Seriously.
I've been doing all that stuff for over a decade now, and it has never felt like a treat nor did I ever feel like a princess. It felt more like an expected obligation and I felt more like a slave.
I tried to like it, I did. Because I felt I was supposed to. All the women around me were always looking forward to their vanity days, and women are expected to brag about how they like to "take care of themselves"- it's supposed to equal self-love, so I played along.
But there was something wrong with the picture.
I had one of these "salon days" today, for example. I avoid them nowadays, but eventually, if one wants to look *socially* acceptable at important social events, one has to go through the primping parade. As I lay on the waxing table with my right leg on my left shoulder and waited for my Iranian waxing lady to unkindly pour the hot wax on the back of my right thigh, holding my breath as I anticipated the next step, I thought, "Well. If this is a Princess' day, I don't ever want to get promoted to Queen status." After the never-comfortable-always-painful waxing session, I was nice and smooth, as is expected of women. I did, in fact, feel like I fit in to society just a little bit more, just by having less hair on my body. Great.
Next: mani-pedi. They make it sound like so much fun, "Oh! Get a bunch of your girlfriends and go get your nails done!" Because of course! That's the safest way to get women to bond! Keep them focused on their vanity. I personally always find it quite boring, to sit there and not move too much so as to not fuck anything up, reading about how Sandra Bullock is following Madonna's and Angelina's footsteps as she adopts a black baby post-getting-cheated-on, feeling rather elitist, while a lady- sometimes kind, sometimes miserable- digs out my cuticles and files my nails so that they all look the same and make everyone else feel more comfortable- another woman under control, mission accomplished. And why yes, I do start to feel like my inner animal is a little more tamed, like I probably won't yell at anyone today. I mean, how could a young woman, so nicely waxed, smooth, and with such well-behaved nails actually raise her voice or demand anything? No, no. This young woman that is coming forth speaks softly, smiles, flirts, and eats only lettuce.
I don't get my hair or eyebrows done anymore, but if I did, that would be approximately another four hours of Princess Time, of taming and controlling, of willing me into being a well-behaved girl- a role I know all too well.
I walk out fairly exhausted from all the primping and forced interactions, but looking like what I'm supposed to look like. That's what I went in there for, after all.
People ask me what I did today, and I tell them, and they're jealous of my Princess Day. I want to say, "This was a Princess Day? If I were a Princess I'd ban salons from my kingdom. I'd ban beauty standards. I'd rather spend my day fertilizing soil for corn to grow on."
You may have caught on to the fact that I'm a little bitter about all this. I'm bitter about all the money, time, and effort I spent in order to look like something I have been told to look like. I'm bitter about the fact that femininity looks like a tamed fragile delicate little hairless puppy.
And most of all, I'm bitter about the fact that I'm still doing all this stuff.
I realize I'm starting to sound like an angry feminist, but I'm really starting to think more women should be angry about this.
At one point, I just did all the vanity routine without questioning it. But NOW, I question it, I disagree with it, I am completely self-aware as I go through the motions, but I STILL do it.
Why?
Maybe because, let's face it, sometimes -most times- complying is just easier than rebelling. We all get tired, we all want to fit in and be told we're pretty, we all want love and intimacy, and having hairy legs and uneven nails doesn't really seem to do a damn thing except turn people off.
Decades of feminism and here we are, self-aware but doing the same things we've always done.
For a while, women defied the standards of beauty. Short hair, no bras, no waxing, and other such physical rebellions that paralleled the actual changes they fought for: equal pay, value for housework, fair divorce laws, protection against sexism and harassment, etc.
But it's a difficult a battle. How do we get Vogue do to a spreadsheet with women who have not waxed or gotten their nails done or plucked their eyebrows? We can't even get them to do a spreadsheet with women who are above a size -4. And how do we get men to understand the illusion they buy into when they prefer women to look/act like meek shaved lambs? We can't even get them to take responsibility for having sex with 13-year-olds.
It's hard and it's up to us and there's no formula for us to follow. As Naomi Wolf wrote in her book, The Beauty Myth, "A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. If we are to free ourselves of the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see."
And what is this new way to see?
I don't know, but maybe it starts with undoing the little myths, like the "salon day = princess day" myth, and the "femininity is soft and small" myth. So maybe we still get waxed and get our nails done, but let's be clear about why and what we're propelling by doing so. The wrong things have been on pedestals long enough. Let's bring some of them down.
Let's bring down Unhealthy Beauty Standards.
Let's bring down Days Lost to Vanity.
Let's bring down Women are Soft and Small.
Let's bring down Women Enjoy Suffering for Beauty.
And, please, let's bring down the damn Princess Days.
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