I have so many feels so apologies if this rambles.
I think your community is much more progressive and affirming than any Jewish community I've ever encountered. If anything, my experience has been that gender roles were much more rigidly enforced than in the secular world. I mean, I grew up with my grandmother routinely calling me a dyke—and not in a cute or neutral way—for preferring short hair, no makeup, and jeans over dresses when I was a teenager. The root cause of why I was never a practicing Jew has to do with gender, not politics. (That's a whole other long story.)
I won't say that I wear makeup for my own self, but I'm also not doing it just for men. I'm also doing it for women, and I do find the experience of performing gender as I do it to be liberating. I suspect if I were to dress in very masculine clothes, but pull it off (I can't) I'd have a similar satisfaction. It amounts to makeup being part of the armour I use to be able to face the world, in the same way I dye my hair bright colours.
I didn't notice women in Sweden not wearing makeup, but I did notice that they tended to be a lot more conventionally attractive and fit than the average woman in Canada or the US. Which leads me to my other ramble.
So when I was a teenager, I had this sort-of friend who was very beautiful. Even the gay boys wanted her. Retrospectively, I feel quite bad for her because she was constantly being harassed and having her boundaries crossed, but of course back then I was jealous. She was very slim and had blond hair. She was a loud and proud feminist and stopped shaving and stopped wearing makeup.
And I just remember being pissed. Because it was one thing for her to not shave—she was blond and pretty and you couldn't even tell. Whereas I got thick, dark hair everywhere, and I'd have had even less of a chance of dating than I already did. Her choice—which, don't get me wrong, I respect—to not wear makeup and not to shave and still be able to get summer jobs and boyfriends and have her teachers think she was a nice, smart girl was a factor of white, thin privilege.
Do I think I look like a witch if I don't shave and wear makeup and dress in an obvious femme way? Objectively, no. But it would absolutely hurt my career prospects, my ability to command respect from the kids, my romantic prospects*, in a way that other people might be exempt from. For me, clothes, makeup, shaving, are all equalizers. Not to face myself in a mirror, but to face the world on terms I can possibly win.
*Well, maybe not, but that's down to the people I choose to date.
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Date: 2016-09-29 10:45 pm (UTC)I think your community is much more progressive and affirming than any Jewish community I've ever encountered. If anything, my experience has been that gender roles were much more rigidly enforced than in the secular world. I mean, I grew up with my grandmother routinely calling me a dyke—and not in a cute or neutral way—for preferring short hair, no makeup, and jeans over dresses when I was a teenager. The root cause of why I was never a practicing Jew has to do with gender, not politics. (That's a whole other long story.)
I won't say that I wear makeup for my own self, but I'm also not doing it just for men. I'm also doing it for women, and I do find the experience of performing gender as I do it to be liberating. I suspect if I were to dress in very masculine clothes, but pull it off (I can't) I'd have a similar satisfaction. It amounts to makeup being part of the armour I use to be able to face the world, in the same way I dye my hair bright colours.
I didn't notice women in Sweden not wearing makeup, but I did notice that they tended to be a lot more conventionally attractive and fit than the average woman in Canada or the US. Which leads me to my other ramble.
So when I was a teenager, I had this sort-of friend who was very beautiful. Even the gay boys wanted her. Retrospectively, I feel quite bad for her because she was constantly being harassed and having her boundaries crossed, but of course back then I was jealous. She was very slim and had blond hair. She was a loud and proud feminist and stopped shaving and stopped wearing makeup.
And I just remember being pissed. Because it was one thing for her to not shave—she was blond and pretty and you couldn't even tell. Whereas I got thick, dark hair everywhere, and I'd have had even less of a chance of dating than I already did. Her choice—which, don't get me wrong, I respect—to not wear makeup and not to shave and still be able to get summer jobs and boyfriends and have her teachers think she was a nice, smart girl was a factor of white, thin privilege.
Do I think I look like a witch if I don't shave and wear makeup and dress in an obvious femme way? Objectively, no. But it would absolutely hurt my career prospects, my ability to command respect from the kids, my romantic prospects*, in a way that other people might be exempt from. For me, clothes, makeup, shaving, are all equalizers. Not to face myself in a mirror, but to face the world on terms I can possibly win.
*Well, maybe not, but that's down to the people I choose to date.