Do You Think I'm Pretty?

I know, I’m a little late to the party. But I, like every human being with a stable internet connection, have seen and formed an opinion on Hollaback’s video showing a woman being catcalled, harassed, and even creepily followed by over 100 men while passively walking the streets of New York. I think most of the responses to this video have been positive (mostly women being like “YASSS FINALLY”), but there has been some negative backlash. Since the video was posted, Republicans and angry, neck-bearded “Pick-Up Artists” have been defending catcalling with statements like “Women should be flattered!” and “These men are just telling you they think you’re attractive, take a f**king compliment.”

Except the thing they don’t get is that when someone tells you you’re attractive, it's not necessarily a compliment. 

My mother’s favorite home video of me as a child is when I’m about nine years old, at the peak of my tomboy phase. It was the day I sang a solo in church. She curled and poofed my hair so that it was comically disproportionate to my head and forced me into a velvet dress and abominable sweater with fur around the collar. As I descended the stairs with a caustic scowl on my face, Grandma exclaims, presumably with her hand over her frail heart, “Bretty, you look so pretty!”

I cross my arms and scowl deeper. “I don’t want to be pretty. I WANT TO BE TOUGH.”

Although in the past 14 years I’ve developed some more noble aspirations than to be “tough,” I still understand where nine-year-old Brett was coming from. “Tough” bears more fruit than pretty. Tough gets shit done. Tough demands respect. Tough gets to the top. Tough protects you from things and people that want to hurt you.

“Pretty” does none of those things. It does nothing. Pretty is passive. Pretty is weak. Pretty invites misuse, even abuse. Pretty is something one might use to describe a thing, not a person.

Fast-forward three years. I am twelve years old. I look in the mirror one morning and all of a sudden I am unfamiliar to myself. There are dark circles under my eyes. My skin looks pallid and my eyes look small. I have started breaking out on my chin and forehead.

“I’M UGLY!!!” I cry from the bathroom. Mom whisks me upstairs and opens up her cavern of war paint. She puts concealer under my eyes, blush on my cheeks, mascara on my eyelashes, shimmery eyeshadow on my lids, gloss on my lips. My face feels sticky and heavy.

When she is finished, I peek in the mirror again. “Am I pretty now?” *

*”Pretty” being relative here. I was still an ugly-ass 12-year-old by all accounts

I had no idea I was actually a decently attractive human being until my late teens. In addition to being among the most exotic-looking people at my high school (I know, not a lot of genetic variability in Bountiful, Utah), I had terrible acne, terrible self-esteem, and got zero attention from boys. None. Nobody ever even looked at me. I was legitimately surprised that I got asked to prom, and even then assumed that he was just a noble white knight whose mom felt sorry for me and made him ask me. 

By the time I got to college, I had (mostly) grown into my facial features, and my defiantly un-feminine physique started vaguely resembling that of a woman. Boys started paying attention to me and it wigged me the eff out. I was completely unreceptive to any advances because it didn’t occur to me that they might have actually been attracted to me. It took several guys literally grabbing me by the shoulders and yelling “YOU ARE PRETTY” in my face before it finally clicked and I was like, “Oh. I am genetically suitable for men to want to copulate with. Awesome.”

I didn’t feel like I deserved the attention. And moreover, I didn’t want it. I won a genetic lottery. Two attractive people* decided to reproduce, and my body was the result of a completely random, statistically improbable combination of genes. I literally did nothing to deserve pretty.

Pretty was, and is, an accident.

*Shout-out to Matt and Andra for being attractive and then being attractive together. That was a good decision.

I don’t want to appear ungrateful. It would be unforgivable for me to not to acknowledge the privileges of moderate attractiveness in this totally imbalanced and backwards world. Attractive people are, on average, more successful than their less attractive counterparts. They are more likely to find love, get married, and make healthy babies. But that doesn’t mean my soul is not wrecked over the fact that society values something we can’t control over our individual merits. I see my mom, who is smokin' hot for 54, busting her ass at the gym, shelling out for botox and eyelash extensions in an attempt to cling to a hologram of pretty. She is strong, healthy, talented, smart, funny, and compassionate, but she honestly believes her worth varies inversely to the lines on her face. Pretty does nothing, but the idea of pretty threatens to destroy amazing women like my mother.

When a woman is walking down the street, trying to get from A to B, and a man she doesn’t know tells her she’s beautiful, or hot, or sexy, or “pretty,” it is not a compliment. We are not our bodies. At times, we don’t even identify with our bodies at all. Bodies are just the meat-ships the better parts of us move around in. Catcalls have no more meaning to us than, “some shapes are round” or “there is cheese.”

When someone tells me I’m pretty, I don’t just “take a f**king compliment.” I don’t say thank you. When someone tells me I’m pretty, I always say, “You know…I’m some other things too.”

If you really want to give a woman a compliment, for the love of God, don’t start with telling her she’s pretty. Tell her you admire her wit and intellect. Tell her she’s a good listener. Tell her her smile lights up a room or that her laugh is contagious. Tell her how she makes you feel when she talks about the things she’s passionate about. Tell her she is beautiful, not because of her face or her boobs, but because she is a human being and human beings are inherently beautiful.

XOXO betches,

An ugly girl in a “pretty” girl’s body

Choose Joy.

Hi.

We've never met, 

But I'm hoping I look at least a little bit familiar.

Because I'm you. 

In ten years.

Just checkin' in. 

Be Poor. Look Rich.

I know you wouldn't guess by looking at me in my usual uniform of saggy-butt jeggings and man sweaters, but I've actually been hugely into fashion since I was like, 13 years old. Reading fashion magazines, stalking style blogs, and putting together outfits from the crap in my closet clears my head and brings me immense joy. There's only one problem: I'm the cheapest cheap-ass in the history of cheap-assery. If it can't be found at Goodwill or on the sale rack at Marshall's, I'm not finna buy it. I have thus had to devise a few strategies to look like I have money to spend on clothes when I am actually struggling to afford a diet that isn't composed solely of condiments. I am here to share those tips with you. 

The Plebeian Guide to Dressing Like a Patrician

1. Geometry

--> Eleonora Carisi, http://www.joujouvilleroy.com/
Sharp lines are....sharp. A lot of high-end designers colorblock their pieces with clean, contrasting lines like Eleanora's dress, or play around with shapes. A full, A-frame skirt? YAS. A boxy blouse? OMG GIMME MORE. A structured bag? TALK DIRTY TO ME. A blazer with crisp, defined edges? BRB, FASHION BONER. 


2. Soft, Delicate Fabrics and/or Details

--> Jenny, http://www.goodbadandfab.com/   
Since the beginning of society, the aristocrats have sat around on their chaise lounges drinking fine wine and wearing silk, chiffon, and lace while the working class have labored on in heavy cotton and polyester coveralls. Before you buy something, close your eyes and stroke it sensually. Ignore the other shoppers who are looking at you funny. Does it feel like something you want to wrap yourself up naked in? Then you should probably buy it. Delicate, feminine details also give an item a pseudo-bourgeois appearance. The thin, criss-cross straps on Jenny's satin dress are soooo prettttyyy. And that pearly blush color with her olive skin and shiny black hair...want to tooooucchh. Part of looking rich is people wanting to touch you all the time. Get used to it. 


3. Monochrome

--> Veronica Popoiacu http://www.bittersweetcolours.com/ Wearing all one hue looks fresh and streamlined. It gives you more freedom to experiment with fun shapes and accessories without being too busy or breaking up your body. If you're a n00b you can start with wearing all black or all white, which is always super fly. Advanced level: wear different shades of the same color like Veronica. 

Bonus: matching separates. Because it gives the impression that you could afford to buy a whole outfit at once. #obsessed #goddess #wantthisoutfit #gimmedat

Shea Marie http://peaceloveshea.com/

4. Mixin' Prints

--> Nancy W, http://www.adoretoadorn.com/  Ever opened a high-end fashion magazine and it just kind of looks like the editor barfed a bunch of random prints onto the page but it looks good anyway? You can barf prints too! You're kind of allowed to go off-book on this one, just use your intuition. I usually follow two rules when mixing prints to avoid looking like a wacky-ass kindergartner:
a) Stick to a general color scheme. The two prints you mix should have at least one color in common. Nancy is going with black, and it pulls together the heavy paisley and the whimsical dots perfectly. 
b) If you are going bold with one print, be conservative with the other(s), e.g. If you're doing big florals do small stripes and vice versa. 






5. Statement Bling 

--> Aileen Belmonte http://aileenclarisse.blogspot.com/ Statement jewelry is a mind trick. It basically says "because I am bold and ostentatious and contain a lot of material, I must be expensive." Wrong. No one is going to get close enough to your statement necklace to see that it was actually made in China and is turning your neck green, so march into Forever 21, buy that $14 oversize bauble that has a couple rhinestones missing (negligible), and let it do the talking. 


 6. Cover Up
 

--> Viktoriya Sener http://www.tiebow-tie.com/ Been puttin' in the squats at the gym and want to show off your lean legs? Do it! Do you have flat, toned abs that you want to share with the world? First of all, supes jelly, second of all, go for it! Are you proud of your shapely boobies? Push dem girls up! But do it tastefully. In fashion, the focus should be on the clothes, not the body underneath them. Unless you're at the beach or a sorority house, there is no need for every square inch of your skin to be exposed. If your titties are about to escape from their assigned seats, it just makes everyone nervous. I love a cute pair of shorts, but FTLOG, can be PLEASE be done with shorts that show your thutcrack (the crease where your thigh ends and your butt begins)? I'm not saying you can't be flirtatious; showing an inch-wide strip of your tummy can be cute. I love it when you can see the edge of a pretty bra peeking out. And if you ask me, I think the full midi-skirts that cinch at the waist like Viktoriya's are pretty much the sexiest item of clothing on the market right now. 
7. Break Rules

It's a dead giveaway that you don't know how to dress yourself if you rigidly adhere to outdated fashion rules. Yeah, it's kind of hit or miss (I've had a LOT of misses), but you never know when you could stumble upon an amazing trend! Yes, you CAN mix colors that are close to each other on the color wheel like fuchsia and red or navy blue and black. Yes, you CAN wear black shoes with a brown belt. And if you still think you can't wear white in the winter, get back to the Depression Era where you belong. 

Happy shopping pleebs! You might even have some money left for ramen! 

Girls Should Fight.

.....


I had every intention of writing a funny post tonight, but unfortunately my humor has taken a very dark twist lately and usually offends more people than it entertains. Also I'm just not that funny. So I'm defaulting to my regularly scheduled feminist diatribe, which is sure to evoke equal parts eye-rolls and fist pumps, depending on what your personal stance on feminism is. At the end of the day, I honestly don't have two rat's asses to rub together about what anyone else thinks about feminism, I know where I stand on it. And I have some heavy artillery stored up.

People have a lot to say about what women "should" do. I think there are only two things a woman should absolutely do:
1. Know how to do a fierce smokey eye
2. Know how to fight

And I don't mean in the figurative sense, I mean they should literally learn how to throw punches. Let me explain. 

I started taking Thai boxing lessons about four months ago. I grew up watching my mom fight and had never really had any particular interest in martial arts, but I was in the market for a new hobby and it sounded awesome so I jumped in. Enthusiastically and kind of recklessly. 

The best decisions I have made in my life have been on a whim, and this was no exception. Fighting for four short months changed me in a way I wasn't even cognizant of until a couple of weeks ago when I had one of the most bizarre experiences I've ever had.

I was sparring. With a guy. It was only my second time ever sparring and he was much more experienced than me. In short, he beat the crap out of me. I wanted to see it as a positive experience, because I believe that training with more experienced athletes is how you improve, but I honestly just felt totally powerless. All I could do was stand there with my gloves in front of my face and take blow after blow after blow.



My poor sparring partner was obviously unaware that he was accidentally blowing right through some kind of MASSIVE emotional barrier. After a few minutes of taking hits, an unearthly revelation went through my entire body from sweaty ponytail to dirty sticky toes like I had been struck by lightning. 



Hot diggity damn. I can hit back. 

So I did. And it was amazing. And terrifying. I unleashed every blow that I had ever absorbed, buried and hidden on this dude. All the pain, rage, and torment I had been saving up over the course of forever was just spilling out all over the mat and it wanted to drown. F**king. Everyone. For a second, I was some kind of creature. I was a phoenix.

When the bell rang and the round ended, I broke down. I cried like a little girl. In front of everyone. I was totally inconsolable. And I had no idea if what I was feeling was positive or negative. A couple people asked me if I was okay and I didn't even know how to answer. One phrase just kept repeating in my mind: I can hit back. I can hit back. I can hit back. 

My brother used to beat the shit out of me, and that was supposed to be normal. Big brothers are supposed to beat up their little sisters. It's just a thing that happens. When he would come after after me, I would just cover my eyes and hope that if I couldn't see him then he would go away. That didn't really ever work. I distinctly remember the only time I ever thought to hit him back, I chickened out at the last second and just kind of tapped my fist on his eye socket. He laughed like a maniac. He could hit me, but for whatever reason, I felt I wasn't "allowed" to hit him. I just had to cover my eyes and wait for it to be over and then run to my room so he couldn't see me cry. Because responding with emotion was just an invitation for further torment.

Girls. You can hit back.  

You have spent your whole life absorbing blow after blow after blow from men who often don't even realize they are hitting you. When you try to fortify yourself against these blows, your male boss reprimands you for "trying to be too much of a hardass." Yes, that actually happened to me like, four days ago. How do you even possibly begin to describe to a man what it is like to constantly be in a state of submission, powerlessness, silence, and apology? And now he thinks he can tell you that it's unbecoming of you to defend yourself? DAFUQUE. ACTUALLY.  

Girls. Let's stop "defending." 

You don't need "self-defense." When you call it self-defense, you are sending a signal to yourself and to everyone that you are fundamentally the object of attack. Be the attacker. Show the world that if it hits you once, you will hit it back two, three, four times. 

Girls. Learn to fight.

It can rewire you like it is rewiring me. Throw punches and kicks for a few hours a week and you will realize that it feels natural. It feels right to fight. Nowhere has it been proven that just because you aren't a slave to testosterone like your male counterparts that it's unnatural for you to be the aggressor for once. Become a fighter in the gym and you will become a fighter in your life. 

I honestly feel bad for the dudes in my co-ed classes. It must be really awkward to spar with a chick and not know whether you should hit her or take it easy. I'm saying, go ahead and hit her. In addition to having a higher pain threshold in general (science, bitch), she's most likely been a human punching bag for most of her life and can take a hit a helluva lot better than you can. 

Just don't be surprised when she socks you two for every one.

The Thing and I

One out of every ten people has it, so why why WHY can we still not talk about it?

The Thing stirred I was 14. I think the first stage was just becoming really aware of the seasons. Something about the passing of time. Days getting shorter or the air getting colder or something. That and the amount of time I spent alone. They were prime conditions for its evolution. 

"What's the matter? You look sad."
 I...don't think anything's the matter.  Sad? I do? Why do people keep asking me this? Is The Thing showing? How did it get outside? No, no one's hurting me. No, no I'm doing this to myself. I think that makes it okay.

I always shrugged when I said that. I've always had a knack for minimizing problems. It makes me look like I'm stronger than I am. Probably because if I can convince someone else, I can convince myself.

"I should have been a dancer."
"I always thought I would have been good at that too." 
It was just a statement I made as she was leaving and I was facedown on the rug drowning in a puddle of tears and snot. In retrospect, it was probably a cry for help. Not sure. 

The night The Thing almost won, she held me and sobbed hysterically. Saying that she should have known, she was my mother. How did she not know.

And I just laid there, staring up at the winter moon and feeling The Thing pressing into my chest. No, momma, you shouldn't have known. I didn't even know. 

"It's getting bad again. Might hurt myself. I think I need help."
Text to mom. She understood by now. She had always had some kind of a Thing too.
 
But I never wanted to hurt myself. Not my body at least,  the body was innocent...and besides, I've done enough hurting already. I just wanted to put The Thing down, and if the rest of me had to go with it...collateral damage is collateral damage.

The point is not to make yourself hurt. No one wants to hurt. The point is to rest, finally.

"Do you have anxious thoughts that keep you up at night?"
 Well God knows I'm having anxious thoughts right now, Doc. White coat hypertension. I hate that cuff squeezing my arm. 
But no, not when I'm trying to sleep. I'm very good at sleeping. Too good at sleeping. Not because it's restful, kind of the opposite. I love the dreams. I don't remember any of the images but I remember the feelings. Burning, white hot anger. Release. Elation. Joy. Ebb and flow. Light and darkness. Fire and purple soup. Imploding and rebuilding.

In my dreams, I'm a phoenix. Then I roll out of bed and I'm so very tired. And I'm not a phoenix anymore, I'm like, a rubber chicken. A rubber chicken with some seriously anxious thoughts.

What are these things I diligently swallow? They tie up The Thing, but they tie me up too. They make the bad feelings stop, but I can handle bad feelings. I've had a lot of practice. I don't want to not feel bad things, I just want to be able to feel good things too. I just want to be a fucking phoenix, okay? 

"Just go take care of it."
The Thing requires a lot of maintenance. Three weeks into a new job and I was lying on the bathroom floor, pulling my sweatshirt hood over my eyes, trying to wrangle The Thing so I could get back to work. You don't get sick days for this kind of thing. If you ask for a sick day because you're too "sad" to work, you get fired for not being "mentally tough." 

That day, I lost against The Thing. My boss let me "go take care of it." 

"I mean, I don't know what's going on, but maybe you should take care of it."
As if I was voluntarily letting The Thing run rampant. These are not the words of a concerned friend. More patronizing than anything.

Do I really deserve to wonder why he chose her over me? She's the TEMPLATE for a basic bitch and I'm awesome, but she doesn't have a Thing hanging around her neck. And three's company.

Please, sir, if The Thing was really everything, why did it take you four years to mention it? You knew. I knew. Everybody knew. Everybody sees and some comment on "that dark thing you have about you." Why did we talk about everything else, but not that? 
 
For the record, I AM "taking care of it." I have been singlehandedly taking down The Thing in private silence, because no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to see. And I have granted you all that privilege.
 
But if you have made it to the end of this, congratulations. You have now come face-to-face with someone else's dark, dirty Thing and you're still alive. That wasn't so bad, was it? No?

So why are we still not talking about it?