I am an actress, dancer, cheerleading coach, model, and most recently, a beauty pageant contestant. I am well aware of the societal pressures for upholding certain standards of beauty, and I completely accept that I choose to put myself in positions of heightened pressure.
That being said, as a proud alumna of an all girls high school, I never got into the habit of doing my makeup regularly. My winter “uniform” consists of oversized sweaters, leggings, combat boots, and my hair in a messy bun on top of my head.
About once a week though, I get dressed. I tame my unruly curls into an actual style, put on a full face of makeup, and wear nice clothes. Sometimes, because of my crazy work schedule, this requires getting ready on campus, in my car, or in a number of other less-than-ideal locations. This is where my frustration with beauty standards comes into play.
The same people who often expect me to be dressed and groomed “properly” often scoff if put in a position of having to see me finishing my hair or makeup make disgusted faces at the idea of seeing such grooming. I am not referring to getting my eyebrows waxed in the middle of a mall and complaining about people staring at me as I scream… this is me talking about my putting on eyeliner in a parked car in the parking lot, and getting disgusted stares. This comes a week after I had gotten ready for work in the girls’ bathroom of the campus library, expecting the other students and staff to accept this semi-public styling as a fact of life for commuter students. Though I recognized that I brought a curling iron with me to school, I once curled my hair in government class in high school. Curling my hair in a school bathroom hardly seemed bizarre, and yet it seems that every employee of the library was taking turns coming to the bathroom to ogle me in succession.
So the next week, I chose not to do my makeup in the bathroom, but rather in my car. I had the window rolled down, but the door was closed, I could have been doing anything at all; however as people noticed me sitting, they started to stare until they realized I was doing my makeup, at which case they turned away and hurried past my car. I recognize that I was parked on the edge of a walkway; however I parked before class in the first available spot. Where I was parked should not have affected my privilege to get ready in my car. There was nothing indecent about me adding eyeliner and mascara to the basic makeup I had added inconspicuously. I had a formal that night, and had no time to drive the 45 minutes back to my house between class, work and formal. So why then was this grooming earning me disgusted looks?
I have no problem getting waxed or threaded and spray tanned and blown out and colored and painted and then throwing makeup on top of it all. I take pride in walking in 5” heels comfortably. But if you want to see the end result of all of these beauty treatments, please learn to accept how much work it all is. Learn to accept that sometimes those treatments are a bit inconvenient. Please, for goodness sake, stop ogling me or turning away horrified at witnessing me with some hairspray or mascara. If you can accept all of that, I will ascribe to these societal expectations happily. If you decide you don’t want me to go through all of the effort, get used to my winter uniform, and make sure your friends do, too. I’m tired of working through all of those steps only to be discouraged at the last second because of the reactions of those forced to witness me getting ready.
