In 7 days, I will be in college.
In about a month, I’ll be 18.
I still don’t feel like a woman.
When I first hit puberty, I was the opposite of style. I wore literally the same thing everyday: color-coordinated striped stretchy shirts and stretchy matching brightly-colored capris. And the same tennis shoes every day. I wouldn’t wear jeans because I thought they were too uncomfortable. I wore shitty bright red lipstick and I had very severe bangs and I came to school with wet hair. Most of that was my awkwardness with adjusting to the standard ideal of womanhood that I assumed I would someday have to adopt. I had no idea what exactly adult women did to be pretty, so I improvised with what I assumed would be good enough. I still don’t own very many beauty products, although I’ve come a very, very long way since middle school in terms of looking foxy and spectacular.
My daily beauty regime is pretty simple compared to most chicks. I wake up, take my antidepressant, hop in the shower, wash my hair, blowdry, and put on black eyeshadow. And I’m pretty much set for the day. Sometimes I’ll shave. Sometimes I won’t. And really, I’m okay with having hairy legs, most of the time.
In the media and in stores and whatall, I see a lot of stuff like creams to reduce the size of your pores, concealer, eyelash curlers, eyebrow pencils, powder to make your face less shiny. And my reaction to every single one of them is “What? WHY?” I don’t understand. When I walk into a chick store with my friends, I feel like the ugly middle school girl with ugly frizzy hair and bright red lipstick again. Am I supposed to use this? Do all the other girls use this? When I have a career, am I going to have to devote a portion of my income to buying this so that people will take me seriously and know I’m a woman?
Really, that’s probably a pretty common concern for young women growing up. And the beauty corporations know that. That’s why they advertise so heavily and make commercials that make it seem like no woman has crow’s feet and if you do then you gotta hide them cause then you will be SHUNNNNNNED. It sounds so ridiculous! And yet that’s exactly what they do. There is a lot of money in convincing women that they were built wrong.
Recently, I discovered that I have style. It isn’t particularly conventional. I hate wearing heels, for one thing. I am never gonna wear a ladies’ suit and sheer stockings and black stilletos. Nuh uh. I like wearing colors. I like tie-dyed tights and steampunk corsets and large hats and clothing that has weird cuts and leather and lace and wearing turquoise blush with neon pink lipstick and scarlet eyeshadow and I like having long blonde hair that I am never gonna cut because short hair is stupid.
I was inspired to start being as sexy and as stylish as I can be by the ever-fabulous Margaret Cho, who I will be seeing in October with my best friend Superbitch. I was watching the DVD of her tour The Notorious C.H.O, and she said this.
It’s gonna be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially in women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you’re worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, “Ugh, I’m so ugly, I’m so fat, I’m so old.” Don’t you know that’s not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn’t turn around shit.
It was like a light switch got switched on in my brain. And it was then I realised that I was done feeling bad about not being a perfect girl. It is a waste of my time to feel bad about not being conventionally pretty when I could spend that time being an unconventional hottie.
So that is my new ideal. I want to be an Unconventional Hottie. This is my manifesto on what an Unconventional Hottie is.
An Unconventional Hottie is a lady, first and foremost. She is classy in her own way. Some may call her trashy or tacky or childish, but she always looks comfortable with what she is wearing.
She can be a total chubster. She can be rail thin with a freaky nose. She can be shorter than most counters. She can have no legs. She can be Filipino.
She reads Bust Magazine for the articles AND the ads.
She works out often, as best she can, but she does not become enslaved to achieving a body type that is not her own.
She does not mind if her roots are showing.
She does not shave her pubic hair because that shit is itchy.
She boycotts companies that test on animals, because that is messed up and dogs should not wear lipstick.
She has a hobby or four that she is heavily involved in, and that she tries to bring to the masses.
She has piercings and tattooes in odd places, except for when she doesn’t.
She does not allow any of your ageist bullshit.
She does not relax her hair.
She has large, visible pores.
She believes that her body and what she does to it/for it is for her, and her alone. Not people on the street. Not her parents. Not her husband. Not her girlfriends. Not her lesbian lover. Not Rush Limbaugh.
She is, at all times, confident with her body.
She considers herself to be a total babe, even (and especially) when others tell her otherwise.
She is a thinker.
She is a lady.
