WTF is a Miss Lady and why does it have a blog?

Who is Miss Lady? Why is this so important to her? What on earth is her purpose?!

In short, Miss Lady is me. Or not me.  An alter ego? Or the real me? Either way, I’ll often refer to her in the third person, because like femininity (arguably anyhow), Miss Lady is a construct and a creation. A fancy one.

Miss Lady is a conflicted feminist teacher raised in the gaudy, southern yet western culture of Dallas, Texas. The net effect of this is that she is a lady and a maverick all at once. With big hair. Always.

So just WTF is a Miss Lady? How can someone who claims to be a feminist be known by both the contested, often subjugating, or pedestalfying titles of “miss” and “lady”? How does that make any sense? Think of it as double femininity, if you will. A hyper-femininity. Like the pack of wild drag queens what raised me! Or maybe it’s like a double negative: no femininity at all. You decide. I, myself, liken it to another oft used phrase: fuck you. Not lady-like, I know. But true.

A few tidbits about Miss Lady’s personal life and history will be helpful for understanding from whence I come on some topics. I am hairstylist and a high school English teacher with a love of American culture, history, and icons. I most often embrace the aesthetic of mid-century America and American women, never mind the regrettable politics of the era produced. When I’m not participating in some messy hobbies like running, hiking, roller derby, or dog parking, I enjoy reading, writing, accessorizing, hair creations, and generally being fancy. Surprise, right?

I go into this with the assumption/ assertion that American women cannot be wholly detached from beauty culture, for better or for worse. Whether we embrace it, negotiate with it, or seek to remove ourselves from the adornments, the consumerism, and judgment, the politics of appearance are always complex and our results are complicated. I explore to find out how beauty and appearance, so dear and yet so frustrating to me, came to be what it is (aka history) and whether there is anything empowering to women in it, or is it merely (as many would posit) a snare of ideals and products that hold us down.

A note about language: yes, I am very much aware that I speak Southern Coquette dialect—the language of the oppressed, that smacks with all the worst covert power, manipulative hedges, and backstabbing bless-your-hearts. Yo, I took some linguistics courses once upon a time. I also dabbled in some theoretical feminism though, and I came to the conclusion, that we have no language outside of the patriarchy except the one we claim. And I claim this one, dammit.