Not shaving, wearing makeup, or prioritizing wearing uncomfortable clothes has really changed my perspective on other women and allowed me to more clearly see women as I’ve always known them to be. Especially in the media and in romances.
I’ve realized how much more attracted to other women I am when they look like myself, and when they are not performing femininity. It’s really given me a new perspective on what I actually want to see when it comes to depictions of women in the media, and why there always felt like there was, subliminally, something off when I compared them to other male characters. They are, by comparison, so archetypal, so stripped of their humanity. And I never understood why I was so attracted to women in books and in friendships where we were dressed down and vulnerable, but seeing what men and even other women would call attractive in females (heels, shaven everything, makeup and curls, tight dresses, that “seductive” and coy demeanor void of individual personhood) always made my stomach feel knotted. It made me doubt that my attraction in other women was even real.
And how sick is that? Doubting what I know of myself and other women because our greatest representation has been in our objectification, and it was tough even believing or readying myself to observe that same raw personhood, that individualism and independence, that makes someone whole. Makes them someone to even be attracted to in the first place, outside of their role in your life. It makes you devoid of empathy for other women, because there is a mirage and an illusion that makes the only woman you can truly see, safely, yourself.
