BREAKING FREE FROM THE TOXICITY OF PERFORMATIVE FEMININITY

WORDS BY ALYSSA-CAROLINE BURNETTE IMAGE BY FRANCES ROSE

CW: Suicidal Ideation

The women in my family never leave the house without makeup. Not even for a run to the grocery store or when being rushed to the hospital. No matter the circumstances of the outing, one thing remained constant: the necessity of using cosmetics as a shield. Although it was never explicitly stated, at a young age, I internalised the message that pretty is the price you pay to exist as a woman in this world. I learned that makeup could be a form of protection: something you wear to keep people from seeing the 'unattractive' self beneath, something to shield yourself from other people's judgement.

As a child who loved my pet chickens more than dress-up, who would rather swim with sharks than play Barbies, no one ever told me I was ugly. No one ever told me I had to wear makeup. But I heard it beneath the remarks that women made to one another - 'I haven't put on my face today', 'I can't let anyone see me like this!' - and in the references to giving birth while wearing a full face of makeup like armour. That was how I absorbed the message that ugly was the worst thing any woman could be. So I wondered if self-loathing was inevitable. I wondered if I would one day care what I looked like, if hating yourself was an automatic switch that had to flip for every girl. And for me, it did. A battle with severe eczema decimated my confidence. People with the best of intentions often asked me if I had been a victim of a car crash. Everywhere I went, people stared at my inflamed skin as if I was the bearer of some contagious, disfiguring disease. So I learned to hate myself, to dread every class picture, and every moment when my eyes met the mirror. I learned to define myself as the 'worst thing any woman could be.' I learned how to mask my own self-hatred.

In college, I woke up a full hour and a half before my earliest class of the day and every day, I spent that hour and a half blowing out my hair and shielding my insecurities behind concealer and lipstick. I wore high heels to class every day and pointed to my aching feet as proof of my socially acceptable womanhood, fully believing that beauty is pain. I hoped that investing in my appearance might distract people from my eczema and hoped that perfect grades would distract me from my pain. While I battled suicidal ideation every time I scored less than a first on an essay, I perpetuated the toxic belief that as long as I looked pretty, I was okay.