Marketing yourself to others as a woman

[snoozathon]

How I look dictates how my day, month and life go. Who told me to act this way? Why am I constantly marketing myself? Why do I care, given that I have a loving DH and am not trying to attract a mate?

I didn't used to be particularly bothered about how I looked, and had fluffy, mousey hair lopped off badly at my chin and bad skin throughout school and uni, ate what I liked at a size 12-14 and rarely bought new clothes. I identified myself as intelligent and introverted. I wasn't very popular (people thought I was a bit odd) but threw myself into academia.

I now highlight my hair expensively and straighten my hair daily until it shines and swings around my shoulders. I use foundation to cover acne scars and mascara to make my eyes look bigger. I limit my food intake to maintain a size 8-10 figure and limit my natural pear-shape. I wear heels every day at work despite the pain. I wear uncomfortable underwired bras that make my breasts look higher and bigger. I airbrush myself daily before stepping out of the door. I'm like a person newly made over every morning.

I make all of this effort because I know people now meet me and treat me like an interesting person worth talking to and giving attention to, whether that's at work, out at Tesco or in the pub.

If I wander around Tesco with unstraightened hair scraped back, I feel like I speak with a stupid voice to the checkout person and they have to ask me to repeat myself and look at me strangely. If I don't wear high heels to work, my colleagues comment that I look shorter and I hear my legs look short and fat. if I have a bad hair day, my day at work will be awful, my temper will be short and my patience limited. I didn't answer the door to my driving instructor because I'd forgotten the lesson was booked and I hadn't washed my hair. If I go out with my DH and his work colleagues, I feel their eyes on me - what class am I, am I skinny and disciplined, am I insouciantly fashionable, are my skin and teeth glowing? Am I worthy of their company?

Would a man ever care so much about how others perceive him? I KNOW this is nurture and not nature, because my wonderful feminist mother steered me away from anything faintly pink or 'girly' and this is only since the age of about 24 I have understood the point of going to all this effort.

God, am I the only one who feels so judged? I'm currently TTC, will all of this change when I have kids and become a SAHM or will I then be obsessed with appearing to be the perfect wife and mother?

The weird thing is, I feel so self-obsessed in writing that but I know I'm right, I am more popular, successful and relatively rich because I have discovered how to make myself look nice :(

(This is the first time I've started a thread on MN and I'm starting in the Femi arena.... be nice!)

Interesting. Do you think this is more about your own lack of self-esteem?

'If I wander around Tesco with unstraightened hair scraped back,'

Then I'd think you were just like me...why 'do' your hair to go round Tesco??

'If I don't wear high heels to work, my colleagues comment that I look shorter and I hear my legs look short and fat.'

Your colleagues are fuckers. Simples.

I mean seriously, what fucker says that about another woman? Shame on them

Sorry. I've on;y picked up on two of your points but you don't half know some fucking bastards

Val

I think she meant that when her coworkers say she looks shorter today (because of the lack of heels) in her head she thinks that her legs are short and fat.

I think it's a combination of things OP the urge to appeal to people because like it or not people do judge by appearance and especially at work people want to look their up most best. I think it's a mixture of our society and human nature to be honest. What i mean is that people will act 'nicer' or more appreciatively towards people they like the look of this is simply something that will always happen, if you like something consciously or even subconsciously your attitude towards that thing/person will be more positive you might not even notice it. Of course our society enhances that attitude so people go to extremes in order to look at what is for that culture the best.

This happens everywhere think of those tribes where they elongate their earlobes and stretch their necks because in their society that is considered attractive.

I think though that for your case there seems to be a bit of self esteem issue as well because you seem to feel that everyone is constantly judging you or when they say neutral comments i.e. "you look shorter today" you feel as though they are saying much worse things.

I think it is about your self-esteem but it is also about being part of our society . The two are connected to each other. It is very hard for you, or other women who feel the same way, to work on their self esteem and make their sense of worth less about what they look like when society will keep reinforcing the opposite.

I think you should feel good about yourself for not being as concerned with your appearance in your teens and early twenties, because they seem to be the really dangerous times when being really concerned about appearance has a big impact on mental health.

I wish I could be more helpful in this post, but I do think lots of people feel this way and you are not unusual.

I'm glad I didn't feel this way in my teens, I think it would have held me back in my studies. It just pisses me off that I care so much. Would I really be so disgusting to look at if I stopped making so much effort and just made sure I was clean and wearing comfortable clothes?

Self-esteem is definitely an issue, I feel in control though when I feel like I look good and I feel at the mercy of people's opinions when I don't, when maybe if I look 20% less attractive with less effort it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

I probably sound really paranoid and obsessive but I think I probably spend about an average time getting ready in the mornings. I just thinking this is normal, it's a pita and a waste of time, and I'm jealous of men who aren't expected to make the effort!

I'd like to hear how other women view getting ready to face the world, I guess. I'm not looking for psycho-analysis, but for people to perhaps recognise the behaviour and contextualise it. But do rip me to shreds if you think I need a kick

Milly "It is very hard for you, or other women who feel the same way, to work on their self esteem and make their sense of worth less about what they look like when society will keep reinforcing the opposite." I agree. My life is easier now that I find discussions about lipgloss fascinating, although I have the occasional feeling that I am dressing up, playing a role.

snoozathon thanks for starting this thread!

good thread.

i think it has alot to do with acceptance. what you describe (highlights/straight hair/heels) is what society has put forward as the ideal. the closer you are to the 'ideal' the more widely accepted you will be. acceptance= friends, love, opportunity= happiness. but as you have said in your post you were happier before you bothered with conforming to the ideal. now you feel like a lesser version of yourself if you haven't straightened your hair.

Well I'm fairly scruffy and to be honest always have been. I work the other way around to some extent. If I dress up then I get very positive comments, and having learned how to do it I know that I can look very good. But I really don't bother very often, and it is very much the way that I choose to look good not that I think the world thinks I should look IYSWIM.

So if I'm going to an interview or giving an important presentation or meeting an important person for work then I totally power dress (I'm tall and like to do a smart but dramatic look). But otherwise I feel that it's my brains not my looks that I have to offer, and so I make no attempt to dress up. The best way to achieve this relaxed approach to life is to use mirrors as little as possible, and when you do to look yourself in the eye, smile and move on. But I've not worked in worlds where appearances matter that much, and I really don't think that if I (for example) wore make up it would have made any difference to my career.

Perhaps I'm totally deceiving myself on this front, but hey I've saved myself a lot of time and money

tabouleh

I had pretty bad acne when i was younger and i used to despair because of it i really felt down, to the point i wouldn't look people straight in the face i would look down.

Snoozathon, people don't notice half as much as you think they do. The driving instructor you didn't want to answer the door to was conscious of the egg on his tie, the check-out person in Tesco the fact that he hadn't got his roots done, your colleague the fact she'd gone out with a hole in her tights.

I'm wondering if you started doing all this stuff (the hair straightening, the bra, the lippy) you began to feel more confident. So you believed that the confidence came from the outside stuff rather than from within you. So when the outside stuff isn't there or goes wrong, your confidence plummets, because you've told yourself that it's the props that give you confidence.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that we live in a lookist society and I colour out my greys and wear lippy (and will be doing the weight loss thing as of Thursday when the dc are back at school, but in truth that is more for how I feel inside my body). Will it be different when you have dc? Maybe, although I have experienced Competitive Grooming at baby group and as for the school gates...

I remember once going to my doctor because I was going somewhere v.v. important and was worried I'd have a panic attack and show myself up. She said to me (in the nicest possible way) 'what makes you think anyone is going to be interested in what you're doing? What makes you think anyone will even look at you?' And she was right.

I was in a cafe last week and I heard someone speaking to the waiting staff. She had the most amazing voice with real warmth to it - it's an old-fashioned word but she was charming. I turned around to see a middle-aged lady wearing glasses and reading a newspaper. She was the same all trough lunch and I found myself wishing that I knew her.

If you (a generic you, not you particularly!) don't look after yourself (clean hair, body and clothes) then people may make assumptions that you don't care about yourself. I also think that wearing clothes that don't fit or that are just baggy cover-ups may raise eyebrows, in a professional seeting certainly. But beyond that I don't think people notice half as much as we think they do - and if they do - to what extent does their opinion even matter?

I can identify with a lot of what you say.

I like to think that what I look like doesn't impact the way I feel but it is so obvious when I try to come off some medication (for the good of my body), my acne flares up and I can't look at myself in the mirror, avoid going outside if possible and get depressed.

Other than that I present myself in the best light firstly because I am trying to progress into my desired career and for some reason looking a particular way (like you've made an 'effort') is essential in this and secondly, probably to convey to others that I am successful? I don't know about the last one. I don't know why but I suppose it is to do with how women are 'supposed' to look according to the media.

It isnt a man or woman thing its how you feel about yourself. I feel as confident going out with wet hair scraped back with no make up on as I do for a night on the town. I am still the same person and dont just change cause I am not dressed up. I have just wrote a lot about this on the patriachy and personal thread.

I go out looking like a right tramp on many occasions. It doesnt matter you are still you and worthy as a person. My husband likes it when I dress up and stuff to go out but he is as happy when I am in my trackies with a face mask on. It doesnt matter no one looks good 24/7.

I agree with the above that not many people notice you. How many people can you actually remember from your last trip around the shops? I cant remember any because I was too busy with my own life running around trying to remember if I had got everything. This is the same as most people. People will treat you as how you come across.

OP - I think you should learn to groom and dress to please yourself. Why do you care what others think?

Personally I am not happy when I look in the mirror and see myself tired and unkempt - I am happy when I look reasonably groomed and tidy, with clean and flattering clothes. But I never, ever think about what anyone else thinks, apart from my DP (and even then only marginally!).

There's only one person allowing/forcing you to feel this way and that's you.

I have an obvious (to me) skin graft on my face , the size of a 50p.
I never wear make up, never cover it up and people genuinely don't notice it, if I happen to mention it, they look closely and say "oh yes, if you hadn't told me I wouldn't have seen it".

I find that a lot of very vain and image obsessed people are actually men, it's personality type, not gender, that makes people that way.

I've only ever worked with one such woman and she was a total nightmare, her hair, make-up and clothes had to be perfect, she was so insecure despite being very attractive, all of us just thought she was so very silly.

I suggest when having a bad day, people think what it must be like to be severely disfigured by illness or injury, one of the most beautiful women I know had both breasts removed, I hope I will be as brave as her should something like that happen to me.

"I've only ever worked with one such woman and she was a total nightmare, her hair, make-up and clothes had to be perfect, she was so insecure despite being very attractive, all of us just thought she was so very silly."

I'm average looking and as I said, spend I think an average amount of time getting ready in the mornings. I don't think I'm vain in the sense of loving my looks, and I don't think people I work with would think of me as vain as I don't wear tonnes of make-up at all and don't look tarty or anything.

I take on board posters' thoughts on self-esteem. This struck a chord:

" as you have said in your post you were happier before you bothered with conforming to the ideal. now you feel like a lesser version of yourself if you haven't straightened your hair." from booyhoo

I may have verbalised it here as a real vanity and paranoia, but I am interested that most other posters don't see it as so essential to groom before going out and more of a bonus.

BTW I do enjoy making myself look nice, I just realise how much time and energy it takes up. It feels like an essential part of being a grown up to care so much.

My acne was bad when I was a teenager and I can identify with tabouleh and sammy about wanting to bury your head in the sand and be invisible, feeling that it's the first thing people see and judge.

Snoozathon I can't imagine having the time to straighten my hair daily. Just wouldn't fit in with my life at all. I just about get time for a shower, and if I really push it to put some tinted moisturiser, neutral eye shadow, mascara and lip gloss. But I don't feel that I need to hide if I haven't.

I agree with Bonsoir about dressing/grooming for yourself. This is something that I do 100% but it's something that other people don't get at all. My dh thinks I take care of my appearance when I want to impress someone when really it's just because I fancy doing it.

spiritmum and others, I do enjoy straightening my hair, I don't have DCs at the mo and work fulltime in a stressful job. I enjoy making myself look nice, I get that no-one's holding a gun to my head. Other people wear lots of make-up every day, my 'thing' is straight bloody hair

I'm interested in other people's views on vanity and expectations though. I don't want to be lampooned as a vain harpy though, no-one in RL would guess I even care more than 'normal'.

I was trying to piant a picture in my OP of the myriad of things I do to make myself look nice, but they are all 'normal', underwired bras are not a comfy choice and nor are heels. When is someone going to mention societal pressure, or is the consensus that I have low self-esteem, am vain and silly?

I'm along the same lines as Bonsoir (possibly slightly scruffier).

I view being showered/deodorised with clean hair and teeth as pretty essential, and nor do i want my clothes to suggest that I slept in a skip (so clean, ironed, co-ordinated and nicely tailored) but I dont usually wear make-up in the daytime and I deliberately have a low maintenance hair cut (bob that rough dries in 5 mins). I wear the same jewellery every single day.

I dont usually wear heels, would never consider getting cosmetic surgery, fillers or botox and dont consciously restrict my diet (although I do weight training and endurance races so I guess in a way I do watch what I eat but with a view to performance rather than weight loss IYSWIM).

I do get my nails (hands and feet) done but keep them short and practical. I just hate scraggy nails.

I give very little thought to what anyone else is thinking about the way I look. Tbh, I imagine probably nothing.

I did used to care more/ be more paranoid in my twenties I think, but now I've got to the stage where I think I'm alright, and I'm married with a baby on the way so I'm not really in the market. Maybe that makes a difference.

I also used to work in a very male dominated field where it didnt really matter what you looked like so long as you got results, so maybe that also helped.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy it, I bet it looks amazing, but it is time consuming and I couldn't fit it into my lifestyle even if I wanted to. My hair is strictly wash and go!

There was a thread on vanity recently and I think a lot of us equated vanity with insecurity. Like the idea that the person in Tesco will notice you out of all the customers they see each day...not really likely, unless you propose to them or start singing Right Said Fred songs or something.

You don't come across as a vain harpy at all if that is what you mean; you just sound a bit worried and pre-occupied about something that nobody else even notices or cares about. I think you just have to decide what your expectations are and bugger everyone else's.

"When is someone going to mention societal pressure"

At the expense of repeating a post on another thread, personally, I think we have to differentiate between "society"- ie the man or woman on the street and corporate/media (i.e. what the corporates who want to sell you stuff want you to think the man/woman on the street thinks). The latter does exert pressure. I'm not sure that the former really does, or if it does, it fails to back this pressure up with any consequences worth actually bothering about.

Snoozathon my experience has been different to yours, but I do understand how you feel. I really hated my face & body as a teenager, never dieted or anything like that but wore (really bad!) make up, lots of black clothes etc. I had a friend at that time - still do actually - who was pretty obsessed with weight to the point where she developed an eating disorder, and she used "you look so thin" and "have you lost weight?" etc as compliments a lot. When I went to university and people were more interested in what you had to say than how you looked, and no-one ever bothered to comment on body shape, I realised I felt a lot more confident.

I also had a revelation that there was no point spending your youth feeling shit about how you look and your body shape, because you will look back in old age and see how lovely you really were - all young people are beautiful really, just as all children are. Plus I made friends/attracted men etc despite my perceived fatness/ugliness.

Sorry am rambling slightly, but basically I'm saying that I think 99% of women feel this to some extent (see the "Sexy" thread in the feminist section for details!). However for me the people I surrounded myself with made a real difference - what are your friends/DH like about their/your appearance? Also important is the feeling that what I have achieved/people I love being there regardless of my appearance. Have you met your DH since you dolled yourself up? Or improved your career? Do you honestly think that those things wouldn't have happened with fluffy hair etc? (serious question).

Oh - I don't think you're vain. Vain to me means someone who is proud of their appearance. Being unable to be seen "ungroomed" to me indicates someone who is profoundly unhappy with the way they look.