by Rebekkah Dilts
Like many women, I?ve always had a tenuous relationship with makeup and beauty products. I was raised by two parents who were firmly against them?my mom wore no makeup and warned me against its addictive nature (?Once you start wearing it you won?t be able to stop??) and my dad frequently let me know the beauty industry was out to suppress and oppress women, and my purchasing and using makeup and beauty products would mean I was falling their prey.
I respected (and respect) them both greatly, and the truth is, they were in some ways very right. But I?m an incredibly curious person and another member of my family, one of my aunts, is a model and actress. Besides being physically beautiful, she?s one of the most wonderful people I know, so I respected (and respect) her, too. I relished going into her bathroom and examining what seemed dozens of jars of sparkling dust in titillating colors, rows of brushes poised and propped elegantly, bottles of sweet smelling perfume. To my parents chagrin or not, once I turned 13, she started giving me really nice makeup as birthday and Christmas gifts. So began my journey.
Over the years I have called into question my use of makeup and the construction of my physical self quite a bit. There is no denying that a woman is perceived very differently depending on her use of makeup and beauty products, and that it gets not only expensive but time consuming, pulling women out of other more potentially cerebral projects. 
But I also don?t think using makeup/constructing one?s appearance is necessarily negative or wasteful. Rather, I?ve discovered that the subject is fascinating, incredibly layered, and pulls so many issues around gender, identity, sexuality, labor and capitalism along with it.
I recently came across writer Autumn Whitefield-Madrano?s really interesting project, The Beheld, a blog dedicated to the exploration of?beauty and what it means. I asked her if she?d be willing to let me ask her some questions on the subject, to which she kindly said yes, and provided some really great responses.
Rebekkah: Thanks so much for talking with me and RADAR! How did you first get interested in taking on beauty as an intellectual project?
Autumn: I didn?t even realize that?s what I was doing until I?d already started, actually. I had a Livejournal for several years and I noticed that not only was ?beauty? one of my most frequently used tags, but those entries were the ones that spurred the most conversation, so when I started The Beheld I was envisioning something more like a space where I could share various women?s experiences with beauty. I envisioned The Beheld being much more skewed toward interviews. But once I started writing, I realized that while the interviews are essential to what I do?both because they give my readers a perspective from a variety of women, and because talking with these women informs my own views on beauty?what I really wanted to do was articulate these things I?d been thinking about for years. I had a lot to say, as it turns out!
And I suppose by being a fairly cerebral person, the work can seem intellectual, though I haven?t done any formal study of beauty or aesthetics. Through writing my own experiences I found more literature that tackles these questions. I hadn?t known that beauty had ever been treated as an intellectual topic and it felt like a relief to find these works. What I?m doing isn?t necessarily intellectual in that tradition; I?m a writer, not an academic of any sort?I?ve got a bachelor?s in journalism and a minor in women?s studies. But what I?m doing is treating beauty with a certain degree of seriousness for an audience that isn?t reading philosophical treatises on the matter. I think that?s important to do for plenty of topics of interest to intellectuals, but particularly beauty, because it?s such a part of our lives and there are so many messages we get about it every day.
Also, being a feminist,
The Beauty Myth was hugely influential to me as a person and writer on beauty. But I started to see early on that not only has
The Beauty Myth been somewhat misunderstood?Naomi Wolfwasn?t saying we should end beauty work but that we needed to be critical of it?it?s also, at this point in time, incomplete. I?m well-versed in liberal feminist arguments about beauty, and I also know that I do plenty of beauty work those arguments criticize, and I don?t think that?s just because I?m brainwashed by The Man. Sometimes, sure; other times it?s an articulation of the self, or resistance, or myriad other things. I take personal appearance seriously, and I treat it seriously in my work, and I?m a feminist. I suppose those things combined make it an intellectual project.
Rebekkah: Can you explain a little bit about your wonderful new work with The New Inquiry?
Autumn: I became friendly with the TNI team through a friend who edits there, and when I did my month-long mirror fast he asked me if I?d like to write an essay for them about it; the blog entry I used to draw on the final essay [which is here:?http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-mirror-slave-dialectic/] was more conventionally intellectual than what I normally do. So when TNI was mapping out their relaunch and asked me to be on their blogger roster, my first thought was that they?d be disappointed?it?s not like most of my blog posts quote Hegel! But the more I read TNI and learned about their ethos, the more I saw how committed they were to considering gender not as a special women?s issue, but as a way of understanding how the world works. Without considering gender we can?t fully consider labor
issues, or politics, or philosophy.By asking me to syndicate The Beheld at The New Inquiry, they were demonstrating that a blog that treated beauty as a serious topic had a valid place in a larger conversation?and the best part is that the team there wasn?t looking at it as some sort of big feminist-progressive step to have a beauty blog there. I don?t necessarily consider myself a political blogger, but contextualized, much of what I do indeed becomes that. I also liked that TNI wasn?t doing some tokenism thing?about half the bloggers are female, and it?s not like what I?m doing there is relegated to some special ladycorner. I?m a big believer in spaces directly targeting women, but unless women are a part of the broader conversation we?re not going to get anywhere.
Rebekkah: I have talked to so many different people (men and women, academics, artists, writers and others) about the challenge for women to integrate their physicality/beauty with component of self within society. Yet it always seems to boil down to the notion that female beauty exists in a way male beauty just doesn?t. Do you think culture will always uphold female beauty? Do you have any ideas/propositions about this being dealt with alternatively?
Autumn: The changes our culture would have to undergo in order to not hold female beauty in the light it currently does are so radical that I can?t even imagine where we?d begin. I think we?re talking about the sort of change that happens not with a generation, but with generations, lots of them. I don?t think woman-as-decoration is innate; there are plenty of societies throughout history where men have been the ones who have been seen as the ethereal beauties. But in our culture? No. I don?t see that sea change happening anytime soon. And I?m actually less interested in eradicating that than I am in ameliorating it. Obviously feminism has been an enormous amelioration here, and things have changed pretty quickly when you think about it. I think we can continue to call out double standards and to make sure
that we keep women of all stripes in the public eye?women who have the cultural currency of conventional beauty, and women who don?t, and not stratifying women along some faux spectrum of smart vs. pretty.
What I would really love to see eradicated?and will do my part in helping eradicate?is the notion that because women?s beauty is this innate, primal thing (supposedly), that means it has a power over men, and that if women just learned how to tap into that power more we?d have arrived at a place of ?separate but equal.? I think that?s bullshit. There are undeniable benefits that come with beauty, but the real benefits of that beauty are equal for men and women?better pay, for example. The ?power? that beautiful women supposedly have over men boils down to free drinks, essentially. Some women may be able to work their beauty to their benefit to get, say, mentoring or tutelage?that?s what Catherine Hakim argues in her book Erotic Capital. But that ?power? can be whisked away at the whim of the person with the actual power. That is, at the whim of a man.
Rebekkah: What are you reading right now?
?
Autumn: I?m really interested in learning more about women and visibility, both in our culture and internationally. How are women supposed to exist in public in any given culture? Who does that serve? How do women subvert their public roles? How do women in a culture with strict ideas about how women should be seen in public?say, Saudi Arabian women?see western women, who proclaim public space as their given right? And do we western women actually feel full access to the public sphere? How much control do we have over our own visibility? Is makeup a means of controlling it?I suppose that also plays into the idea of public versus private spheres, and I?m interested in that on several fronts?social media is an obvious one, and one that (for once!) doesn?t necessarily have to do with gender and appearance. Right now I?m so focused on The Beheld that it?s hard to see outside of it, actually! I?d also like to educate myself more on LGBT issues and theory, particularly the experiences of trans women, both so that I can have a more inclusive body of work and because I think there?s much to be learned about the performance of femininity from people for whom it?s a conscious performance.
Rebekkah: How do you personally define ?beauty labor??
Autumn: I use ?beauty labor? to mean any of the work women?I consider it specific to women, though I know men have their equivalents?do that goes beyond hygiene and grooming and that has the intent of enhancing our appearance. Running a brush through your hair isn?t necessarily beauty labor, but styling it is. But what I?m actually more interested in is what I call ?emotional beauty labor?: the constant vigilance women pay to how we look, in ways that go beyond making sure our lipstick is on right. Emotional beauty labor is that feeling of, ?I
need to make sure my lipstick is on right?; it?s the near-desperate urge to find a mirror to make sure everything is as it should be. Emotional beauty labor is carrying yourself in a certain
way when you?re dressed well, or poorly; it?s the knowledge that by being a woman in public, you?re being looked at, and the ways that knowledge affects us in ways we probably can?t imagine. Emotional beauty labor is sensing that someone is admiring your appearance and changing your affect?however slightly or subconsciously?because of it. Emotional beauty labor can be playing the role of the pretty girl, or of rejecting it. I think much of the time emotional beauty labor is a burden, but I also don?t want to neatly cap it as just ?Oh, it?s insecurities.? Yes, insecurity can drive some emotional beauty labor?but so can flirting, or feeling beautiful, or feeling dutiful. It needs examination.
?Rebekkah: Where do you think women?s writing/place in the literary and/or academic world currently stands? Where would you like to see it go?
Autumn: I?ll confess that I don?t read that many new books, and in fact I rarely read fiction at all. So I?m drawing here on my own experience as an essay writer and blogger, and on the discourse that?s surrounded women?s writing lately. With that in mind: The Internet, I think, has been a huge development for women?s writing seeing a broader audience. Women have always written letters and diaries; we?ve been socialized to prioritize the personal. What?s been happening for a while now is that women?s ?personal? writings, which now can have an enormous public stage, are being seen in a more political context. Before, only women?s studies people were really looking at women?s diaries as valid literary works, and today it?s being looked at more seriously in the literary world. That said, and to answer the second part of your question, we need to remember a writing 101 maxim: Just because it happened to you doesn?t mean it?s interesting. I?d like to see diaristic women writers more fully understand that what makes their work important is that readers may be able to relate to it, and they should be able to walk away from your piece with what we call a ?takeaway.? Use the form to illuminate a broader female experience, not to illuminate how rare and special a butterfly you are. I have little patience with preciousness, and I think that?s true of most readers.
Rebekkah: How has your project with The Beheld made you feel differently about yourself and question of beauty/women/identity? What surprised you the most?
Autumn: The biggest surprise I had was that I quickly found out that I didn?t want to let go of the artifice of beauty?rather, I quickly learned that my instinct to engage with that artifice wasn?t something that must be overcome. Before starting The Beheld I was much more binary in my thinking about beauty: I knew I felt fascinated by it, but I wrestled with feeling ashamed of that fascination because all that was fluff, right? And beauty labor was a way of trying to not feel bad about the way I looked, right? But once I started formally interviewing other women and articulating more of my own thoughts on beauty, I realized that wasn?t the case much of the time. For example, I began to see my use of makeup not just as a daily nod to the patriarchy?which it is, in part, I admit?but as a way of defining my public face to the world, and of articulating how I wish to be seen.
I feel more passionately about the articulation of femininity and gender than I di
d before starting The Beheld. I?m working now on seeing the diversity of how femininity is expressed by different people?how someone who isn?t what you?d call ?girly? might express her femininity, if being female feels like an important part of her identity. Perhaps there are some people for whom their sex doesn?t feel terribly relevant to their identity?it feels enormously relevant to me, and I know ways that plays out in my self-presentation, but I want to know more about how it plays out with other people. One of my favorite interviews was with Kelli Dunham, a wonderful boi comic and founder of Queer Memoir. She identifies as butch, a boi, and she doesn?t really perform femininity. But as she put it, ?A new haircut is a butch accessory.? So what I would call beauty work was still a part of her gender expression. She was rejecting traditional beauty work but it wasn?t entirely absent either, and that illuminated for me how a binary way of looking at beauty work wasn?t going to be helpful. *
Autumn Whitefield-Madrano began her writing career in New York as an intern for Ms. Magazine. She?s since had an extensive reach as a freelance writer, her essays having appeared in Marie Claire, Salon, and Glamour.?Her work in copy?editing beauty pieces for women?s magazines led to the creation of the Thoughts on a Word series, in which she examines the etymology and usage of words used to describe women?s appearance, as well as The Beheld.? She has also just become a regular blogger for The New Inquiry.
Source: http://www.radarproductions.org/a-radar-interview-with-autumn-whitefield-madrano-of-the-beheld/
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