what's wrong, beautiful?
all out of self love right now, sorry. best i can do is uh...self tolerance? good luck.
They accuse us of self hate. Say we’re losing ourselves. That we’re ashamed of who we are underneath. Underneath the makeup and the hair and the clothes and the diet and the clinic. Under it all we are simply lost. But they say if we give it all up, we may finally be free. I hear it’s nice out on that side, where you go when you’re free. But honestly? What if I don’t wanna be? If I won’t go, can I stay?
My first concession will be saying the quiet part out loud: they’re right.
I don’t love everything about myself.
For one, I don’t love my hair. I know this is very blasphemous to admit, but it’s true: I don’t love it. I don’t hate it, I wouldn’t say that, but love it I certainly do not. If I could trade my type four textured hair for like a 3B or 3A curl pattern, I would.1 But I love having hair. I love not being bald. I love that I have edges and length and some fullness to my curls. Length and fullness are the things that make it easier for me to enjoy a twist out or a wash and go as much as a silk press. I appreciate the versatility of styles that are available to me and happily indulge.
But…I also love convenience.
My natural hair, being curly, is inconvenient a lot of the time. That’s the objective truth.2 Most days I want to wake up and not think about “what to do” with it. And yes, I know there are ways to style it that do give some convenience (twists, braids, scarves, putting it up in one or two). For me, the issue is that I struggle with keeping my hair healthy so it stays tolerable. I “let it breathe” a few weeks of the year and I have great fun with it then, but I have to be careful because after a while, I start getting paranoid that I’m ruining my hair with the daily manipulation. And if I don’t keep the split ends at bay, I’ll have to sacrifice inches at my next salon appointment, putting me ever further from my retention goals. The only option that feels safe — that has reliably retained any length for me — is to tuck it away and treat wearing my hair down as a luxury, as a rare and special treat. Rapunzel is just like me.
I may not love my hair, but I do my best to take care of it and I take pride in the results of that effort, so I don’t think pretending to love it is necessary. After all, I’ve been natural my entire life and never had a perm. I only get a silk press once a year, in the winter. I don’t lay my edges down or use gel to slick my hair back if I’m just putting it up or in a bun. I get kinky sew-ins and kinky straight extensions and ponytail attachments to match my texture. Just because I don’t love my hair doesn’t mean I think it’s ugly. It’s not like I’m afraid to be seen without a wig or anything. I know my natural hair is beautiful and not inferior to looser curl patterns. I just think my hair is tedious to manage sometimes, and don’t love it for that reason, and that’s that.3
Besides my hair, I don’t find fault with too much else about myself. I have no gripes with my skin tone. While I know plenty of women faced ridicule for (and subsequently grew up stressing over) theirs, I like my nose and I like my lips. Some consider wearing colored contacts for a little dazzle to be a crime, but I don’t hate my brown eyes just because I sometimes get bored of their color. My eyes are one of my best features no matter the shade. In my opinion, the base features of my face harmonize quite well, and this single fact does a lot for my self esteem. Growing up, all it usually took was getting my eyebrows waxed for me to feel extra cute bare faced. As an adult, I now get the same feeling from lash extensions, though I only do it sparingly.
I don’t approach the project & pursuit of beauty from a position of perceived total lack, but more so from a desire to move up a level or two from where I already am. Desirability isn’t my struggle. I don’t doubt that I’m a beautiful girl. I know I am. I’m treated like it. I may have little things about my appearance I wish to change, but for all my insecurities, my lock screen and my phone background are still pictures of myself. That I happen to be a little vain is hardly oxymoronic or contradictory; I stare in the mirror not only to scrutinize but also to admire the features I do like and approve.
When I look in the mirror lately, I love my face but I have plenty of complaints about my body. I for sure don’t love my body either. I wish I was like an inch or two shorter (I’m 5’5”). I wish my feet were smaller so I could shop easier for shoes (I’m like a US 10-11). My skin is prone to acne below the neck (which I guess is preferable to the alternative) so I wish my chest and back shoulders were smooth all over and free of scars. I don’t like the way I’m shaped; I tend to feel boxy. I wish I was bigger than a B cup and more bottom heavy with a flatter stomach. While it’s nice to have some semblance of “curves” that didn’t exist when I was younger, I don’t love my size right now. But I didn’t love it when I was skinny either so obviously I just can’t be pleased!!
The utility of beauty is that it earns one attention you can cash in for coveted resources. Love, money, fame, blah blah blah etc, you get it. It’s no secret that Beauty is a ticket that earns you social currency. Everyone wants to be rich. Including me. The beauty industry propaganda asks me to measure myself against The Standard4 and encourages me to do a little more here and there to improve my score, and I think, what the hell, why not. I could give up and not care about how my face or body looks at all but then I would still be stuck in a body that others register, even if only subconsciously, as less worthy. And treated as such.
So they’re right: The people who profit from me hating things about myself are winning. My insecurities do leave me vulnerable to beauty propaganda. Every fix they want to sell me is a monkey paw or a distraction or a band-aid or a placebo. I know, I know, I know.
live from the propaganda machine:
The online beauty guides going viral right now boast of “hacks” that’ll help women optimize and maximize their appearance for attention that will buy them everyone’s favorite prize: a husband! (Yeah, okay.) Feeling masochistic, I gave them a read. These guides, particularly Dispelling Beauty Lies, pretend black women do not even exist. Out of dozens of photos uploaded as examples to illustrate his points, the author of DBL refused to sneak in nary a light skin nor even an ‘ambiguous’ biracial within his manifesto, just to keep it extra clear that we’re beyond the scope of mainstream desire—a niche. The others are hardly better. I digress.5 Anyway,
All the hacks boiled down to:
Lose weight.
Have long hair and dewy clear skin.
If your chest is flat, get implants ASAP. The first man to lay eyes on your bosom once you leave the operating room will be so overcome with desire he’ll propose on the spot.
Go forth and breast boobily all the way to the altar.
It’s that simple.
The message that we should all be smaller if we want to be beautiful is ubiquitous and persuasive, even though it isn’t true. But there is a part of me that does believe it, and that’s the voice I listened to after a few weeks of being inundated with gym influencer videos and educational fitness content online.
Inspired to squat my way to a homegrown BBL, I bought workout equipment to use at home back in November. Dumbbells, resistance bands, a foldable walking pad. And cute little athleisure outfits. I felt encouraged to finally do something to improve how I felt and looked. The gym gives me anxiety, a discovery I made last year after months of wasting money on a membership I never used. But with all the tools I need for a workout at home, and none of the hassle of traveling to the gym anymore, this should be a big help, I told myself.
For a few days after all my shiny new gear came in, I did some routines. I felt good about myself. I was logging my calories on MyFitnessPal. Having healthy home-cooked meals instead of takeout. But then soon after, I got laid off from my job and lost all my momentum because who caaaaares about looking nice anymore like why even bother wtf is any of this even for omg this sucks!!!
I wallowed for a while at first. I booked a salon appointment to cheer myself up. It helped. I booked a vacation to take my mind off of things, and that helped too. But I still had to sit with myself, look at myself, return to myself eventually. And I was still unhappy when I did.
A few months have gone by since I abandoned my fitness goal, and I feel worse for no longer having the excuse of being busy with work to hide behind as I continue doing nothing to improve my looks. I weigh myself every morning in anticipation of a number that will be smaller than yesterday’s. I follow this up with a glance in the mirror where I lift my shirt and sigh. If I can’t be stably employed, shouldn’t I at least be beautiful? Yes, but looking at all my unused equipment only fills me with guilt.
Now I’m getting GLP-1 ads on Insta like every day. Perfect, thanks! I click ‘em; I watch the testimonials. I am slowly being convinced this will save me since I clearly lack the willpower to save myself. The truth is, I know (and hate) that I struggle to harness the motivation & discipline necessary to keep consistent with anything I try to start—it’s a tiring cycle that’s plagued me all my life. The idea that a drug could fix me is enticing. I already take a pill for depression and another for ADHD, what’s another biochemical reaction between friends?
The longer I sit with the idea, the more resolved I grow in my decision to actually buy the shots. But it’s no secret the magic pill isn’t cheap. And I’m still not working, so it wouldn’t exactly be the wisest financial decision. So until I get my money up, I’m stuck skipping meals the old fashioned way. The meds I’m already on suppress my appetite as a side effect so thankfully it’s not too hard as long as I take them. I’m not sure why I find it easier to avoid an action (eating) than to incorporate a new one (exercising)—maybe it’s because the former doesn’t challenge my inertia.
I know none of this is healthy; it’s not a practice I recommend.
On Twitter this week, and on TikTok too, black women are pointing accusatory fingers at each other for giving into the beauty standards that compel so many of us to tuck our hair away under wigs and weave. Over on Substack, meanwhile, women of all colors are aghast that some of us are letting feminism down by normalizing or even considering Ozempic or fillers or plastic surgery.
Everyone is absolutely correct that we have been brainwashed and swindled by the male gaze, the patriarchy and eurocentricity. That we are playing hard at a game where there fundamentally can’t be any winners, only the illusion of such. Yes, we are more than our bodies. Yes, we have inherent worth that is not defined by our youth or our looks. Yes, no one is stopping you from wearing makeup or shaving if you choose to do it, but you should investigate why you want to. You’re all completely right.
But…rigged game or not, I still want to play. I still want to be pretty. The nuances and the perils of my choices are not lost on me and do not exist in a vacuum, but these are the risks I am willing to accept as I continue to make them. I have no idea how to disentangle myself from the compulsion to perform femininity and admit I am incurious about the process. I’m not gonna say the line about how it’s different when I do it because “actually it’s really ‘just for me’”—it’s not. It’s for all who have eyes.
In the face of danger, most people will respond with fight or flight. A few will freeze. I don’t have it in me to fight and personally must confess I would rather navigate an unfamiliar hell than flee to a dubious unfamiliar heaven. Freezing is not an option, so where does that leave me?
I fawn.
Precarious and futile as all of it is, I’ve observed in my own life on multiple occasions how beauty can sometimes, though not always, shield me from disrespect. With it, I am more eligible for kindness. Granted leniency. Not as easily dismissed. A little less afraid though still not exactly safe.
In the end, beauty will not save me. I know. But it’ll buy me some time.
Yes, I know the hair typing system is “not real” and is inaccurate. It’s just a useful shorthand I still like to use for naming visible differences in the appearances of curls.
And I think really this is just the reality of curly-headed people of all types? I’ve watched other people’s routines. It’s a lot of upkeep! By contrast, my friends with pin straight hair never have to think about their hair at all unless they decide they want to curl it. And I can admit that I do envy the noiselessness of that, having one less thing to prune and proper.
And it’s not a great standard, and wasn’t made with me in mind.
When I read these, I already do not expect my demographic to be included. I’m not looking for that because I know better, so this observation is made without me taking any offense to it. But I do notice it, and I understand it belies the widely espoused belief in our lack of desirability. I find this view is very much amplified online but (by design) it doesn’t accurately reflect the tricky reality of how desire is actually mapped onto us.