fembot love

[moominmolly]

Putting on makeup recently - even the crazy over-the-top stage makeup I was doing - has made me more aware of my facial features than I usually am. For all that I'm an unapologetically broad strong woman, my face is actually... pretty. I don't think about this very often, but it doesn't take much makeup to make me look in the mirror and say, "Whoa, hey, check it out! My appearance conforms to many classical and contemporary standards of beauty!"

Which makes me a little uncomfortable.

I mean, it's almost as if it's one more area where I've never bothered to live up to my potential, you know? "She could accomplish so much, if only she would apply herself." I feel as if I rarely bother to take my appearance beyond the raw materials. And it's not as if I even have a principled stance against it! I love modifying my appearance, but it seems as if I have a block against a kind of simple daily femininity. Why does shaping my eyebrows feel different from getting a haircut? What am I afraid of losing, in there?

I realized I had a lot of baggage around this when I had the following conversation:

Me: "That's a pretty dress, but please go put on some pants."
N: "Why?"
Me: "Because you can't play on the playground as well in a dress and tights, and I know you love playing on the playground."
N: "I can play in a dress!"

...and I realized: of course she can play in a dress. She sees no conflict between wearing a dress and doing the monkey bars or climbing up the slide. She doesn't care if she gets a hole in her tights. Only *I* see that conflict and want to save her from it. So I've tried to just let her wear a dress any time she wants and vow to buy lots of tights. I will buy a subscription to cute tights if it means she gets to grow up and feel pretty and strong at the same time whenever she wants.

Me, I don't think they're incompatible, but I have difficulty wanting to inhabit them at the same time. Maybe I also fear that if I present as pretty, that I will come off as less interesting or valuable in other ways. Being a disco queen is all well and good, but I could never wear eyeliner to work.

Clearly I don't have a well-formed set of thoughts here, but I am very interested in exploring this territory. How about you? Do you find yourself attracted to people who are conventionally feminine, or distanced/put off? How do you relate to the sort of neat-makeup-and-appearance femininity that is not superglam or freaky (because those, of course, are way easier for me to relate to)?

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I have nothing useful to add.

"yeah, this"

I'll add you a dimension, I think that emotionally I still haven't grokked that pretty, strong, and smart can coexist (pairwise or all three)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Oh! Yes! That! I mean, I've worked to get beyond the 'strong' one, but I definitely had knotted up in the same tangle you describe pre-dilletante.

[catya.livejournal.com]

others.... the sort of strong focused intensity that i am the moth for doesn't often go along with conventionally feminine of the makeup-well-put-together sort. There are physical conventionally feminine things i do really find attractive, like beautiful long hair, well-fitting clothing, etc, but i am attracted to those things on anyone :)

self... i do a lot of conventionally femme things as part of dressing for work, like eyebrows and dying my hair (well, henna), a little eyeliner, painted toes if i am wearing sandals (oops, mine are a mess), wearing more/different jewelry, vaguely taming my hair, blah blah. I'm not conventionally pretty, which may contribute to it just feeling like part of the drag.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Oh huh. I actually do think of you as 'conventionally pretty', which it is worth noting is far from the only kind of pretty that someone can be.

I also like that kind of intensity, and value it in myself. I think maybe I've been lumping it in with 'strong' while running over this in my head -- I originally meant 'physically strong' but rhetorical laziness allowed me to lump that in with a strength of character that may actually be yet another axis in this for me.

[srl.livejournal.com]

As a generalization: if i can't readily detect that a woman with "neat-makeup-and-appearance femininity" doesn't also have a critical social/political analysis of how femininity and privilege modify one another, I'm usually completely uninterested.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

But is that any more or less true for feminine women than it would be for, say, cis men or well-educated white folks or the rich?

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

I regularly feel like I am the most, or least among the most, thoroughly femme women of my acquaintance not only because I regularly wear skirts or dresses but also because I think that in my (our) social circle I'm one of the few women who puts on makeup on a daily basis. (in my professional life, or in the dance world, I fall somewhere in the middle.)

and I felt ashamed about this for a really long time, like I was somehow betraying feminism by not being okay with having acne and wanting to cover it up. This persisted until my mom and I went shopping with cross-dressers and I figured if they could have a good time being a girl so but I, especially since society makes it so much easier for me to enjoy my femme-ness.

that said, I think long and hard about how femme I want to appear in any given context. I never wear skirts on the first day of the semester, for example, or let my hair down (literally) for the first few weeks of classes. Because I fit neatly into contemporary conventional standards of beauty I often play certain aspects of my appearance down when I want to be taken particularly seriously.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you while writing this because I've always been interested in how easily and thoroughly femme you are without giving up other parts of your identity. Now seems like a good time to mention that I admire it!

[yagagriswold.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this subject, some more coherent than others.

One of the problems I have with what you call "daily femininity" is that it shades uncomfortably into mandatory femininity. I've met a lot of women, in this country and in this era, who feel that they can not leave the house without makeup on. They consider themselves--or believe that their communities consider them-- unfit for public space without cosmetic correction.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Heh - it turns out most of my thoughts on this are incoherent at a first pass, since I deleted a lot from this entry before hitting 'post'. Including a bit about the mandatory femininity! One nice thing about only wearing makeup on Very Special Occasions is that it is not in any way perceived as my face's default state. I like a low bar. :)

Related but not: I knew someone in college who wore high heels every day of her life, enough that her Achilles tendon had essentially shrunk, and would complain if she walked in flats. Unsurprisingly, she also wore significant makeup every day. I have no idea what happened to her, but I think of her a lot.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I think there's a range. The range starts at geeky/unconventional which for me is most attractive, hits conventionally feminine which is just so omnipresent that there's nothing to be attracted to or put off by, and then goes down to someone with a spray-on tan, botox and a pressing need to dress like one of the Kardashians. It takes a concerted effort to stay in Category 3 for me to be put off by someone.

Off-topic, but it piqued my curiosity: why the stage makeup?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I was a reveler in Reign of Revelry at the Armory!

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i've mentioned to you before noticing that i tend to feel distanced from women who perform a certain kind of classical femininity that goes with standard makeup and nice dresses and so forth, i think from having self-identified from junior high or so as not part of the world usually inhabited by people who present that way.

i'm delighted by the project of teaching natalie she can be both pretty and strong. :) i've been confused to run across even in circus people seeming to have internalized some notion of a conflict between the two; but it still seems like a good place to encourage her to be both. :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

People in circus, really? Huh - wow. Because I had thought that it was the IDEAL place to encourage her to do both. Watching people go from regular people to FANCY CIRCUS PERFORMERS and back to regular people seems like an important transition to watch. (On that note, I *truly* loved seeing the sexy nun transform into the shlumpy sad man for one show!)

As for your bit about self-identification -- I know that's a big part of the problems I had with strength/physicality before meeting you, and it's probably worth exploring how much that's going on here as well.

[veek.livejournal.com]

I do sometimes find myself attracted to conventionally feminine women, and it has nothing to do with femme-ness but is tied to being "well put together." I like it when people clearly put thought and effort into their appearance; some subset of those will express it in conventionally feminine ways.

On the other hand, I see women every day who clearly put effort into their very femme appearance, but somehow vacuously, uncritically so. That tends to repel me.

For myself, things get more complicated. For many years I bucked against the feminine ideal that my mother was shoving down my throat—and I love long skirts (though my skin has always hated make-up). I think I do have a pretty-femme side and sometimes express it, but don't tend to identify with it except when I'm expressing it.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I think I do have a pretty-femme side and sometimes express it, but don't tend to identify with it except when I'm expressing it.

That sentence is really interesting to me. I think that perhaps I don't identify with my femme side even when I *am* expressing it.

[rising-moon.livejournal.com]

Maybe I also fear that if I present as pretty, that I will come off as less interesting or valuable in other ways. Being a disco queen is all well and good, but I could never wear eyeliner to work.

O that is a full and redolent topic. Billions of dollars of marketing and manufacturing are waiting to reassure you... ;)

But your questions:

Do you find yourself attracted to people who are conventionally feminine, or distanced/put off?

Whether or not a person is convenionally feminine is an element of their appeal, but not a condition. I appreciate a pretty wide range of "reads-as".

How do you relate to the sort of neat-makeup-and-appearance femininity that is not superglam or freaky (because those, of course, are way easier for me to relate to)?

Hmmm... Superglam or freaky aside, I appreciate thoughtful attire that ornaments -- whether it's clothes or makeup -- probably in proportion to its subtlety in context. (urg. I'm trying to be specific, and coming off all obfuscatory. sorry... might be clearer over a glass of single malt)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

might be clearer over a glass of single malt

Many things are! I can help you with that.

Rambly rambly... I think I had a point somewhere.

[palmir.livejournal.com]

Preamble: The reverse of this is WEIRD. But also you asked for attraction-to, which I have more personal experience with. There are tangents and not-fully-formed thoughts below.

I'm all for non-makeup, but I am also attracted to women who use makeup in an understated/accentuated/minimalist way ("proper"? So that you can't really tell it's there, but it makes things more femininy). On the other hand, I tend to like more sporty/athletic women (of whatever shape/size), so I'm sure that plays into my attraction to lack of makeup. I like dressing myself up, and like to go out dressed up as a couple, where makeup and more elaborate preparation is expected, just that it isn't where I tend to figure out whether or not someone is attractive-to-me.

On the opposite side of things, I have no idea how this topic will play out with my son. I have a strong inclination to let him wear whatever he wants, but I also would save him peer-mocking if I could. Kids will be cruel no matter what small difference can be construed, though, so what kind of reaction would a boy in a pink dress get? Maybe I need to read up more on how to reinforce self-confidence and such. He's only recently offered an opinion on the things he should wear, and that's based on the clothes that he has, so I have some time.

(Amusingly, my son saw me shaving my legs in the shower last night, and said, "My turn!" In the past I've offered him a bladeless razor when I'm shaving my face, which is fun for all involved so long as I keep the real razors well out of reach. Last night it was time for him to get ready for bed, so no mock-leg-shaving could happen.) (Also, I'm fairly sure I got my habit of armpit-shaving from a comment here some time ago, since it matched so well with my paranoia of BO.) (I'm also not looking forward to explaining the difference between a kilt and a skirt - "A kilt is a skirt that a man wears" reinforces gender dress roles, made doubly hard by my wife almost NEVER wearing skirts or dresses.)

Parenting is *hard*.

Re: Rambly rambly... I think I had a point somewhere.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

YOU! I love hearing from you on this.

Did you see the brouhaha about J Crew and the kid with pink toenails (http://www.towleroad.com/2011/04/stewarttoenails.html)?

For all that it's hard raising a girl, I often think about how hard it must be to conscientiously raise *boys*.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

What strikes me as I read this is how little I think about these things these days. I'm raising two girls, and I'm constantly confronted with questions about gender expression and beauty. Yet I've so internalized my own comfort zone with this stuff that I rarely pause to think about what my kids are learning or how I could more intentionally teach them my values.

I'm not even sure I can articulate well what my values are. I love tattoos and loathe breast implants. I dye my hair all the colors of the rainbow and find blonde highlights off-putting. Nail polish is fun, lipstick is not allowed.

I think I like embracing cosmetic changes in appearance as a kind of game, but I dislike conforming to external standards of beauty.

That said, I like being pretty. I want to be considered attractive by my peers. I've just chosen a peer group that considers purple hair and piercings hotter than perfect tans and flat abs.

What I want for my kids is a kind of fierce comfort in their own bodies. I want them to dress up or not, wear make up or not, etc, to make themselves happy, not to please those who are looking at them. Of course that's complicated, because what makes me happy in my appearance has everything to do with the beauty I see around me.

Still. I'm reminded of an interesting thing I read recently about girls' emerging sexuality, and the importance of teaching young women to embrace and pursue their own pleasure, as contrasted with the way pop culture encourages teen girls to become objects of pleasure for men, without considering what the girls themselves might want.

I think I want my kids to have the same kind of agency about gender expression and beauty that I hope they'll have about sexuality: that it be driven by their own pleasure rather than a perceived need to provide pleasure to others.

I'm going to stop rambling now and hope that made even a little sense. Thanks for the thought-provoking.

[msmsgirl.livejournal.com]

I love this conversation; my gender performance is somewhat different from y'all's, but I just LOVE the idea that a little girl might *never have the thought* that skirts ("girls' clothes") are more of an impediment to playing than pants (unmarked, so originarily/default male)! What a far, welcome change from my mom in kindergarten, when little girls weren't allowed to play on the playground equipment because they had to wear dresses.

I wholeheartedly second this point about wanting to teach kids that clothes/appearance/adornment are for *their own* pleasure more than for being-looked-at. I think this was a crucial piece that was missing from my very well-meaning, liberal, anti-superficiality, substance-over-style parents. And ironically, some of their prohibitions probably caused me to end up with a more conventional-femme gendered "look" as an adult -- because looking "natural" was privileged above all else, and the only experimentation I was allowed to do with my appearance as I entered adolescence was that which deviated as little as possible from the "natural" (ie clear lip gloss and nail polish), I think that sort of curtailed how adventuresome my aesthetic became. I did get extremely lucky, though, to be able to think of this stuff almost exclusively as about my own pleasure - hope I can manage to impart that, too...

[blk]

Oh man, I was just about to settle in and do some work, and you start being all interesting. :)

You have other interesting questions, but it's complicated by my own identity, so I'm speaking to that first.

I got no attention for my looks (and so assumed I was not particularly attractive) until I turned adult and went to college, and suddenly I got more attention than I knew what to do with. Eventually I concluded that yes, I was "conventionally pretty" in many ways - slender, white, blonde, relatively symmetrical, and light on body hair - even though I rarely engaged in many "feminine" habits (makeup, modern hairstyles, heels).

I've had a roller-coaster ride of experiences since. Yes, I've attracted a lot of male attention, many of whom could only interact with me by putting me on a pedestal, to the point that I didn't trust any guy who seemed interested in me too quickly. I've attracted a great deal of female spite, being told in various ways over the years that I flirt too much when I smile, that I am leading men on by wanting to be friends with them, that I am a threat, I am a problem, I am scary.

For the most part, I've had no desire to make myself appear -more- feminine, except for specific times when it felt more appropriate to dress extravagantly and attract attention. I've put a great deal of time and effort into building myself off other things - being a writer, a programmer, learning to climb, to run, to cook, to talk to people. I get greatly annoyed and fiercely proud when people around me are shocked by an ability I've worked on (that isn't "feminine"). Learning how to be comfortable in skirts and dresses for casual or work wear has been a long, slow, sometimes angsty process.

I'm pretty sure I'll never wear makeup, though.

make-up

[diatom.livejournal.com]

Make-up looks weird!... especially foundation, to my eyes. I can see it on the person's pores. It seems really fake, like having plastic skin! I don't understand why Kate Middleton does it, either, but maybe that is me being unreasonable.

I do wear lipstick sometimes. I have worn eye shadow. But foundation...*cringe* My mom has worn it always, but she's now in her 70s. I still think I like the look of her skin as is, no additions. But then, I only recently got her to dig her own lovely silver hair...

I've heard the spite comment before: I got told I smile too much during a Scottish country dance week's intensive... I made wives uncomfortable, but they misunderstood my smiles for, I guess, flirtation/devious intention! Sigh!

Dresses and monkey bars

[spike.livejournal.com]

Just a practical sidenote for the warmer-than-tights-weather months (both of them)... my kid loves dresses and skirts and loves playing at the playground and on swinging upside down on the monkey bars and turning cartwheels. She also does not particularly like people seeing her underwear while she's doing those things, and has decided that her favorite solution is basically bike/athletic/technical stretchy little shorts worn in addition to the dress/skirt (and in addition to underwear). When laundry cycles conspire against her, she's even been known to put on a short skort under a long dress so she can turn as many carefree cartwheels as she wishes.

Re: Dresses and monkey bars

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

My smallest daughter has a large collection of skorts that she wears almost every day. But she insists on wearing underwear over the skort, kind of defeating the purpose. I'm really hoping she outgrows this soon.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

That whole neat-makeup-and-appearance version of femininity is one that has on-and-off appeal to me: in some ways, I'd love to look that put-together (not least because I see that it causes people to take one seriously in some ways), and in real life, I keep coming back to wear jeans and comfy shoes and walk out the door with my hair wet. I also have intellectual reservations about it, both about playing up traditional gender roles for profit and about doing it while many people are still, in practice, much more limited by such roles than I am.

Also, it took me until late in my twenties to realize I could *sometimes* be that put-together girl and *sometimes* wear my old jeans and LL Bean chamois shirt and it was still all okay.

On a practical note, from someone who wears skirts almot every day in the summer, bike shorts or leggings are more durable than tights while still removing 100% of the social inappropriateness from hanging upside-down in a skirt :)

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I have gotten a lot of unwanted attention for my looks - putting on makeup accentuates them. So, for many years I avoided make up in my daily life, and even at special events, in order to not attract unwanted attention.

I am older now, and when I wear make up (for example, when burlesqueing) I find that people will actually stare at me. Most men are so dumbfounded that they often do NOT catcall. I don't know if this is because of the combination of short afro and heavy uber-femme make up makes me read as a drag queen or what have you - but it's certainly confusing enough that I don't get hassled. Usually. I will notice men (and sometimes women) staring but then they nod respectfully.

I am not comfortable wearing burlesque makeup outside the club.

I wear make up more freely now since starting to burlesque, in my daily life. I wear it out (all with a lighter touch!) on dates and to parties, and I wore some to my reunion. Now that I am an adult, I am much more comfortable with my beauty, and I know that I won't wield it in what I conceive of "immoral" ways. I'm much more confidant in my intellect.

If someone underestimates me because I'm beautiful, and because I wore *make up* to a meeting or something? They are a fool, and deserve the smack down they are gonna receive for it.

N.

[spike.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever been involved with anyone who put on make-up every day, which probably is less-rationalized and therefore more-useful data point than anything I could say about it. On the other hand, everyone I've been involved with has also sometimes had great fun and taken great delight in getting all glam'd up. But every day make-up? I don't think so. Not that I can recall. Oh, wait, actually there was one person. FWIW, she was born in 1959, worked in media, and had bad skin; I think all three things contributed to her daily choice to put on makeup. Also, I only went out with her for five months.

As for me, I have daily grooming that I have to do to look presentable (shave my face), and weekly (groom the facial hair that I don't shave), and if I don't keep the hair on my head short, it starts to look unkempt (and lousy) because it only really grows on the side and back of my head. Weird, I know. Anyway, I can and do understand the notion of having to work on the appearance of one's face every day to keep it acceptable looking.

On the other hand, I'm a rich white middle-aged land-owning male, and I'll never have any real clue about the personal experience of being a woman, or having my face judged as a woman might. I'm very happy that because I wear sunblock so religiously, and because I wear a brimmed hat that shades my face, my skin doesn't "show my age." I can only imagine what worrying about this kind of thing might be like for a woman.

But to return to the questions posed, I think I'm not really that attracted to daily femme drag.

[beloitst.livejournal.com]

Do you find yourself attracted to people who are conventionally feminine, or distanced/put off?

No. I'm attracted to self-confidence, and I'm put off by low-self esteem. People

How do you relate to the sort of neat-makeup-and-appearance femininity that is not superglam or freaky

Depends on the confidence of the person involved. I've seen super-glam and freaky people who lack basic self-esteem. I've seen beauty queens who are incredibly self-confident in their own, make-up-less skin. I believe the decisions we make about our appearance, to alter, not alter, etc. can affect our confidence, and we have to know what is going to make us feel good about ourselves.

For the record, as a kid I was always annoyed that skirts were not seen as acceptable play clothes, especially since my interest in historical clothing started early and I knew that girls wearing pants was a pretty recent phenomenon. Looking back, the more likely explanation is that most of my skirts/dresses were fancy for-special-occasions things, and my mother was much less concerned about me wearing a skirt/dress and much more concerned about me wearing out my limited wardrobe of fancy clothing.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i've absolutely never looked in a mirror and had that experience, so i totally fail to relate :)

femininity?

[diatom.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, is this a big one for me. I feel strange that, now that I wear contact lenses sometimes, I get all these compliments. I like that, when I lost weight recently, or when I wear a skirt to dance class, that mostly people just say I look different, or they point out that I look different... not too much of the "you lost weight therefore you look better!" nonsense.

I have trouble wearing skirts in public and feeling...empowered, by them. I guess I deal by going slightly Over The Top, slightly LOUD... *sigh*

And the contacts show my face, in a way that is disconcerting. I cannot hide behind my nice loud vintage frames. i am not sure if I am pretty or not. Mostly my face is an unfamiliar sight. Interesting eye color... I just... well, fitting the Standard Model of Beauty feels very strange to me. It feels like someone else's beauty, not mine.

My mother loves seeing me in a skirt, or in contacts. That is her language, and she's fluent in it. I speak something different...

I'm not sure what I would do if my kid insisted on only being a gender stereotype. If I have a girl and her favorite color is pink...then what? ! One moves through it...*sigh*

I still feel like I'm in drag when I wear a skirt/dress. I guess I don't want to become an Invisible Female, with identity lost behind the façade of those standards of What Is Beautiful....

Re: femininity?

[diatom.livejournal.com]

oh, and I don't trust people who are too pretty. I don't believe they're real. I have given a lover a hard time, for being too pretty, like a shallow person might be... He had to prove himself something deeper/rougher... ;p

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

Mostly put off.

If I don't know otherwise, I assume someone in feminine drag is just another one of the sheep falling into societally-imposed gender roles.

BTW, I think the same for masculine drag.

I am reminded that in the movies nowadays, the love-interest can be replaced between the first and second in a series, and for the most part, no one notices. Women in perfect feminine drag lose their individuality, and I believe that part of why society imposes it upon them.

[diatom.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Thus my interest in the Zing that helps me stand out. I think this is the battle / conflict that femme women get into. (dyke/lesbian/queer femme, not some other kind, i mean!)

Thus the slight strangeness. My goal in drag is not just to fit in. (Although, with masculine drag, it's true I try MORE to fit in / erase signifiers that don't fit with the male ideal.) With female drag, I'm trying to...kick it up a notch, I guess. Some people say my glasses or tiny earplugs signify me as possible-queer... but with hipsters, I'm reduced to my attitude. I guess that's also why so many femmes have lots of tattoos or body piercings. I'm less visible, in that respect. (I'm not even a full-blooded femme, either!)

[dreda.livejournal.com]

My eye is drawn to people who seem to think about how they appear in the world. (I am speaking here of visual-only - people become different when they interact, even if it's reinforcing an initial impression.)

I am just now, skidding towards 40, settling into being genuinely comfortable owning my femme-ness. And it's just where I feel best seated. And really, only I know exactly what I mean by my presentation and I am sanguine about that. I am happy to engage in discourse if someone's interest is piqued. I do know that I am put off by people who assume that, since my presentation sometimes or even often aligns with social norms for feminine performance, I am an unthinking and unexamined sheep. Assumption cuts a lot of ways, and is used to police people out in many directions.

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

I have this happen too. That whole makeup thing is strange, ain't it? That said, I also enjoy the fact that I look good without it, and so I save it for special occasions, save some powder for my (rather) shiny self. :)

[gretchens.livejournal.com]

What an interesting discussion -- I do have the shorts/tights/pants under dresses/skirts for Ingrid, but it's probably about 75% wanting her to be warm and also knowing that certain skirts end up getting in her way, and she will want to peel them off when it's time to climb. Actually, recently she's started peeling off her skirts and running around in tights and I find myself telling her to put on pants, but it's kind of like that weird line (to me, anyway) where I wouldn't let my neighbors see me in a tank top and underpants, but in my swimming tankini it's okay.

I've actually wondered sometimes if people think my girls were 'wasted' on me, especially when I see very girlie girl moms having sons, which is probably my baggage. I am not a makeup/dresses person, my work clothes are basically a self-imposed uniform, I don't think I own a shirt with a print, and I sometimes wish I could be a little less ... institutional... but I feel like I just don't wear many styles well, because of weight, or shape, or whatever. And then I see people who are my size or bigger and they can totally do it! Recently I was at a networking breakfast and I noticed several really cool and beautiful necklaces, but I feel like I don't know how to wear them, or that they would 'compete' with my glasses or whatever.

Makeup is a sometimes thing, and Ingrid is fascinated by it. My mom wears it every day and she gave Ing an empty compact that Ingrid loves to play with, and I don't want to discourage her from that, but I want her to know her inner beauty blah blah blah is what we really treasure.

Actually, seeing the OM plaque was at her gymnastics show, which she really loved. Last year we did dance (at Robinson, after I'd called around and they were the only place that didn't do some over the top JonBenet style recital at the end) and she was meh about it, but she really loved gym and I love seeing her try to improve her strength and being proud of that stuff, when so many of her peers are in pageanty dance instead.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

I feel sort of bad about this, but I tend to have a knee-jerk dismissive response to women who work hard at playing the conventionally feminine game: highlighted hair, fake tans, fake boobs, fake nails...actually, fake stuff tends to bug me. I don't mind green hair, or black fingernails, or tattoos, all of which are of course "artificial" alterations of appearance. It's more about things that are supposed to augment natural attributes in ways that make them look, in my view, grotesque. When I see that sort of look, I often make snap judgments: the woman in question is brainwashed, not very bright, totally buying into mainstream cultural expectations, probably watches American Idol...etc. etc.

This is unfair, but it's a hard habit for me to get out of.

On the other hand, my girlfriend satyrgrl is an absolutely stunning uber-femme. In most situations, she does everything possible to highlight, accentuate, and beautify her already-gorgeous 6-foot redheaded self. But of course she is performing femininity on purpose and with awareness; she even identifies as a femme even though she is, like me, more straight than not. The way she does it, though, is not the conventional way, and involves neither plastic surgery nor tanning beds nor complicated hairstylists. For some reason that makes a huge difference to me, even though she does wear makeup most of the time.

I myself love to put on makeup and get prettified for parties, though very occasionally I do butch drag as well. I can't be bothered to wear makeup every day, especially since my acne cleared up and I feel like I don't have to. Like dancingwolfgirl, I often go out in jeans with my hair wet.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

there might also be the subconscious "zero sum" assumption that maintenance-of-femininity comes at the cost of putting that effort into something else, and that overall makes you a less interesting/worthwhile person

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

there might also be the subconscious "zero sum" assumption that maintenance-of-femininity comes at the cost of putting that effort into something else, and that overall makes you a less interesting/worthwhile person

Yes! I think is part of it. It also kind of weirdly erases women's agency in choosing if they want to put on makeup or not.

Then again, my job doesn't require me to look "done"