The Lesbian Beauty

From neck down, I am the ultimate “filthy feminist” - untouched body hair, no bra, and occasionally I bust out the wide legged three-quarter pants which apparently strike fear into the hearts of snowflake meninists. But curiously, the Tumblr worthy image suddenly stops at roughly my chin. From there up, I am the capitalist patriarchy’s dream girl. My face is covered in hundreds of dollars of skincare and makeup, hair products for my curls which I can’t bear the thought of shaving off, and semi-permanent eyelash and eyebrow tint. I’m well aware that half the lotions and potions I smear on my face twice a day every day don’t actually work and that I was just drawn in by the pretty white packaging and the promise of buyable beauty. I’m well aware that make up is gendered, inherently oppressive, and even my glittery, bright pink smokey eyes aren't “artistic” enough to escape the conventional beauty standard conformity they embody. I could go on about how much I enjoy blending eyeshadows, the coolness of fresh foundation when it touches your face, but I’m well aware that if I didn't feel societal pressure to wear makeup I probably… wouldn’t.

I know this because when I’m heading out to somewhere I know I will see attractive people - or might see attractive people - I will wear more makeup than if not. Because I’ll do my hair up nicer if I’m in the company of people whom I care what they think of my looks. Because I’ll make sure my eyelashes and eyebrows are freshly tinted if I won’t be able to wear makeup - at the beach, or an overnight gig of some description. And it’s oppressive; the money, the hours of sleep I miss because I’m applying concealer in the morning or removing mascara at night, the stress of planning ahead for beauty routines on the go. They’re small, but they add up into a daily life where your confidence and your desirability are contingent on the money you spend on little bits of silicone and coloured pigment wrapped in plastic.

Essentially, my build-a-girl self project has so far failed in seceding the male gaze. “The male gaze” simply denotes that attractiveness, specifically of cis women, is defined by what men enjoy. Beauty is not objective, and in this society beauty is constructed by and for straight men. By not-so-radical extension, the beauty and fashion industries are geared towards making women desirable to a male standard. Every Dove advertisement, every strappy red piece of lace with bows on it in Bras N’ Things tells me I’m not particularly beautiful, but I could be if I spend money on the right things. “Beauty” is toxic, and I’m swimming in it.

The indicator of success in escaping the male gaze would be when I stop feeling proud of my conventional beauty. When I stop being smug that I have the “right” kind of butt, the “correct” fashion sense (one that shows off said butt), and “flattering” makeup. When I stop mentally linking men who want to kiss me with men who think I’m “beautiful”, because I will understand that I cannot trust men’s standard of what “beautiful” is.

I met a girl who was not “beautiful”. Her hair was a mixture of short and oddly shaved, she wore low-rise jeans and a terrible button up shirt, her eyebrows were pale. And in the saga of being maybe sort of kinda a little bit queer sometimes, I thought she was gorgeous. Where the expectation for blonde eyelashes is to coat them in mascara because it frames the eyes better, where the norm is long hair falling suggestively over a girl’s shoulders, I thought her face-bareness and hair-shortness was one of the best things I’d ever seen.

There is a long history of lesbian fashion as a political statement and an identifier. Queer writer Judith Butler recounts walking down the street in a poorly fitting brown suit, and being yelled at “you look like a lesbian!” to which she answered “Well, I am”. Lesbians have been called “ugly” for forever and a day because “ugly” is the antithesis of “beautiful”. And “beautiful” means desirable to straight men.

Lesbian beauty is perhaps the most radical defiance of the patriarchy because it does not conform to the male gaze. Women who are beautiful to other women will not buy beauty products or wear mainstream clothes created for male tastes because they have no interest in being attractive for men. Conventional beauty is useless when male validation has no place in your life.

There is a danger in conforming to the male gaze - looking desirable for men invites unwanted touch, or the feared stare of boys who think they own a pretty body. Being “beautiful” is scary and painful and tiring and dehumanising. But women will not hurt you or force you to change your body to something more porn-worthy; I feel an incredible sense of safety in the presence of lesbian beauty. The expectation of spending my time, my money, of submitting myself to the pain of plucking, ripping and scrubbing disappears, and I am allowed to be a full human.

I will probably continue to wear makeup, to tear hairs from my eyebrows and be enticed by “thigh firming” workouts offered at the pilates studio. But this is because I will probably continue to be attracted to men, and swallow the bullshit beauty standards they enforce.

Hannah

Feminism Made Me Queer

When counting my privileges, of which there are many, I’ve always acknowledged how nicely I fit into the dolled-up Heterosexual Dream. Rom-coms are basically porn for my almost shameless wish to meet a Heath Ledger-esque babe and go on spontaneous romantic road trips. Depictions of love and sex in Hollywood have always represented me no matter how toxic, and I find conversations about hookups and relationships accessible without fearing ostracisation.

Understanding this, a while ago I made a tiny change in my lifestyle. I started to use the word “partner” instead of “boyfriend” or “husband” when referring to (seemingly very far away) future relationships. It began when I decided that Marriage Is Awful And I Shall Not Partake In It, and the inherently patriarchal word “husband” irked me. I found myself relishing in the ambiguity of such gender neutral language, enjoying the moments of hopefully educational discomfort when my interlocutor would look me up and down trying to decide if I was a lesbian. Eventually my word choices of “partner” and “they” became solidified enough in my feminist activism that I was bothered by other people using masculine language, asking me if I have a boyfriend, or making incredibly annoying comments about what a future boyfriend might think of my “aggressive” feminism. My unease at this gendered language eventually vocalised itself, and I developed a little voice in my head that indignantly yells “Hey! What if I have a girlfriend?” I didn’t want to make a statement about my sexuality, I just thought the assumption of straightness was problematic, and I wanted to call it out.

This small, everyday activism developed alongside my long term project of deconstructing myself; trying to identify how I’ve been moulded, shaped and twisted by the patriarchy, dismantling those aspects of my personality, and rebuilding them with as much autonomy as my Objectified female being can muster. Despite Simone de Beauvoir’s very sound theory that it is impossible for women to transcend the patriarchy, nevertheless I try. I try pretty damn hard. I’ve stopped shaving, wearing bras, eating meat, saying slurs like “slut” and “gay”, stopped ascribing to concepts of virginity and marriage, and a plethora of other problematic norms. Eventually, I saw that disentangling myself from the patriarchy is a process of seeing myself as a real person. As a Subject, to be philosophical about it.

For now I will simply assert that the patriarchy, at its core, denies female personhood. Women are quite literally not seen as worthy humans; we are not capable leaders because our voices aren’t deep enough, we are not good mothers if we re-enter the workforce but are not good members of society if we stay at home, we are not professional unless we wear makeup and bras, we are not pretty unless we are thin. Growing up in such a world, the path of least resistance is to agree. The easiest thing to do as a woman is to hate yourself, and hate other women, because that’s the “cool” thing to do; idolising masculinity is the key to success.

On the flipside, loving yourself as a woman is a radical act. As much as I seem to be quoting pastel pink watercolour posters on Tumblr, there is an incredible truth to this statement. When our cultural norms of cosmetics, gendered toiletries and secretive language define our social relationship to vaginas, pubic hair and fat, wholeheartedly loving the supposedly “gross” female body is inherently countercultural. When being “not like other girls” is a compliment because “most girls” are boring and superficial, genuinely caring about and loving women is a defiant act. After years of slowly shucking my internalised self-hatred and seeing myself as a real, important human, I began to extend this to other women. Instead of staring at girls’ stretch marks in disgust, I tried mentally congratulating them for their confidence. Instead of rolling my eyes at the “social-climbing-bitch” in high school, I tried to see how her friends mistreating her caused a distrust in genuine female friendships. I like to think that I’ve reached a point where I consider the girls in my life to be just as talented, complex and interesting as the boys I’ve always admired.

There was a girl on a summer camp who I thought was so cool. I wanted to be friends with her because I really cared about her, and the interesting things she talked about, and the awesome way she did her hair. She started to have a strange amount of airtime in my head, and the subsequent internal reflection went like this:

Me to myself: “What’s going on here?”
Myself to me: “You have a crush on her.”
Me to myself: “Interesting.”

It was something of a non-issue, we ended up being friends and it was nice. I had about three simultaneous crushes on various boys on that same camp, and life continued as normal. I didn’t think of myself as being gay or bi or queer and I still don’t, though perhaps I should, considering subsequent feelings for other girls.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that in my feminist mission to love women, I ended up… loving women. In my project to use more gender neutral language, I found myself comfortable with the idea of dating a girl. This is not a new idea, Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” theorised a “lesbian continuum”, wherein female bonding as a radical defiance to the patriarchy is a natural expression of fluid sexuality, but the concept of lesbianism as sexual essentialism is a deterrence to women embracing these feelings.

I don’t relate to the gay narrative of suppressed emotions finally unveiled by a coming out process. This is a valid and important narrative, but what is less talked about is the incredible fluidity of sexuality. And moreover, the active choices we make that affect who we are attracted to. I maintain that if I were to stay stuck in my fourteen year old anti-feminist ways, I would never feel attracted to the girls I do today. It was only in my conscious choice to see women as powerful, beautiful and sexy that I developed romantic feelings towards them. Sexuality is usually linked exclusively with ideas of identity politics, but my wayward crushes don’t impact my identity. They’re just a byproduct of the emotional vulnerability that occurs when a woman decides to defy her sexist socialisation.