Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

by Kjerstin Gruys

  But I soon began picking up on clues that my makeup might not look quite as good as I’d hoped. The first clue was in seeing that my mom’s makeup didn’t look much different from her usual self-application. Well, except for the fact that her foundation was kind of settling into her pores (and out of her non-pores) in a weird way. Wait, were those crow’s-feet? And she looked a little pallid. Was she even wearing mascara?

  I tried to shake it off.

  But then when it was time to pay, instead of treating for both of us, my mom hesitated, and then asked, “Sooo . . . how do we want to do this?” We each ended up paying for our own services, which was completely fine and reasonable, but it also served as a second clue. My parents expected my siblings and me to be financially self-sufficient, but every so often my mom liked to treat for special things. Whether a discounted wedding dress, a haircut at a non–Great Clips salon, or a new shirt or dress from T.J.Maxx, my mom liked to give us just-because gifts whenever she felt inspired. Sometimes this inspiration struck because of sentiment and tradition (e.g., Wedding Dress #4), but usually it was as simple as her seeing us try on an outfit, thinking we looked particularly put together, and wanting us to have it. Over time I’d noticed that this latter form of inspiration happened only if my mom loved the look of an outfit, even if I didn’t. If I wouldn’t—or couldn’t—buy something my mom loved, she was likely to treat (well, as long as it was a great bargain), but this did not happen if the item in question wasn’t to my mother’s liking. In other words, if Hanna or I happened to fall in love with an outfit or haircut that my mom didn’t like, we’d be on our own. No amount of hinting or twirling around a dressing room could move my mother to “treat” for something she found unflattering or distasteful. So the fact that my mom didn’t feel inspired to treat for my makeup trial didn’t quite certify that I looked like crap, but it certainly suggested it.

  I got nervous on the way to the party and asked my mom if I should be worried. She told me that I looked “just fine,” but admitted that she didn’t think that the trial makeup application had been worth $50, much less the $150 it would cost on my actual wedding day. (And let’s not forget that treating my bridesmaids to their own makeup applications, which seemed like a nice thing to offer, would add another several hundred dollars to the total.)

  I was super bummed. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t afford to keep going to $50 makeup trials in hopes that I’d find someone who was worth the money. Besides, I’d really wanted my mom to help me figure this out. Luckily, she did.

  “To be honest, I think your makeup looks just fine the way you’ve been doing it yourself,” she offered. “All you’d need for it to be wedding-worthy is some help applying more eye makeup. I bet your bridesmaids could help!”

  My self-applied makeup looked better than the professional application I just paid fifty dollars for? I was incredulous, but flattered.

  A quick calculation confirmed that not hiring a makeup artist would mean saving more than $600. The math was certainly tipped in favor of self-application, but I wavered; would my bridesmaids find it tacky if we didn’t offer them professional makeup applications? The past few weddings I’d been in had provided this, and I didn’t want to disappoint my friends. Then I remembered something key: My bridesmaids are all competent and sane women who wouldn’t give a fig about missing out on an unaffordable—not to mention crappy—makeover. If my mom thought my own makeup skills were adequate, that would be good enough for me. I knew she wanted me to look lovely on my wedding day, so she wouldn’t have complimented my makeup application skills just to be nice or to save a buck. What was good enough for my mom would be good enough for me.

  • • •

  LATER THAT DAY, MICHAEL AND I HAD A GREAT TIME AT OUR laid-back couples’ shower. Afterward I took a few minutes to consider how, if at all, giving up mirrors had affected my own attitudes about wedding planning. Thinking about how our culture encourages competition and mistrust between women made me consider the wedding industry in a new light. Aside from those mythical impromptu Vegas events, most weddings require at least some planning. Indeed, according to recent reports, there’s a $161 billion wedding industry that seemed to survive—nay, thrive—on the constant one-up-womanship of brides (and mothers-of-the-brides) who are determined to not embarrass themselves with a subpar event. As much as we like to think of weddings as revolving solely around romantic commitment, they are also deeply embedded within a highly gendered consumer culture. Based on my readings—not to mention my own experiences—I felt convinced that the wedding industry thrived by reinforcing (and sometimes creating!) women’s insecurities about their appearances.

  American weddings and consumer culture are married to each other (pun intended). This is not news to anybody who has planned a wedding in the past few decades, but I had mixed feelings about my own role as a consumer-bride. The penny-pinching, bargain-hunting, “I got it on sale!” reveler in me was secretly thrilled by the epic challenges involved in wedding planning, but I was simultaneously peeved and appalled by the seemingly unavoidable and ridiculous expenses involved. And I couldn’t help wondering how much my own grand wedding ambitions had been shaped by feelings of competition and comparison.

  I knew from watching a few episodes of Bridezillas that the potential insanity of wedding planning could go so much further than my annoying body image woes, or a $700 dress of questionable bargain-worthiness. Watching women treat their friends, family, and fiancés with bratty disrespect was disheartening. Repeated again and again by these young women was the phrase “It’s MY day!” I couldn’t help being reminded of Peggy Orenstein’s warning about the dangers of princess culture. The wedding industry was more than delighted to sell any bride on the idea that she ought to be a “princess” for “her” big day. The princess mentality might have been good for business, but it was bad for women (not to mention the poor souls who got screamed at along the way!).

  Just a few months earlier I’d felt on the verge of slipping down my own slippery slope to Bridezilla Land. I obviously couldn’t predict my future actions, but for the time being it seemed as though my no-mirrors project had put some serious treads in my slope-climbing stilettos. I noted three major changes.

  First, since I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, I’d stopped trying on my wedding dress(es). (Well, to be completely honest, I did attempt to do this once without a mirror, but I felt stupid, and the dress was difficult to get in and out of on my own.) I calculated that, by not trying on my dress every week or so, I’d saved twenty to forty minutes of time per month, depending on how easily the damned thing zipped. I still felt a little bit worried about whether I’d ended up with the “perfect” dress—and I’m sure the wedding industry would have fully supported my purchase of infinite dresses in search of an unachievable “one”—but the feeling waned each day.

  Second, I’d dramatically reduced my spending on beauty products. Before giving up mirrors, I used to peruse the makeup aisle at my local drugstore for fun, purchasing little goodies whenever I’d felt inspired. Now that I’d memorized my makeup routine using particular products, I didn’t feel comfortable deviating. Although a small piece of me bemoaned the reduction in my cosmetic creativity, a quick peek at my makeup drawer confirmed that I hadn’t been all that creative to begin with. (Nude lip gloss, anyone? I had twenty!) I probably saved ten dollars a week by staying out of CVS and Walgreens. If I counted all the random other stuff I typically felt inspired to buy on these drugstore trips, it probably added up to much more.

  Finally, the very act of “announcing” so publicly that I’d needed to take a step back from the wedding craziness had been enough for me to take the task seriously in more realms than just my appearance. I’d caught myself not thinking about my wedding for entire days—egads! Yes, it was still fun to plan my wedding, but other things—like moving to a new city, teaching my students, volunteering with About-Face, spending time with family, a
nd completing a long-overdue journal article—were competing for my attention. It felt great to know that all the foofy stuff would play second fiddle, at least temporarily.

  • • •

  IN THE FINAL WEEK OF JUNE, MICHAEL AND I TOOK OFF FOR A week of camping to celebrate the end of the school year. After the stresses of out-of-town guests, late-night paper-grading, and frantic BBCTG-sanctioned bridal beautifying, a week of solitude in nature sounded like heaven. Smartphones were silenced and laptops were left behind. Calls could be returned. E-mails could wait. Blogging could wait. Vacation couldn’t.

  We split our time between northern California and southern Oregon, with plans to spend our days alternating hiking among the world’s tallest redwoods with wine tasting at some of the world’s most amazing vineyards. Michael and I loved living on the West Coast pretty much every day of the year, but we always felt particularly enamored by our home when we went on our camping trips. This trip was as amazing as ever, with an added bonus: Spending so much time in the great outdoors ended up being great for my body image.

  In some ways, camping made me feel more beautiful and proud of my body, and in other ways it simply reduced how much I cared or worried about my looks. Both of these things felt like progress. Having no mirrors around at all meant that I spent even less time thinking about my appearance. Although mirrors and other reflective surfaces are everywhere in the city, they are difficult if not impossible to find in the woods, even in campground potty shacks. None of the campground restrooms we used had mirrors. This may sound like no big change, since I’d been avoiding mirrors over the past three months, but it was gorgeously different because I didn’t have to expend any energy to avoid them. Although banning mirrors from my everyday life had helped me keep my appearance in a healthier perspective, having to constantly and consciously work to avoid mirrors had the unintended side effect of keeping my forbidden reflection in the back of my mind throughout the day. Not so while camping, and it was sweet relief. Full disclosure: I did have to resist staring at myself in my car’s side-view mirror whilst road tripping, but the epic scenery made my pale face pale in comparison.

  Wearing even less makeup than usual made me feel like a confident nature babe. Surrounded by a rustic community of other campers, and often just Michael, I felt comfortable enough to experiment a bit with my makeup routine, which hadn’t varied at all since Day 22 of the project. Specifically, packing limitations and nature-girl ambitions led me to cut back on products yet again, which further minimized makeup application time. I was down to only two minutes and four products (SPF 30 tinted face lotion, gel cheek stain, cream eye shadow, and a swipe of mascara), but I felt like a total hottie.

  And also, tree-hugging inspired a bit of self-hugging. Camping in the woods meant spending a lot of time with trees. Big, beautiful record-breaking redwoods. Hanging out with my huge coniferous friends made me feel much smaller than usual (in a philosophical rather than skinnier sense), and yet somehow more majestic and connected. Trees have wrinkles, gnarls, warts, rough skin, and weird smells, and I loved them anyway. Trees get really old, and I cherished them all the more for it because their age bore witness to experience and strength. Trees get really big, huge, enormous, really, and I found them more majestic for it. No two trees are alike, yet all are magnificent and miraculous. Could I give my body the same respect and admiration? Eve Ensler posed a similar question when she was interviewed for the body-positive documentary America the Beautiful. In her interview, Eve spoke glowingly about meeting a woman from Nigeria who told her,

  Eve, look at that tree. Do you see that tree? Now look at that tree. [pointing to another tree] Do you like that tree? Do you hate that tree ’cause it doesn’t look like that tree? We’re all trees. You’re a tree. I’m a tree. You’ve got to love your body, Eve. You’ve got to love your tree. Love your tree!

  What a beautiful suggestion.

  Finally, a few times I managed to talk Michael into chopping wood or setting up our tent while wearing his boxer briefs, a pair of sneakers, and not much else. Watching Michael perform these duties while wearing next to nothing made me feel like Cleopatra. Yes, I said it: sexually objectifying my fiancé made me feel like a sexy, all-powerful queen of the Nile.

  When it came to housework we usually had a 50/50 split, but when camping, Michael probably did close to 70 percent of the “tentwork,” including setting up our tent, building the fires, tending to said fires, fiddling with food cooking on said fires, and the careful leave-no-trace undoing of all of the above. My main responsibilities were blowing up our air mattress (using a battery-operated air pump), chopping veggies, and helping to unload and reload stuff from the car.

  This division of labor might seem both unfair and completely unrelated to body image, but this wasn’t the case. Feminists though we both are, Michael and I do enjoy excelling at things we are good at, even if our talents sometimes fall along the usual gendered lines. Thus, Michael takes some pleasure in successfully chopping wood, building fires, and growing a lot of facial hair in a hurry. Similarly, I take some feminine (and feminist) pleasure in watching him do so not only because these are (hetero)sexy-man “manly” activities that I find attractive (and which manage to subtly realign housework inequalities on a macro scale), but also because having somebody else take care of so many of these burdening details makes me feel cared for. Feeling cared for—while sitting back, eating a s’more, and watching a big furry man chopping wood in his Calvins—made me feel sexy, regardless of what I looked like. Trust me.

  As the month of June came to an end, I felt grateful for the lessons I’d learned about trust and about myself. Thanks to my no-mirrors project, I’d begun to cut back on a lot of unnecessary and stressful wedding-planning hoopla, while also figuring which parts of bridal culture I actually wanted to engage in, both for fun and to satisfy my sociological interest. In other words, I was saving myself time, money, and stress, and also having a lot more fun. I’d even begun building a better relationship with my future mother-in-law. I hoped the remaining two-thirds of my year without mirrors would bring as much positive change.

  FIVE

  July

  WHAT, EXACTLY, DOES A FEMINIST (BRIDE) LOOK LIKE?

  Remove those “I want you to like me” stickers from your forehead and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.

  SUSAN JEFFERS

  AMERICAN FEMINISTS HAVE LONG BEEN SUSPICIOUS OF beauty and fashion. As described by Linda M. Scott, author of Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism, “Across the spectrum of academic and popular literature, feminist writers have consistently argued that a woman’s attempt to cultivate her appearance makes her a dupe of fashion, the plaything of men, and thus a collaborator in her own oppression.” I am all too familiar with these contentions. In college, I absorbed Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women with the enthrallment of a newly converted religious devotee.

  Above my homework-cluttered desk, I’d dutifully taped quotes from my favorite feminist authors as inspiration for my burgeoning empowerment. My favorite, written by Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, became a daily mantra for me while in treatment for my eating disorder: “Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming around its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”

  I read from the feminist canon and felt enlightened and empowered, yet doubly burdened.

  Beauty was oppression. Beauty was patriarchy. Beauty was pain and loss and kidney stones and disintegrating bones. Beauty was violence to the body and spirit. Beauty was wasteful and indulgent. Beauty was antifeminist.

  But I still wanted to be beautiful, or at the very least to be moderately attractive and conventionally feminine (well, with an androgynous free-to-be-you-and-me tomboy twist thrown in here and there). Did this make me antifeminist?

 
I was not the first woman to ask this question and I will not be the last.

  There have been seemingly endless internal debates on the topic among feminist circles. According to Scott, the “founding feminists” of the nineteenth century sniped at one another for being too fashionable or too ascetic, too sexy or too prim, too vain or too careless. Feminist leaders of the 1920s grimaced at the grooming, dress, and activities of the era’s flappers, even as these young urban women challenged gender roles at every turn. Fifty years later, second-wave feminists insisted that liberated women oughtn’t wear makeup or shave their legs, and in 1991, Naomi Wolf’s best-selling The Beauty Myth influenced both academic and mainstream audiences, garnering polarized debates about the role of beauty in women’s lives. Historically, the message from feminists has been accusatory: Beauty standards should be understood as tools of patriarchy, and one cannot challenge patriarchy while conforming to it.

  Yet rejecting mainstream beauty standards isn’t an easy choice, no matter how much one wants to change the world. There are personal costs to not conforming, and any woman who recognizes these costs is no dupe.

  Messages such as those outlined above have long alienated women who believe in gender equality but aren’t interested in being martyrs for the cause. Indeed, feminism’s presumed antagonism toward mainstream beauty standards has been used by detractors to discredit the movement and to silence individual women within it. Key among these attacks was Rush Limbaugh’s insisting in 1987 something to the effect of “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”

  Accusing feminists of being “just a bunch of ugly chicks” sounds woefully immature, but has arguably been one of the most effective ways for contemporary detractors to discredit the women’s movement. These attacks were so powerful and effective that the very same feminists who had once criticized their compatriots for conforming to mainstream beauty standards suddenly found themselves working to prove to the world that feminists weren’t ugly, after all.