On trying too hard

This morning, I devoted a half-hour to crafting my physical appearance for the day. In the back of my mind throughout these 30 minutes was the thought that I was wasting my time with vain, superficial activities -- that I should’ve slept longer or gotten a head start on coursework or talked with my housemates.

I don’t think I’m the only person who devotes some measure of time to my appearance but feels bad for doing so. Tufts is an intellectual, social, busy environment where personal issues in general, and especially personal issues that are not deemed serious or important, are often considered worthless ways to spend time.

Certainly, when I first came to Tufts, I thought the clubs, organizations and activities here that celebrated people’s physical appearances and bodies were trite. And much of the world, it seems, agrees. Women in particular are expected to look perfect, but we aren’t supposed to care too much or "try too hard." We are supposed to be skinny but also eat burgers and drink beers, at least according to advertisements. We are supposed to look beautiful without wearing makeup, and makeup advertisements often emphasize how their particular products make us look like we aren’t wearing makeup at all, as if we really did wake up like this.

I remember one of my friends from high school remarking on how she never wore “subtle” makeup. When she chose to wear makeup, she selected lip colors that sharply contrasted with her skin tone and drew thick cat-eyes around her eyelids. It seemed like such a radical idea to me at the time, because everything women wear is meant to conceal the truth in some way; if we aren’t wearing a bra, for example, we’re supposed to wear a dress or shirt that hides this fact, and if we have our period, we’re certainly supposed to keep that a secret.

This notion that what we do in order to look the way we do is inherently shameful and must be kept secret creates an environment conducive to so many psychological problems -- most obviously to eating disorders. Those with eating disorders are often ashamed of the condition and incredibly secretive about it.

Or at least I was when I had an undiagnosed eating disorder at age 15. I remember thinking to myself that I couldn’t really call myself a feminist until I got over it, because having an eating disorder meant I was overly concerned with how I looked and, God forbid, affected by the western media’s standards of beauty. I never admitted it to anyone until I ostensibly recovered from it.

We have to get over this ridiculous idea that strong, powerful and desirable women don’t “care too much” about their appearances, because it only encourages women to hide the things they do — dangerous or not — in order to look the way they look. We live in a society that tells us we must adhere to specific western, white supremacist beauty standards. That’s what we need to be critiquing — not the women trying to exist within it.