I think the last time I saw real amounts of hair not on my head or sculpted in an eyebrow was when I was thirteen. That was the first year I picked up a razor (my first being my brothers) and just started getting rid of the stuff and I've been doing it ever since. Shaving, waxing, Nair-ing; whatever gets the job done. It doesn't end there either. After that, its perfuming, its make-up-ing, and it's doing all the hair that I "allow" to grow on me, before putting on a pair of heels which I know I won't last long in. However, I rarely if ever complain about this routine the way I hear some girls and women going on about the process especially to their boyfriends or husbands.
I don't get it. All of these things are absolutely optional. "But wait," you say, breathlessly, "society says women have to do all these things." Hmm, who exactly is this so called society made up of? Do you not exist as a part of this society. Are you not one of the rule makers? The reason "society" says that shaving, and make-up, and heels are the so called norm is because we women allow it to be. We buy up the latest magazines proclaiming the latest trick to get rid of our hair, to paint our faces, and to buy designer heels. We hungrily digest this information and pass it on to our mothers, our dauthers, our friends, and even our children. We watch the commercials, we go to the malls, and we discount online. We keep the cycle going and we keep affirming that these things are what make a woman more beautiful and more accepted rather then naturally growing hair where hair naturally grows or walking out of the door in our plain and natural face.
Need proof? When Julia Roberts hit the red carpet at a movie premiere with her natural under arms, we ladies (and gents) went absolutely nuts. You would have thought she pulled out a baby on the red carpet and ate it right in front of our very eyes, and then licked her bloody lips from the outrage. I mean, my God, did she somehow forget? Didn't she have assistants to remind her to shave? This is a premiere...a p-r-e-m-i-e-r-e, like who shows up like that, to a premiere? Some of you are probably absolutely repulsed at just the mere thought of hairy armpits on a woman, let alone seeing the actual proof of it right in front of you on a major celebrity who can afford to be encased in carbonite if they wanted to.
The same goes for make-up. There are entire magazine spreads dedicated to stars without make-up which aren't so kind to the "before" versions of the stars, and most try their best not to get caught not painted up the way you and I might put on a hat to run to the grocery store if we don't have concealer on. There are a lot of women out there who rarely if ever leave the house without just a touch of something, if not a full face done up. And still some of you complain about what all you have to do. You are given a choice everyday to decide how you are going to look and how you are going to present yourself to the world, but given half a chance to be truly natural, many simply cave to the collective and continue on with being what the society you have helped create says you should be rather then be any form of your natural self. You don't want to go against the grain. You choose not to fight it by wearing these things.
Now the irony is, this isn't a take that's going to end in me giving a flowery speech about how you should be natural and we should stand up for growing out our hair and wearing flats everywhere, but rather an ending note that, if you really and truly don't want to continue to the beauty regime, then don't. Toss your make-up, razors, and heels and be free, but if you are like me, and you just went to Sephora for yet another make-up haul, don't complain about; not the price, not that you have to apply it, not how long it takes, because you are choosing to do it. You are saying, I want this. I want to be a part of what society says I should be. I want to conform to the standards that I am a part of agreeing can and do exist. Am I a sheep, probably, so baaaaaa! and move on with your life and stop complaining about it! If you wanted to really "be you" you would have done it already!
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