I am sitting here watching my cursor blink at me and I want to curse right back at it. I know what issue I want to address, and I am finding it so difficult to actually do it.
I very recently watched a documentary that smacked me in the face in so many ways, I need an Advil or two.
This documentary focused primarily on the objectification of women. I am fully aware this is not a new topic, and my readers may sigh and think, "Heard all this before."
By now my readers know I have five children. Four girls and one boy. What you do not know is that when I found out I had a boy (Upon his delivery and contrary to what the ultrasound told us), I was terrified.
I was 25 and believed men were the root of all evil. I was so hyper focused on raising my son to appreciate and value women, that I think I ignored teaching my daughters the same lesson. I did not care when at age two my son wanted to wear a tutu of his sisters. I applaud even today the way he shows respect to his amazing girlfriend. They are equals.
But did I teach this to my daughters?
No.
My daughters were raised to be the free little spirits they were, but in retrospect I did encourage the stereotyped female role. Whose tutu did my son borrow? His sisters. I bought matching dresses for them, every Disney Princess, and American Doll that looked like them.
On their own they discovered where they wanted to fall among the title of being a woman. I have one daughter who never liked the girly things, I have one who never knew how to put on makeup, I have one who loves makeup, and one who obsesses over fashion.
I have always had body issues with being too heavy, and in the last ten years I overcompensate for my weight by wearing a lot of dresses and skirts. Yet I have tattoos on my arms of skeletons and daggers. I look back to my "thin" days and how I dressed. Overalls, shorts I bought in the men's section so they could hang on my hips, and always tank tops. I still wear tank tops but that could be a climate dictation.
What was my chosen career? Fashion. I can not help now but to feel as if I am part of the problem.
"If you wear this shade it will really make your eyes pop" because lord knows if our eyes are not as big and round as a Disney Princess no one will think we are pretty.
I have worked fashion show after fashion show, more photo shoots than I can count. I have watched male photographers make models pose in ridiculous ways that they think is sexy.
Yet, I myself only wear makeup if I am working. I usually apply it on my way to work at each red light. I can not wait to get home and take it off.
I am captivated by makeup, I retail it, I collect it, but I do not use it on me. My tiny personal makeup bag has a few things and I always wear the same things.
As I get older I am just now learning to love my body. This is not easy on a Grand Canyon scale. In youth I loved my breasts, small, always a B cup and as perky as a Grande Cup of Pumpkin spiced latte. Of late my breasts have reached National Geographic proportion. Still, I wont wear a bra on most days, and it comes off before the makeup does.
I do not abide by the rules of my profession. Yes I want to look pretty, yes I miss the days of turning heads of both males and females, but I lump that with youth. I will never be that again. I am coming to terms with what being a woman really means, while simultaneously guilty of supporting the gender bias.
I love making people look good. I love when they feel their hair after I have cut it or styled it and they smile with happiness. I love that I can take a 15 year old girl look sexy and vulnerable at the same time.
I sit here and reflect on that last sentence and feel sick about it.
Is it wrong to want to feel hot, sexy, and desirable?
Is it wrong that I have spent my professional life disseminating this myth that if you feel you look good on the outside it will reflect how you feel on the inside?
Have I neglected my daughters by focusing so much on my son?
Is it too late for them to learn?
I am faced now with a question I do not know how to answer, how do I go about my career in a balanced way?
I have not been working all that much in the last year, a photo shoot here or there, a wedding or two, and maybe a few zombies. Even some of my zombies required that they still appear sexy. Not a problem, I can do that.
I know women who are authors, judges, athletes, doctors, actors, professors. At some point these women have ended up in my chair asking for help. Help to tame curls, what makeup is best, should they color their hair or let it go grey. All of them not knowing they are all asking the same thing of me.
To make them look better then they perceive themselves.
If I could go back over my career I might change a few things, I might not. I do know I would change what I said and how I encouraged my daughters.
I know now that if I could go back in time to a point where I sang "Hush Little Baby" I would change it to Que Sera Sera.
Daughters: Don't hush, cry if you need to, scream if you feel it, take a stand, be you, with or without a bra or makeup. Always know there is at least one person on this earth who loves you just the way you are, it may have taken me 46 years to say it, but you are perfect, and you are loved.
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