3. “You need to be sweet.”
(Part 3 of 5 of the “Mirror, mirror” series)
By 18, the girl really was beautiful. Or at least that's what the boys said. She felt powerful in her beauty. When she was all made up, all inappropriate hair, smells, and fluids masked or abolished, she felt invincible. She could stride into a room, and heads would turn. Male heads anyway. She could pick and choose. Amongst those her age, at least. She gloried in her sensuality.
But her sense of self flipped from predator to prey as she entered her first professional job and was suddenly exposed to men older than her, with more experience than her – she had no power here. It took her a while to realise this, though. At first, she was flirtatious, playful. She actively sought their approval. By now, she needed their attention to feel beautiful. And if she wasn't beautiful, what else was she? But then the power imbalance started to show, and she realised the true precariousness of her position.
The first time was when she was sent to the other side of the country, on her own, to help a client. She was 21. The girl wasn't trained to do this, but she was a cheap resource, and the company would make a good profit by calling her a consultant. The client was the head of an NHS Trust - she met him in a hospital and watched as receptionists, nurses, and even doctors straightened as he walked past. He was pleasant to her, enquiring about her journey, about where she was staying. She didn't think to lie - he was over twice her age. It wasn't until they were alone that his tone changed, and he demanded she meet him for dinner "as part of her responsibilities." She put him off the first time, saying her boss was going to call her that evening to help her plan out the work. And she really did speak to her boss, "he's just being friendly," he said. It wasn't until the man turned up at her hotel that they told her to come home. "Were you wearing that?" her boss asked, running his eyes down the dress covering her body. “Maybe he had a point,” she thought. It had a V-neck and was nipped at the waist. She felt suddenly self-conscious. A preening peacock who realised her showy feathers were attracting vipers.
“You are the cause of the crack in my heart” (2021), drypoint print on paper
During her 20s, the girl learned various defence mechanisms. She started to dress more conservatively. She would be reserved until she could scope out new men coming into the business. Like the one who called himself "the big swinging dick" and asked her if "she liked to shop." But that didn't always work; even men she thought she knew could turn on a dime. She agreed to meet one boss she had known for years for dinner in preparation for her annual review to find when she arrived at the address, he'd booked a restaurant advertised as the most romantic in London … and there was a bottle of wine open on the table, a glass poured for each of them.
But the real gut punch came as she approached 30. She had been head-hunted by a senior woman, and they worked well together. The woman acted as her sponsor and gave her every opportunity to show her skills and build her confidence. She even invited her to a strategy meeting with the CEO of the business. Shortly afterward, the CEO's assistant called the girl, "Nick was really impressed with you; he wants you to join his team," she said. The girl was stunned. This was real validation. She was starting to believe she was good at what she did, and now someone else thought that too. She was more than her face, she was more than her body! So, on her first day in the new team, she took the lift to the exec floor and strode confidently to where Nick sat. He stood up; arms open in welcome. He was funny, down-to-earth; she liked him. "Let me introduce you to the rest of my team," he said. "This is Rebecca, Laura, Alison, Nicola, Maria, Jennifer…" A bank of beautiful heads looked up, smiled, and nodded. She smiled back then excused herself to use the bathroom. She had her first panic attack there. The breath caught in her throat, and she panted as tears rolled down her face. "This is all I am,” she thought. A china collectible for the mantlepiece of a gentleman’s club.
Her mind spun to an earlier time. She was a student, 19, and she'd had a card from the NHS saying she needed a smear test. She booked into a doctor local to the university, one she hadn't seen before. He was pleasant when she entered. Kindly - he could see she was nervous. He closed the curtain as she undressed and waited until she had covered herself with paper before opening it again. He gently pressed her butterflied knees apart and inserted the speculum. She winced with pain. "It's not working," he said after a moment, "the angle is wrong. I need to check where the opening of your cervix is." He inserted his fingers into her vagina and prodded for a minute or so – an eternity to her. She lay in shock, looking at the ceiling. This hadn't happened the last time. Finally, he said he'd managed to take the sample manually, and she could leave. She dressed hurriedly and ran out of the door. It wasn't until she got home that she realised why she felt overwhelmed with shame – he hadn't been wearing gloves.
I was reading a book to you about two scarecrows collecting objects for their impending wedding. “Do you think you will get married?” I asked. “Yes,” you said, but then paused for a second, looking at the ceiling. “But will I marry a boy or a girl?” you asked. “I don’t know, whatever feels right,” I said. “Then I am going to marry you, Mammy,” you said, and you turned the page. My heart breaks for your innocence. Would that I could protect you from the heartache that you will experience. Or perhaps… perhaps you need to experience the shit relationships, the partners who seek you only for how you look or what you can give, so that when someone comes along who loves you with grace and bends to meet you in the middle, you can see how beautiful they really are.
You play on my phone sometimes, you like the Snapchat filters that give you puppy ears and a glittering tongue. It makes me uncomfortable. Even those childish filters “correct” your face in other ways, making your skin smoother and your eyes wider. I’m not sure how long I will be able to keep you away from social media. And when you start to participate in the inevitable, will you think it’s cool to apply filters to your face so that you can compare likes and followers with your girlfriends? If you wear less clothing, if you arch your back to push out your bony little chest, will you get more of a response[1]? I am conflicted about “influencer” culture. This presentation of a flawless life, the apparent glamour - the fucking hidden filters, professional lighting, and editing. The undeclared surgical enhancements. What do they think they are saying with these images? “Empowerment” they may reply, as they wear sexy bikinis and pose to exaggerate their secondary erogenous zones. I’m just not sure. I wonder if they have been coached to respond to the male gaze without their conscious consent. My sense is that women have been convinced to participate in their own “meatification” (MCBRIDE, 2021), turning their flesh into something to be consumed, conforming to the trends and standards set by our patriarchal society - in a false expression of self-empowerment. As someone commented recently:
“Either women’s bodies are treated as products, or they aren’t. Women are not, and never have been in control of the cultural narrative surrounding their bodies – men are.” Comment by user @wildclarice on an Instagram post, dated 1st November 2021
Many influencers now have “OnlyFans” accounts – pay-per-view channels where they can post content that wouldn’t pass the community guidelines on social media[2]. Soft porn, although they don’t call it that. I understand many offer a price for viewers to dictate the type of image they want. Do they set their own constraints, I wonder? What if someone offers more money? Or more attention – an alliance with an agency that can promote their page, give them more followers, more dopamine shots? I don’t have an issue with women doing porn – their body, their choice. So long as they can say “no”. So long as they have support to understand what their self-objectification might do to their self-esteem. So long as they aren’t subject to pressure to do more, go further. There is certainly demand for it. Even free mainstream sites now offer categories in anal sex, BDSM, rough play. This is what young men are exposed to, even before they engage in a physical relationship with a young woman. This is what they expect. How will I teach you to say “no - not that,” when it’s someone you love who’s doing the asking?
Ah, this topic is complex! Women have a right to autonomy over their own body – lord knows we have fought hard for it. So, the feminist movement is conflicted, we have reached a point of “double-stagnation"[1] where we may be torn between believing in freedom of self-expression but also feeling that some forms of self-expression contribute to further oppressing women, by implying a need for conformance to an ideal designed for the male gaze. I want to teach you ownership of your body and acceptance of your personal sexual preferences. But how do I compliment that with lessons on self-observation - of really analysing what may be driving your desires? How do I teach you to be aware of what is influencing you, and how you might be influencing others? How do I convince you that you are subject, not object, and that you deserve love and admiration for all your glorious unfiltered complexities? Because beauty will fade my love, and you and your future lovers should value the real substance of you that remains.
Footnotes
[1] A 2018 study into the extent to which young women post sexualised photos of themselves on social media concluded” Young women appear to post sexualized photos of themselves on social media because they desire attention, which is also associated with self-objectification and feelings of sexual empowerment. Posting sexualized photos is associated with getting more “likes” and friends/followers…” (Ramsey and Horan, 2018)
[2] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22749123/onlyfans-influencers-sex-work-instagram-pornography
[3] “The concern around whether the experience of empowerment can actually be described in feminist terms as empowerment underlies the stuck place between a position of accepting women’s accounts, and thereby assuming agency, and seemingly jettisoning feminist aims for female emancipation” from “Technologies of Sexiness: Sex, Identity and Consumer Culture” by Adrienne Evans and Sarah Riley
The bibliography can be found here
