American Beauty

So, because I’m a student as well as a teacher, this blog will sometimes just take you on the journey with me. In this case, you’ll be coming along as I read American Beauty by Lois Banner, along with a few other texts that I’ll get to later.

Banner says that “1921 was a pivotal year in the history of women’s looks” because this was the first year that the Miss America beauty pageant was held, thus symbolizing the “triumph of fashion culture over feminism.” Feminists in an effort to refute the constraints of the beauty ideal had held that any woman could be beautiful.  In Banner’s words, the commercial beauty industry turns this on its head by ensuring that this democratic ideal of beauty is interpreted by the masses, not as, or at least not just as the idea that everyone has an innate beauty, but that every woman truly possesses the ability to be beautiful through the purchase of products.

Margaret Gorman, the first Miss America, in casual afternoon attire.

Gorman again. If this don't say it all!

Banner writes about the irony of this in the 1920s,when women free themselves of many Victorian constrictions—such as the oppressively heavy and modest dress styles, and the prohibition against being obviously made up (despite the fact that women have long felt a pressure to “improve” with cosmetics)—and with this liberation comes an ever increasing “commercialization of beauty.” In Banner’s analysis, this remains unchallenged until the feminist reforms of the 1960’s.

So, a question that I will most likely circle back to repeatedly then, as it is perhaps the central question of this blog, is whether the “democratic ideal of beauty” and this now expanded beauty culture, hold any sort of empowerment for women, or whether it is mostly a further constriction for women, one that binds them not just to society’s standards of beauty but to the many purveyors of beauty culture and endless consumerism. I think that it is an important question (to explore, maybe not to finally answer) for women’s history, but also for ourselves, or certainly for this self, Miss Lady.

Miss Lady’s take on beautification and power: On a personal level, I feel increasingly empowered by beautification, by cosmetics, by fashion, and by the accessories, dammit! My early training (thank you vocational high school education) as a cosmetologist provided me with a personal sense of worth and efficacy that I’m not sure I would have gotten in other arenas as well as a creative outlet. In the past, before I was a TEACHER ( do y’all mind if I capitalize this every time?), I used my creative talents in service of others (more later on the feminist complications of this), but now, save a few weddings per year (oh. the. pageantry.) I mostly use my talents on my own hair. And is it every powerful. With my Comare 303, I create bouffant and beehives to delight all. It draws in attention, which I may appreciate far too much mind you, from friends and strangers and commands an admiration not just for the aesthetic product, but also for the skill, creativity, knowledge, and wherewithal, it took to create the damn masterpiece. While I take somewhat less pride in the craft of this, my accessorization, makeup, and overall look are often as admired. I’m trying to say this as humbly as possible while still saying it by the way; I cherish this attention not just because I’m a diva/leo/onlychild, but I appreciate the mutual taste required for this interaction to occur. I do it for the purpose of pleasing.

What then could be feminist about that? It sounds absolutely trivial and coquettish. I do it to please. Please! …To unpack that, it gives me a sense of efficacy and agency in a forum where I have many MANY times (along with countless other women) felt none. That is, how I will be perceived visually, in this culture that refuses not to perceive me visually, and exactly HOW that will be associated with the perception of my interior. In essence, I suppose, my identity.

An example: For various reasons which don’t belong here, I will never win the competition (that does exist) on being thin, nor will I probably ever come close to conforming to whatever the standard is for that…unless it expands a good bit. I’ve been acutely aware for as long as I can remember of this standard and often felt lesser for not meeting it in my youth. When I assert my own beauty, through what I believe (aware that I could be fooling myself) to be my choice of methods, be that mid-century make-up, or carefully crafted hair, or a vintage broach that you’ll never see again on anyone (ever, dammit!) , I feel that I am sending messages to others about the facets of my visual identity that they will find important if they have any sense. It removes me from ongoing competitions about who is the blondest, or most narrow waisted and shifts the focus to what I like and what I’ve created. This, pleases me.

Secondly, when I say that I mean to please, it isn’t always the heterosexual male gaze I’m dressing for. I’ll admit that this has somewhat changed in my life as I have focused more on heterosexual practice of datin’ the mens, and as I have tended to emulate mid-century styles that were seemingly crafted to entice men, but I believe that I first started glamorizing myself for the validation of gay males. After myself of course. Currently, I find myself most often creating looks designed to please my large group of female friends, most often my fine and true ladies in roller derby. And here and there, I find myself dressing, oddly enough to create a certain identity for and connection with my teenage students, whom I must teach all about American literature and culture. Why the hell can’t we start a unit with my sputnik earrings? (Pronouned ear-rangs, thank you.) Beats the hell out of starting with a war, dammit.

And finally, the strict pursuit of beauty is not always the goal of the beauty arts I create. Sometimes the goal is also to preserve and reflect history. Other times, like when I beglittered a skate wheel (calm down derbies; it was a bald Radar Flat-out) and integrated it into my hair for a derby banquet, my goal was to please through whimsical humor!

So, does it feel empowering to me? Yes, it do. Could it be that I’m just kidding myself, that I want to have my cake and eat it too? That I want women to be fully empowered, but that I don’t want to give up my baubles and my brushable hair laquer to do it? Yes, that too.