Going through the readings for this week's class inspired a much unanticipated trot down memory lane, serving up a veritable sampler of conversations & images, uprooting sepia toned flashbacks of some fiercely embedded reminisces of my teenage years.
I read Brownmiller's article, alternating between vociferous head-nods, disbelieving grimaces and outright alarm. Large parts of it resonated with what I felt, but what I was left with at the end of it was a sense of heavy, impending doom --a certainty that with my life as a youthful twenty-something now way behind me, the only way my body can go is southwards into a slow, steady decline. While I share the author's concern over the escalating pressures on the female form to constantly strive for a virtually unachievable body type -complete with flawless skin and shining, glossy hair (compounded in terms of the seriousness attached to it some thirty years after she wrote the article)- I am not entirely in sync with her perspective on the overwhelming male influence that brings about this pressure in the first place.
Let me confess right off the bat that I lived most of my life as the proverbial ugly duckling, glumly watching on the sidelines as one schoolmate after the other went the boyfriend way while all I got was earnest requests to be 'study-mates'. Perhaps because my mother has never exerted any sort of pressure on me to conform to any socially conditioned version of preteen or teenage femininity (barring, of course, an expectation that I was always neatly dressed, uniform ironed to an inch of its life, not a hair out of place etc.), I never really felt the need to partake in any beauty rituals of sorts pretty much all the way up till my undergrad days (even then it was only a lipstick --a terrible, unflattering, muddy dark brown shade--and the occasional eyeliner clashing with my baggy tshirts and jeans look).
With my two long braids that fell, heavily, uninspiringly, all the way down to my waist and hideously thick eyebrows I wasn't quite the cutesy type. Looking back though, I seem to recall that amongst most of my schoolmates, makeup really was not much sought after; instead an expression of femininity centered more around short hair (most of us started with really long hair; my mother cried actual tears when I cut my hair a measly four inches for the first time and actually got back my cut hair in a plastic bag to preserve. Thankfully she has discarded it since), short skirts and (the ultimate) tweezed eyebrows. However, unlike Brownmiller's contention that historically female fashion and body image has largely existed in response to a male desire, I remember the entire focus of our rather pathetic attempts to appear prettier was to get appreciative comments from our girlfriends. Boys came into the picture much later.
I still make an extra effort to look good when I go out on a lunch date with my girlfriends; I also still play dress up when my husband is not at home (perhaps because I never did it as a teenager... making up for lost time!) and I spray perfume liberally especially when at home (makes me feel a tad glamorous even amongst the unwashed dishes)--and I am the same person who can wear sweatpants for a week straight, who usually wears a clean, scrubbed face (with all its acne scars on display) on a daily basis and who, on certain days, in my mother's words "makes an extra effort to look ugly". My point being that while, doubtless, I regard myself as significantly evolved from those cringe-worthy high school days, my motivation to play up my feminine appeal does not necessarily come from a desire to please a man. And I know several women who feel the exact same way.
This does not mean that I disregard fashion, grow endless hair on my armpits or wear clogs with Leger-esque bandage dresses (gasp!). I am a voracious consumer of everything fashion and I love my shoes just as much as the other girl. What I find missing in both Brownmiller and, to an extent, Doanne is the classification of a middle space of sorts. Why does a woman have to be either a tree hugging bra-burner or a Birkin loving fashionista? Is there no space for the reality of women who are, amazingly enough, for the most part comfortable with what they look like, yet love dressing up to the nines every now and then and, on a normal, daily basis, are reasonably put together without being obsessive about it?
My other gripe with the readings has to do specifically with Doanne's arguments on the commodification of women. While I agree with a lot of what she says (especially the of film as a woman centric space), I find it hard to believe that men have not been beholden by women with the same motivation of secondary sexual pleasure derived from the act of looking. The pressure on a male body to be taut and fit without an ounce of spare flesh evident might be recent but there is no doubting the excitement generated from the visual of a charismatic, good looking man taking off his shirt on screen has a certain age old resonance to it. The earlier notion of 'only pretty men dress up, use cosmetic products or revel in an obviously groomed sexual imagery' is changing right before our eyes as semi-naked men sprawled languorously on billboards invite you to consume products ranging from underwear to cologne, artfully placed drops of perspiration dotting their smooth shaved chests, an unmistakable invitation evident in their eyes.
Lastly, I want to comment on what I realized is a failing on my part, with definite shades of hypocrisy. Brownmiller's vivid depiction of the Chinese bound foot led me to youtube some gruesome videos, inciting an indignant reaction on how women still cause themselves (voluntarily now!) grievous physical harm in order to look good happily choosing to go under the knife without a moment's hesitation (7 minutes of watching Bridalplasty out of curiosity and I was retching like a mad woman). Yet, somewhere, don't we all submit to a certain level of physical discomfort differing in degrees to enhance our self-image? I own about 50 pairs of high heeled shoes and sandals and I am miserably flat footed & suffer from plantar-fascitis yet I do not believe my 'glam going out look' is complete without wearing them. So who's to say that what I do is fine but a woman getting a nose job is kinda desperate (which is how I have always felt about plastic surgery)? I'm lucky to be free from any bodily defects (even luckier to possess an attitude that blissfully lets me ignore my super huge, bordering on ginormous, nose!) but would I be so chipper about the whole thing had things been different? Not an answer I readily possess is all I can say.
I will end this massive rambling with a link to an interesting article a pregnant friend of mine forwarded the other day; an assertion to Brownmiller's observations as to how even the pregnant are no longer spared!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/katrina-onstad/spanx-for-nothing-maternity-shapewear/article1877273/
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