Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall by Kjerstin Gruys

Author:Kjerstin Gruys
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

SIX

August

MAKEUP FREE MONDAYS AND MAKING IT WORK AT WORK

If you’re properly attired, you’re hired. And if you’re not, I don’t care how “Qualified” you may be—it will be a case of “clothes, but no cigar.”

MISS PIGGY

COMING OFF OF JULY’S “WHAT MAKES A GOOD FEMINIST?” drama and debates, I’d been giving some serious thought to going without makeup for a spell to see what would happen. This idea came about after reading through the comments that emerged in reaction to my essay about feminism and dieting. Several commenters had gone beyond discussions of weight and dieting to accuse me of committing feminist sacrilege by continuing to wear makeup and for working my way through TheKnot.com’s BBCTG list. Yet just as many had said the opposite, that worrying about what anyone else thinks of me (even other feminists) would be, in and of itself, anti(choice)feminist. To diet or not to diet? To wear makeup or not to wear makeup? To embrace bridal culture or to shun it? It seemed that the answers to these questions were leading me toward a “double bind.”

Defined as “a psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual . . . so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect,” the concept of a double bind is familiar to pretty much every woman in America (Madonna-Whore complex, anyone?). Sociologists concerned with gender inequality often use the concept of the double bind to describe the plight of women in the workplace. Because our culture continues to associate success and leadership with masculinity, ambitious women are forced to either challenge the norms of leadership or those of femininity. Some describe it as a choice between being respected and being likable. As Bart Simpson once famously muttered, “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”

So what was I to do? In the wake of my entry into the debates surrounding choice feminism, wearing makeup seemed to be a choice that needed conscious deliberation. I hadn’t gone without makeup for ages, but my no-mirrors project had already shown me that wearing much less makeup hadn’t seemed to alter my life’s course, and that it also saved time and money. More important, rather than try to meet anyone else’s expectations, I wanted to base this decision on my values, particularly my commitment to challenge social inequality. I felt certain that makeup and fashion could be compatible with feminist ideals, but I also felt strongly that in order for this to be the case, their use should be rooted in creativity and pleasure, rather than fear of not living up to society’s latest version of patriarchal perfection.

I spent quite some time contemplating my beauty routines and their meaning. In doing so I kept circling back to three words: addiction, habit, and ritual. Defined, an addiction is a condition of being compulsively occupied with or involved in something; a habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent

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