularly when there’s eau de hypersexualization wafting about with the method—isn’t something nice people do, agreed? Agreed.

So here’s my dirty little secret: Whenever exotic been applied to me, I’ve...sort of liked it. For me, a white woman who has a not-terribly-distant-but-not-terribly-visible non-European background—American Indian, specifically Caddo and Cherokee—being set apart with exotic can feel like a acknowledgement of my heritage. My ethnicity doesn’t jump out at you, and because of my skin color most everyone would call me white, including myself. But it’s evident enough—my cheekbones, my hair, my yellow-tinged skin—that every so often an “exotic” floats my way.

I really don’t want to undermine the reasons that exotic can be insidious, divisive, and even hurtful; I want to see the microaggressions of exotic disappear far more than I ever want it actually applied to me. But the fact is, whenever it happens I smile, if only to myself. I’m sheepish about this reaction, but in some ways it’s actually in line with my thoughts on the Othering of exotic: It’s a way of identifying its subject as different. Brown women don’t have an option in this, and that’s exactly why it’s troublesome. I have the privilege—the white privilege—of being able to revel in the handful of occasions exotic is tossed my way, for the very reason that women who hear it far more frequently may be fed up with it: It calls out my heritage. In my case, it’s a piece of my heritage that often gets swept under the rug; my pale skin means that while I’m occasionally asked what I “am,” it's not immediately evident that my family tree has branches anywhere but Europe. When the topic comes up, there’s often a sort of post-hoc qualification: “I knew you were something,” or “So that’s it!”

In fact, one of the few times I’ve had confirmation someone has seen my ancestry without mentioning it was when I got a makeover from Eden DiBianco, who, when I mentioned it, just nodded and said she’d known at a glance. Now, as a makeup artist she’s an expert in faces so this isn’t too surprising, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s got experience with this herself—her Puerto Rican heritage is often overlooked because of her skin tone. But our similar experiences led her to the opposite conclusion about exotic: “It’s such a cop-out word. People are so disappointed to find out I’m Puerto Rican because I’m not ‘exotic’-looking enough for them to be able to spot me coming. Apologies for just looking like an ethnic white girl, but sheesh, should I have salsa-ed in with a fruit basket on my head? I hate that word. What am I, a bird?”

So I’m certainly not trying to make some sort of case for exotic; for every not-entirely-white woman like me who finds it a fleeting portal to a whitewashed lineage, there are probably dozens who pick up on its microaggressions and swath of sexualization and would prefer not to hear it at all. What I am saying, though, is that my covert eagerness to hear the word reflects both the shame and the pride I have about my ancestry: pride in being a tiny part of a culture that’s small but vibrant, and shame in feeling that whatever my tribal enrollment papers might say, I’m not “really” Indian.

Being any race is tricky, being Indian particularly so. Are you Indian because of your bloodline? Your culture? Visibility? Self-identification? Tribal enrollment? Skin color? Community? I’m one-quarter ethnically Indian, never lived on a reservation, have few Indian friends, usually check “white” on forms but may sometimes check “American Indian” for the hell of it, and can count on two hands the number of people who have asked me flat-out if I’m Native American. Short of going to powwows, owning a collection of Native treasures both handed down and purchased, and having tribal Caddo enrollment, I grew up about as non-Indian as Indians get.

But hey, I went to preschool—preschool!—on the reservation. The fact I feel compelled to share this illuminates the ways I try to “prove” my ethnicity. I want to distance myself from the “pretendians” with the “Cherokee princess” seven generations back (when will those types learn that Cherokees didn’t have princesses?), whose own lost ethnic identity leads them to cling to some sort of one-drop rule—while not being nearly as eager to claim African American blood, incidentally—for there's a part of me that's afraid my own one-quarter rule isn't much different. (Meanwhile, it’s not like I’m making a big effort to learn about my British heritage—which, while more of a hodgepodge than my Caddo heritage, makes up a far larger piece of my genetic pie than my American Indian blood. Being Indian is more “interesting,” it seems, even to me.) So I’ll tote out my “real” claims to my heritage: the preschool! the tribal enrollment! hey, my great-grandparents met at Carlisle Indian School! my father worked for Indian Health Service for 30 years! I write for an Indian magazine! one-quarter quantum blood! except not really because I’m only one-eighth Caddo and one-eighth Eastern Band of Cherokee except maybe not even that because who really knows who my biological great-great-grandfather was? hey, wanna see my shawl?

Underlying the balancing act of recognizing my heritage without staking a claim that simply isn’t mine is the fact that like indigenous people worldwide, American Indians have a long history of oppression. Meanwhile, I’ve never, not once, faced oppression based on my race (unless you count the occasional conversation with Sweat Lodge Dude who wants to quiz me about my spiritual beliefs). It’s hard for me as a mostly-white woman to write about my heritage because I’ve benefited from white privilege my entire life and don’t want to discount the role of oppression in Indian life, but I also don’t want to frame race solely as a story of oppression or need; fact is, plenty of “real” Indians (whatever that is, I suppose I’m thinking of someone more connected with the community than I am) live lives similar to mine. So you could argue that by being vocal about my heritage but not, like, doing rain dances, I’m demonstrating that oppression isn’t the entirety of the American Indian experience. But I never want to forget that in this country today, it's my British lineage, not my Indian blood, that allows me to walk through the world without bearing the burden of an increased risk of rape, suicide, maternal mortality, diabetes, domestic violence, or poverty. I don’t have to think about treaty and land rights, the legacy of compulsory sterilization, or the tribal or urban Indian health care system. I do think about these things, but it’s a conscious learning exercise when I do, not something thrust upon me without me having any say in the matter.

But what this also means is that in many ways I’m framing race as something others see me as, not as something I experience in my own personal manner. And even in that way, I’m not “Indian enough”: I know shamefully little about Caddo or Cherokee history (though I’m learning), and I’ve never spent significant time in Caddo lands. Whatever Indianness I feel beyond the mere fact of my blood is something I’ve largely conjured on my own, either through research or rumination.

In a way, though, that’s just the point: Thinking about and exploring my heritage is how I experience being Indian. It is an internal experience for me. And so, yes, whenever that experience is externalized—whenever I am called exotic, which, I should make clear, happens only rarely—it’s a brief moment of recognition. And even though I’m usually only called exotic by men, and usually when the context makes me think I’m being sexualized just the teensiest bit, there’s a part of me that takes pride in it; a part of me that usually lays silent is being seen.

The word can feel like a gift, even if it’s not the gift its giver intended. It can feel like a caress from my great-grandmother or a whisper from my great-grandfather, a founding member of the National Congress of American Indians whose internalized oppression bitterly shines through on the pages of his “humor” book, “Heap Big Laugh.” It can feel like a kiss from my grandfather, whose relationship with his ethnicity is a mystery to me but which I suspect is best expressed by the contents of a glass cage that stayed in his home for years: His father’s regalia stays in a frozen display, the intricate work of beads, feathers, and porcupine quills safely separated from the rest of his life.

That regalia is now in my parents’ home, where it is a point of familial pride and is surrounded by Indian art, including gifts my father was given during his long career with the Indian Health Service: sand paintings, beadwork, quilts. Hell, there’s a pipe, though not a peace pipe. I look at his regalia every time I visit, peering through the glass that still keeps it contained. Honoring those who came before us is a key part of traditional Native culture, and as I look at what my great-grandfather wore, I’ve wondered if he’d think I was a “bad Indian” for knowing so little about Caddo life—or whether he’d consider me Indian at all.

There is a postscript here that makes me wonder. I recently learned that my grandfather’s attempt to donate his father’s regalia to the Caddo Heritage Museum was thwarted: My great-grandfather, a freemason, had Masonic designs woven into the pattern. The regalia, from the museum’s point of view, was next to worthless. All this time, I'd been projecting a sort of ethnic purity onto my grandfather out of a need to heighten my own legitimacy, while in his day, he was shaping what it meant to be Native through his own lens. He was less interested in preserving an idea of the past than in bringing his life—not his “way of life,” but his life—into the present, reinterpreting pride both personal and collective and emerging with a Masonic breastplate made of porcupine quills. Heap big laugh indeed.