Interview with Autumn Whitefield-Madrano of The Beheld!

The Beheld is a blog focusing on beauty from many different and thought-provoking lenses, run by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano. I find it particularly interesting as one of the few beauty blogs that explore beauty from a feminist perspective. I had the opportunity to interview Autumn about the many topics she covers on her blog.


What sparked your interest in writing about beauty?

Honestly, I don't know! I was researching a post on the history of makeup and found something in a Wikipedia entry about cosmetics history, and found what I was looking for, and when I looked at the footnote source saw that it was drawn from an article I'd written for my college magazine in 1999! So I've had this interest for a while. I think it's that I was reading lots of great feminist stuff, and was also engaging with beauty on my own terms, and I felt frustrated that there wasn't more examination of how women actually treated beauty beyond just condemning the beauty myth. Bust magazine broke some ground in that area, but they became a little too "yay roller derby and retro lingerie!!!" for my tastes. There's still very much the idea out there in the world that we're either smart OR pretty; that we're either serious women who don't care about our appearance or who do so begrudgingly, or we're big fluffballs who just wanna look purdy. And I know so few women who fit into one of those categories, and gobs of women who don't. I personally don't feel satisfied by the discourse of beauty that's out there--I still find a lot of it one-dimensional.

I guess I just really took to heart that "we write what we know." Anything truly good that I've ever written has come from a place of truth within myself. And the fact is, I think about how I look a lot. I think about how what I assign to my appearance affects how I move through the world; I think about how it shifts how I relate to others, and how they relate to me. I think intensely about a lot of appearance-related choices I make. And I used to belong to a Livejournal community in which I'd just write whatever came to my mind--it was really a journal, not a blog, so I wasn't thinking about how to make it readable to a broader audience. But when I started getting the real itch to put myself out there, I looked through my Livejournal and was surprised to see how many of the entries were tagged "beauty." Around the same time a good friend had been listening to my various thoughts on the matter, and he said, "You should either be thinking about beauty less or writing about it more." I chose the latter!



In regards to your Mirror Fast- what did you most take away from the experience? Would you do it again?


By now you've probably read my grand conclusion--if you haven't, here it is. The upshot is that I had to come to terms with how much I was using the mirror as a barometer of how I was feeling. I'm in recovery from an eating disorder, and one of the biggest issues surrounding eating disorders is a lack of awareness of how one is feeling. Food, or lack of it, or treating it inappropriately, becomes the way one deals with the slightest blip of emotion--it sublimates what you're actually feeling, so you don't really learn how to recognize and handle emotions. I'm still working on dealing with that, but I'm getting better. But when I was "mirror fasting," I realized how frequently I wanted to turn to the mirror to help me determine how I was feeling--like, I'd want to confirm that I was having a good time, or confirm that all was well, or assure myself I didn't need to be sad, which I'd determine by, say, how puffy my eyes looked that day. (Which is all in the head anyway!) And an unexpected outcome of the mirror fast was that for the entire month, I experienced hardly any eating disorder urges. I'd been doing okay at that point--not great, but pretty well, and WAY better than I was before I sought treatment. But for that entire month, it was almost like I'd never had an eating disorder--I ate normally without thinking about it. It was, quite honestly, sort of radical.

I would do it again if there were a situation that called for it. But actually, in some ways I'm still on it. My bathroom mirror is covered, and so is my gentleman friend's. I lift my mirror shroud to apply makeup, but I don't look at it at other times. I do when I'm in an office or another person's bathroom--it's reflex. But I look in the mirror WAY less than I did before. Highly recommended!


When did you begin to define yourself as a feminist? What aspects of feminism do you most identify with?

I don't remember a time when I wasn't a feminist; I was raised in feminism the way one might be raised Catholic. My mother was an active member of NOW when I was growing up, and she volunteered at the local women's resource center. This was in the Dakotas, which was hardly a hotbed of feminist activism, but that meant that people who were a part of the feminist community were tight-knit, so I was steeped in that culture. (I marched in an ERA march in 1980 dressed in all white like a miniature suffragette, and wore a pin that said "Ankle-Biting Feminist," which I still have and think is hysterical.)

But of course that meant there was rebellion. For a while when I was quite young--maybe junior high?--I declared myself basically a "notafeministbut." Even at age 12 I could see that the term brought up some negative connotations. But then I read a piece in Seventeen by Linda Ellerbee about how we shouldn't be embarrassed to use that word, and I figured if it was in Seventeen it must be cool! I haven't looked back since.

They say the personal is political, and certainly for me the whole idea of body talk and appearance has been central to being a feminist--learning to look at media messages critically has been helpful for my self-esteem, which enables me to be a better feminist. And, frankly, talking body stuff is way more interesting to me than politics. (Though, of course, even there I'm making a false division--marital rape, for example, was once considered "personal," but now we see it as political, because we've legislated consequences for it.) That said, I think it's very tempting for feminists who have reaped the benefits of feminists who came before us to ignore that sort of thing, and I really try not to. I'll never know what it's like to not be able to find birth control, or to not be able to get a credit card in my own name, or to be eyed with suspicion if I stay at a hotel by myself, or to know that if I got married my husband could rape me and the law wouldn't care. It's a luxury to be able to have my primary outlet of feminism be more philosophical than political, and I try not to forget that. But my way of supporting political women's causes is to donate money and to speak up on a personal level in conversation. Me writing an essay about reproductive rights would seem hollow compared to people who have had more intense experiences with that.

I also feel strongly about empowering women in developing nations, and support such causes financially, either through microfinance groups like the Grameen Foundation or through groups that support girls' education, like She's the First and the Vietnam Fund for Education, Music & Infrastructure. I spent time in Vietnam a few years ago and saw firsthand how essential it is to support women's work there in practical ways. Helping women in developing nations means helping communities; the two cannot be extricated from one another.


What do you think the role of feminism is in allieviating ridiculous beauty standards?


I think it's a process, and a historic one. Second-wave feminists played a crucial role in this by signaling to women that their role could be a public one that had nothing to do with their appearance, but rather their skills. We wouldn't have the beauty myth in its current form if that hadn't happened. But, of course, we DO have the beauty myth.

I see the role of feminism in alleviating harmful beauty standards as being twofold: 1) The more "real" women there are out there in the world saying to one another, "Hey, this is bullshit," the more alert and aware all of us will be. And while those women don't have to identify as feminists, without feminist discourse those non-feminists might not feel as free to challenge the beauty standard. 2) Feminism can provide an alternate script of what beauty means. I think that it's a human desire to want to beautiful ourselves; the problem is that we've created a rigid template on how we should do that. Feminism can expand that template, provide alternate modes of living and of seeing one another, and I think that's exciting.

General Confusion; My Apologies.

Hello. I am remarkably grateful to all of you who have followed my blog. I'm so pleased that you found my ideas, or writing, or whatever interesting enough to make it a part of your Internet experience. Unfortunately, I did a rather sucky job of repaying you by not posting in forever.

You see, I have a small problem. Every single time I think or type or write out a complete thought or concept that seems true to me, I immediately contradict it. It's becoming quite a mess. I write up these pieces, think, "This would be awesome to post!", and then read it the next day and think it's the dumbest thing in existence, and there's no way I'd want to put it on a blog where (essentially) anyone could see it! It sounds trite and cliche and maybe it's inherently part of being a teenager, but I apologize for not disseminating any cool ideas as of late. I have many ideas of things to write once the school year starts up, and I'm thinking about posting weekly once September comes. Due to my now routine contradiction, though, anything could happen.

In the meantime, some things to do...
• Check out The Beheld. It's an awesome feminist-flaired beauty blog with new posts most Wednesdays, always intriguing and enouraging comment.
• An interesting post on the satire in Lily Allen's music from Rachel Hills
• & A made-of-awesome feminist Nerdfighting video.

Thank you :)

Birth Control Blog Carnival!

The fact that birth control isn’t often affordable is just very counterproductive.

Birth control is a preventative health care measure. Preventative health care measures really make everything easier in the long run. For example, a cancer screening, detecting cancer months or years in advance, is preventative in various ways. Not only will, in terms of practicality, immense quantities of money saved, but a woman or man’s health will much more likely remain intact. Birth control prevents, an enormous percentage of the time, against unwanted pregnancy.

There are so many reasons why birth control should have no co-pay. Many people with more socially conservative views believe that affordable birth control is unnecessary, especially for teens and younger adults; the belief that one should wait until marriage to have sex remains. Unshockingly, it’s been statistically proven that more than nine of out ten people have sex before marriage, often at a very young age; According to Public Health Reports, in 2002, the median age of first premarital sex for those then aged 15 to 24 was 17.6 years old.

The statistics prove that teens are having sex. The majority of people, politics aside, think that teen pregnancy should be avoided. Even if people think that teens having sex is bad, it’s undeniably occurring. This creates quite a conundrum, until we remember that there is a solution: birth control. It seems, although not idealistic for some, the most safe and practical resolution.

The only problem left, then, is its affordability. Again, teenagers can have a debacle when faced with the finances associated with birth control, with minimal incomes especially if still in school, and sometimes if their parents don’t know that they’re using it (or even, in some cases, if they do.) Yes, money will be spent by the government if birth control has no co-pay- but so much more money will be spent if another child is born.

Everyone- adults and teens of both sexes- benefits from no-cost birth control. I elected to focus on its benefits for teenagers, but it can also prevent a family, already struggling to afford the cost of living, from having another child to raise, and oral contraceptives can often alleviate the pain and discomfort of different hormonal imbalances.

Making birth control affordable would be incredibly, wonderfully productive.

Grammar v. Feminism?!

The two things that I defend most passionately on a daily basis are, irrefutably, feminism and proper grammar usage. Feminism is much more based on opinions, though, than grammar. Feminism is an ideological movement, intrinsically based upon opinions, for each person to agree or disagree with. Grammar is much more straightforward; its foundation is composed of rules of the English language that we, as a society, created, have evolved and now accept as fact. Because of the endless differences between two of my obsessions, I never thought there would be a conflict between them, but alas, there is.

Now, as I learned formally in freshman English, the pronoun and antecedent in a sentence must agree. (eg: her bike, his shirt, their toys.) This didn't used to be much of a problem, but with many more people attempting to avoid sexism, it is.

How could this be?!

Well, if a statement was being proposed in formal writing, the writer would be talking, most likely, about one individual, eg: "One must try hard to achieve _____ goal." This is where the problem lies. "One" is, quite obviously, one, but the majority of the time (at least for high school essay writers), "their" fills in the blank.

Their, although catering to both of the traditional genders, is NOT singular. It is plural. It would only be used accurately if it was "Therefore, people must be aware of their use of grammar."

We are told, then, to just get it over with and use he. We can only use one of the gendered pronouns, and of course, based on the traditon of patriarchy, the masculine one is the one formally accepted to be "right." But as a fervid advocate of grammar and the equality of the sexes... this just will not do. I will not just use he, because I am referring to a human being, gender unspecified.

Some people, as a rebuttal for this intrinsic antiquated sexism, use her exclusively, something which I've done in an essay or two. I lucked out having a teacher open to the idea, though; not all teachers are. The most common correct option is his or her or her or his, which can become tiresome if repeated frequently. My favorite is his/her; it's as if the two genders of the pronouns cancel each other out.

What we need is a gender neutral, singular pronoun. And apparently, I've recently learned, there is one, most popular in queer circles: hir. I've only seen it mentioned once, I believe in either Full Frontal Feminism or Female Chauvinist Pigs, getting a mention for a page or two. It's based on ze, a completely gender neutral personal pronoun for he/she. It was originated for those who don't identify with either the male or female gender, and it can encompass any gender identity. If it could make its way into contemporary society, this conundrum could be solved. However, it has not. And the scary question is: can it? The regulations of the English language have been around for centuries; can we really expect a change now? Will teachers and professors- most importantly, early elementary school teachers- be willing to change their traditions for the sake of gender?

I'm not really sure how I feel about this- will ze and hir work? Could our language evolve to be truly equal? This is just one example of many in which our language contains antiquated biases. Feel free to comment with your opinions :)

*I apologize for assuming that there are only two genders for parts of this post. I attempted to be completely inclusive, but grammar obviously isn't.
**All of this is applicable to the he/she debacle, too; it's essentually the same thing, just his/her are possessive pronouns and he/she are personal pronouns.
***I'm sure I've got grammar mistakes here too- my grammar is just as fallible as anything else, despite my love for it.

What is Gender?

What is Gender?

(In part inspired by: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps)

So, this isn’t exactly an original topic. I know so little about this; I’ve only researched it a bit, and haven’t studied it at all. However, I think it’s a very interesting topic. Someone recently told me of the theory that sex (the noun, not the verb) is biological and gender is socially constructed. This had never occurred to me, but it immediately made sense.

Now, many girls are encouraged to wear blue and boys are given Barbies. Sure, the “traditional” gender roles still stick, but many parents of today don’t want their children to feel limited and inhibited by arbitrary societal constraints. Although many (most) fight for equality and equal opportunity of the sexes, there are myriad credible studies that find extreme trends with the sex of participants, and other psychological studies showing strong preferences and feelings associated with one of the sexes. I know that it’s not just stereotype.

Still, if one really goes back into thinking about girls and boys, when they are born, the only real difference between them is their body parts. That is sex of a person, the biological aspects of one’s body that typically identifies he/she as male or female.

The reason that men are often seen as more powerful than women is, in my opinion, often due to the antiquated views of the serious way back when, times that the woman was the nurturer and gatherer, and the husband was the hunter. He was given this job because it’s likely that he was more physically inclined to do so, as well as that the woman, as the one who birthed the children, was expected to care for them. In most developed countries, though, physical strength plays a minimal role in daily life. Yet, why is it that most boys feel drawn to pretending to hunt with Nerf guns whereas the girls pretend to mother Bitty Babies? How much of it is intrinsic? Could it be a social construct from thousands of years ago? Essentially, could nurture have become nature over time?

This might be so silly, and so invalid, but, as a child, most grouping has to do with gender/sex. When walking down the hallway, the kids are in two lines, male and female. But if sex is the only real concept present here, then why don’t they just get in two lines by hair color? Could our society progress that much? It seems so unsettling from the way things are now, but it could be remarkable. Imagine just being a person. Imagine just liking people, and we wouldn’t need to have the labels of sexual orientation we do now because people would just like people. It seems so pleasant, and it seems so right. We don’t need gender anymore for its practical reasons; our society is technologically developed beyond that. Sex in terms of biology will always be present, but doesn’t have to be prominent.

Happy Turn Beauty Inside Out Day!!

As some may know, today is the eleventh Turn Beauty Inside Out day. This annual event was started by the Girls Editorial Board of New Moon Girls Magazine (www.newmoon.com) in 2000. It celebrates the idea that beauty should be defined by character, not outward appearance. It’s a message that desperately needs to be heard by New Moon’s audience, girls ages eight to twelve. At the same time, New Moon maintains a delicate balance by also stating that every girl’s physical appearance is beautiful as well. Knowing that there’s nothing wrong with one’s body, coupled with the knowledge that true beauty is internal, New Moon provides a powerful, feminist-fueled foundation for thousands of girls to go and lead dynamic, vibrant lives. Take today to remember what beauty is, and that it’s not what the media claims. Remind your friends, the young women in your life, and everyone else of their beauty today- most importantly, yourself.

(More information: www.tbio.org
Also, NMG uses May and June entirely for their inner beauty campaign! Visit their site for more information: www.newmoon.com)

Inevitable Sadness? My hesitancy to speak out sometimes.

 
Setting: On line at a crowded fast-food establishment. Various GIRLS are talking in separate, overlapping, frightening similar conversations.
 
Girl 1: Should I get one of those? Or two?
Girl 2: I don't know. You can get two, if you want. Whatever.
Girl 1: I mean, I am hungry. We won't eat for a while. And they're small, right?
Girl 2: Yeah, they're small. (nods affirmatively)
Girl 1: (opens mouth; pauses) I think I'll get two.
Girl 2: Okay. (lowers voice, turns toward Girl 1) We'll walk off whatever we eat anyway.
Girl 1: What? (laughs halfheartedly) That's not what I was talking about. I was afraid I'd get sick later.
 
Meanwhile...
 
Girl A: I'm so excited that I can get something. I lost seven pounds in the last two weeks.
Girl B: Cool. What did you do?
Girl A: I don't know. I've been exercising more, and eating sort of healthier, I guess.
Girl C: But how do you know you lost seven pounds?
Girl A: Well, I've been weighing myself.
Girl B: You know you're never supposed to weigh yourself!
Girl A: What? Why?
Girl C: A lot of girls who weigh themselves become obsessed. If you get to into it, you can become anorexic or bulimic or something.
Girl A: Well, I wouldn't do that! (pauses) I just want to lose a little weight.
 
Girls who seem so confident and strong- girls who ARE so confident and strong- can be broken by a milkshake. It's society's priorities that are screwing them up. They've overcome the hardest academic courses, the most grueling athletic practices, the most exhausting rehearsals. They make jokes and have many friends. They are so talented and kind. Yet, while in line for ten minutes, at least eighty percent of the conversation revolved around food choices, and not in a casual way. Each sentence was careful, critical, cautiously articulated. This never, ever fails to shock me.
 
It shocks and disappoints me even more that I feel paralyzed from saying anything. All I can visualize is me squeakily exclaiming, "Everyone is beautiful!" and no one even hearing what it took me so much courage to even say. While reading pieces that say that everyone is beautiful, I always feel compelled to just climb on a rooftop and shout it to girls far and wide. But when I'm actually there, in the position to make a difference, I tend to freak out. I don't know how to do it without sounding cliche, without sounding like a creep, without sounding fake. Maybe what I really can't take is the sadness that will come when I shout, "Everyone is beautiful!" and someone inevitably responds, "Bullshit."