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dragonlady7so highlyeccentric had a really great (locked) post about the current and ever-present debate about whether feminists should wear makeup, and quoted this Tweet:
And I just wanted to relay a little side anecdote, more or less as a thought exercise, if you will.
So my dude, my partner for about 16 years now, is a software engineer. In his undergrad program in college, he went through a courseload that was extremely heavy at one point, and he had no time to think about much of anything besides work, food, and sleep. So he stopped cutting his hair, which was something honestly his mother had generally taken care of booking him appointments for anyway; he'd had a buzz cut through middle school, and just a generic short "man" haircut ever since.
That academic quarter, he just stopped cutting his hair, and it grew through a horrible in-between stage, and by the time he had time to notice it or think about it, it was long enough to put into a ponytail. So he bought a container of ponytail elastics, which was the first time he had ever considered such a thing in his life, and put his hair into a ponytail, and that is the sum total of attention he has ever in his life devoted to this.
Now, being a man with long hair was a big deal in the 70s, and sometimes in the 80s people would still give you shit for it. But this happened in the 90s. By then, nobody gave a fuck anymore. He has been given precisely one (1) hard time about this in his life, from an elderly relative who brought it up every time he was at home, but without venom. Oh, sorry, a second time-- someone asked him if he'd cut his hair to be a groomsman in a friend's wedding. He did, he got it trimmed nicely, and fixed his stupid facial hair too, because he'd been letting it grow out strangely but those weren't his photos he'd be in, so he tidied up.
But it was still long enough to put into a ponytail. I've never seen him with hair too short to tie back.
When we first started dating, one of the things he said as it became clear we were making longer-term plans was that I'd have to keep an eye on his hair for him so he didn't wind up as that sad old guy in denial with a bald pate and a wispy ponytail hanging off it.
So now we're 39, and I'm eyeing his (beautifully, gently, gracefully) receding hairline and thinking maybe it's time. So I promised him I'd help him research possible hairstyles to make it still easy to care for his hair while not looking like a middle-aged dude in denial.
Think about that: He has had this hairstyle for 20 years. And he has not one time ever really had to justify himself. He doesn't have to Identify As A Long-Haired Man, despite being slightly outside of cultural norms.
And even now, he's outsourcing the worrying about it to me, a woman: it is my problem if he does not look presentable. Of course this is something I'm willing to help him with, because I do care about him, I care that he's happy with his appearance, and I understand he's not really equipped to evaluate these sorts of things with the life he's led. (His justification is "well you have to look at it!" and you know. Think about that. I've often considered how to look good for his enjoyment, and he has enjoyed the results of this [similarly to the makeup debate, it is difficult to separate out 'i like to look pretty' from 'i like people's reactions when i look pretty', i am not here to debate this], but I have never been able to rely on him to evaluate my potential presentations to pick one that pleases him best. I've tried, and he resists: "i don't know what looks good! do what you like! ... are you really going to wear that?" and yet. I'm expected to use my aesthetic preferences to make his choice. Hm?)
But he has lived non-normatively for 20 years and hasn't ever really thought about it one time.
(And as a side note, he also had problems with redness on his face, which might have been psoriasis, and doctors didn't make much headway into diagnosing it and he came up with a skincare regimen to reduce it on his own, but he has literally lived with a disfiguring red patch on his face for the better part of a decade and basically nobody has noticed. Hell, I barely noticed, I got used to it and only noticed it when it looked like it was bothering him. Literally not one person ever suggested he cover it up with makeup for an important photo, or anything of the sort; he never thought of that himself either.)
Can you IMAGINE a woman or nonbinary person in any of these scenarios??
Or even a gender nonconforming man! I love my dude, but he's very cis hetero. He's six foot three, and skinny but still generally "male-"proportioned, and he just reads as Some Kind Of Guy Person both at a distance and up close. And he's super white. That's absolutely a factor, too. He has to go pretty damn far before any non-conformity on his part is seen as a threat, is my underlying point here. Especially since he works remotely, in a highly technical field. He is a person as free from his prison of flesh as it's possible to be, is my end point. As long as he stays within the lines, sure; we all have lines we have to stay in before society gets upset. His lines are pretty well lined up with what's most comfortable for him. He does not have to think about them. There they are.
(Full disclosure: I also haven't cut my hair short since middle school and I trim it myself in the sink ever since a bad salon experience (literally no one trained for salons has any fucking idea what to do with hair over 25" long, don't @ me), but i also spend several hours a week on maintenance of my very long hair, and considering what kind of presentation it lends me, and often wear it in a less-comfortable but more flattering style because i feel i ought to, and so on; i spend significantly less time and money on my hair than anyone i know but it's still much more than he does. Dude DOES NOT EVEN BRUSH his hair, which he can get away with because it is very fine and very straight.)
No, I'm really not here to debate whether anyone should wear makeup (though I point out that it is of course in fact impossible to separate "feels good to look cute" from "feels good when people treat me better" and all of its assorted pathways worn into the brain, of course!) because we all spend plenty of time worrying about that. I just wanted to relay an over-detailed personal anecdote to point out that you know, some people don't live like that, and those some people happen to be gender-conforming men. But the boundaries of 'conforming' do change even within a single generation, so be aware of that and maybe take hope from it. Long hair was unacceptably girly, even when he was a child. it is within our lifetimes that the line shifted enough to allow him to be uncontroversial.
Maybe we can keep pushing on those lines, IDK?
We already don't have the luxury of not noticing them, which he does have. But there's your aspirational goal, maybe: to live oblivious of the lines, and be comfortable. Imagine it! Just imagine never worrying about it! Ahh.
[i should clarify, i'm not upset with his behavior in any way; generally he does his best and is a good person? this is a societal and systemic issue, and him worrying about his appearance or trying to take more responsibility for mine doesn't help. our relationship is better than it comes across in these posts, i think!]
Anyway, I just thought it was a useful thought exercise to write all that out. Especially since the comment thread of that Tweet is all women justifying their own makeup habits in not very self-aware ways? I just thought i'd witter on not very self-awarely about something else, as a contrast.
Also, for something completely different, I wanted to say I love how many people took my last post as an invitation to describe the weather where they are and I am delighted by every response. <3 <3 <3
OK I should go do proper work now.
highlyeccentric had a really great (locked) post about the current and ever-present debate about whether feminists should wear makeup, and quoted this Tweet:
small brain: make-up is anti-feminist
big brain: make-up is empowering!
galaxy brain: the demand that women should question every little aspect of their lives in a desperate audit of what is or is not a tool of the patriarchy is, itself, a tool of the patriarchy
— Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley (@lottelydia) January 22, 2019
And I just wanted to relay a little side anecdote, more or less as a thought exercise, if you will.
So my dude, my partner for about 16 years now, is a software engineer. In his undergrad program in college, he went through a courseload that was extremely heavy at one point, and he had no time to think about much of anything besides work, food, and sleep. So he stopped cutting his hair, which was something honestly his mother had generally taken care of booking him appointments for anyway; he'd had a buzz cut through middle school, and just a generic short "man" haircut ever since.
That academic quarter, he just stopped cutting his hair, and it grew through a horrible in-between stage, and by the time he had time to notice it or think about it, it was long enough to put into a ponytail. So he bought a container of ponytail elastics, which was the first time he had ever considered such a thing in his life, and put his hair into a ponytail, and that is the sum total of attention he has ever in his life devoted to this.
Now, being a man with long hair was a big deal in the 70s, and sometimes in the 80s people would still give you shit for it. But this happened in the 90s. By then, nobody gave a fuck anymore. He has been given precisely one (1) hard time about this in his life, from an elderly relative who brought it up every time he was at home, but without venom. Oh, sorry, a second time-- someone asked him if he'd cut his hair to be a groomsman in a friend's wedding. He did, he got it trimmed nicely, and fixed his stupid facial hair too, because he'd been letting it grow out strangely but those weren't his photos he'd be in, so he tidied up.
But it was still long enough to put into a ponytail. I've never seen him with hair too short to tie back.
When we first started dating, one of the things he said as it became clear we were making longer-term plans was that I'd have to keep an eye on his hair for him so he didn't wind up as that sad old guy in denial with a bald pate and a wispy ponytail hanging off it.
So now we're 39, and I'm eyeing his (beautifully, gently, gracefully) receding hairline and thinking maybe it's time. So I promised him I'd help him research possible hairstyles to make it still easy to care for his hair while not looking like a middle-aged dude in denial.
Think about that: He has had this hairstyle for 20 years. And he has not one time ever really had to justify himself. He doesn't have to Identify As A Long-Haired Man, despite being slightly outside of cultural norms.
And even now, he's outsourcing the worrying about it to me, a woman: it is my problem if he does not look presentable. Of course this is something I'm willing to help him with, because I do care about him, I care that he's happy with his appearance, and I understand he's not really equipped to evaluate these sorts of things with the life he's led. (His justification is "well you have to look at it!" and you know. Think about that. I've often considered how to look good for his enjoyment, and he has enjoyed the results of this [similarly to the makeup debate, it is difficult to separate out 'i like to look pretty' from 'i like people's reactions when i look pretty', i am not here to debate this], but I have never been able to rely on him to evaluate my potential presentations to pick one that pleases him best. I've tried, and he resists: "i don't know what looks good! do what you like! ... are you really going to wear that?" and yet. I'm expected to use my aesthetic preferences to make his choice. Hm?)
But he has lived non-normatively for 20 years and hasn't ever really thought about it one time.
(And as a side note, he also had problems with redness on his face, which might have been psoriasis, and doctors didn't make much headway into diagnosing it and he came up with a skincare regimen to reduce it on his own, but he has literally lived with a disfiguring red patch on his face for the better part of a decade and basically nobody has noticed. Hell, I barely noticed, I got used to it and only noticed it when it looked like it was bothering him. Literally not one person ever suggested he cover it up with makeup for an important photo, or anything of the sort; he never thought of that himself either.)
Can you IMAGINE a woman or nonbinary person in any of these scenarios??
Or even a gender nonconforming man! I love my dude, but he's very cis hetero. He's six foot three, and skinny but still generally "male-"proportioned, and he just reads as Some Kind Of Guy Person both at a distance and up close. And he's super white. That's absolutely a factor, too. He has to go pretty damn far before any non-conformity on his part is seen as a threat, is my underlying point here. Especially since he works remotely, in a highly technical field. He is a person as free from his prison of flesh as it's possible to be, is my end point. As long as he stays within the lines, sure; we all have lines we have to stay in before society gets upset. His lines are pretty well lined up with what's most comfortable for him. He does not have to think about them. There they are.
(Full disclosure: I also haven't cut my hair short since middle school and I trim it myself in the sink ever since a bad salon experience (literally no one trained for salons has any fucking idea what to do with hair over 25" long, don't @ me), but i also spend several hours a week on maintenance of my very long hair, and considering what kind of presentation it lends me, and often wear it in a less-comfortable but more flattering style because i feel i ought to, and so on; i spend significantly less time and money on my hair than anyone i know but it's still much more than he does. Dude DOES NOT EVEN BRUSH his hair, which he can get away with because it is very fine and very straight.)
No, I'm really not here to debate whether anyone should wear makeup (though I point out that it is of course in fact impossible to separate "feels good to look cute" from "feels good when people treat me better" and all of its assorted pathways worn into the brain, of course!) because we all spend plenty of time worrying about that. I just wanted to relay an over-detailed personal anecdote to point out that you know, some people don't live like that, and those some people happen to be gender-conforming men. But the boundaries of 'conforming' do change even within a single generation, so be aware of that and maybe take hope from it. Long hair was unacceptably girly, even when he was a child. it is within our lifetimes that the line shifted enough to allow him to be uncontroversial.
Maybe we can keep pushing on those lines, IDK?
We already don't have the luxury of not noticing them, which he does have. But there's your aspirational goal, maybe: to live oblivious of the lines, and be comfortable. Imagine it! Just imagine never worrying about it! Ahh.
[i should clarify, i'm not upset with his behavior in any way; generally he does his best and is a good person? this is a societal and systemic issue, and him worrying about his appearance or trying to take more responsibility for mine doesn't help. our relationship is better than it comes across in these posts, i think!]
Anyway, I just thought it was a useful thought exercise to write all that out. Especially since the comment thread of that Tweet is all women justifying their own makeup habits in not very self-aware ways? I just thought i'd witter on not very self-awarely about something else, as a contrast.
Also, for something completely different, I wanted to say I love how many people took my last post as an invitation to describe the weather where they are and I am delighted by every response. <3 <3 <3
OK I should go do proper work now.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-24 07:12 pm (UTC)Honestly, my parents give me more shit than any other person but they're easy to ignore or frankly, make sarcastic comments back at them to point out how dumb their suggestion sounds. (not shit but just those little comments, oh how does your boss feel about your hair etc)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-24 08:28 pm (UTC)I don't know how to classify that.
I do remember when I was first in a same-sex relationship, and was forcibly outed at a boarding school where that was a possibly expellable offense, people who were intending to be supportive (I *think*) told me they'd known all along because I looked "dykey", which was news to me. I mean, no, I didn't wear makeup at all at that point (I might have owned an eyeliner pencil but I didn't know how to use it; I was more likely to draw pictures on myself in ballpoint pen than actually use the eyeliner for anything) but I also had hair to my waist and preferred to wear floor-length skirts.
But a lot of that is surely confirmation bias. People I come out to as bi are always like "oh I knew!" but never have picked me out beforehand.
And yeah-- how much of the "societal pressure" is so subtle that it'd be hard for someone who wasn't the direct target to be able to recognize it as such!
My mom has mostly only ever given me shit about being fat, and all of that was so, so achingly transparently overtly about her not wanting to suffer the stigma she had as a bullied child.
But it's SO OFTEN that kind of shit, too. "What will X say" "who will hire you" "I just worry nobody will care for you"
Nobody is out here saying "We're not going to hire you," but I did once go to an interview at a temp agency where they looked at my long hair, in a braid down my back, and say, "maybe you should do something more professional with that."
To this day I still don't know what would have satisfied the requirement...
no subject
Date: 2019-01-24 09:30 pm (UTC)I... don't think I read queer any more unless I'm trying, because I dress androgynous-feminine rather than masculine-androgynous where I used to do the opposite, which lands me in the Academic Woman uniform. I'm not sure I like it.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-24 10:44 pm (UTC)I get commentary on my appearance all the time. Students, colleagues, randos on the street, catcallers, family. Mostly positive these days, but I was an ugly girl and it's always stuck with me, and your words about teasing out "feels good to look cute" from "feels good when people treat me better" are really accurate in my experience.
Six or so years ago, when I was first diagnosed with a tumour, I pre-emptively cut my then-shoulder-length hair short, not knowing if I'd have to do chemo or what the side-effects of the experimental drug I was on would be. I also had to use a cane. I noticed that the catcalls stopped; it was like I became a non-person, which is a relief in some ways but not so much in others. Now that I don't have a cane and my hair is growing out again, I've noticed that the catcalls have started up again. It's weird because I think even with short hair I wear makeup and read as femme, but maybe more intimidating, I dunno.
But I can't imagine what it would be like to not be commented upon. If I don't wear makeup, the dude who panhandles around the block comments on it. And something like a birthmark, or unusual appearance, gets commented on even more (I had various unnatural colours of hair for years, and got commentary on it all the time).
Fuckin' patriarchy.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-25 01:05 pm (UTC)