4 posts tagged “identity”
So my Trying Something New blogpost has resulted in me being contacted privately by a few people, apologizing if they've ever made me feel uncomfortable. Thing is, they haven't. They probably have no idea what it is I'm actually referring to.
I attend conferences where the average adjusted age for maturity is about 16, where I can be standing in the lobby dressed up to go out and waiting for a friend, and listening to a group of 5 or 10 guys about 20 feet away talk really loud about the hot redhead, or calling 'hey redhead' trying to get a reaction from me (and the really stupid thing is that one of the guys knows my name). I don't ask for drunk texts saying 'we gotta hook up sometime' (no, we don't), or 'I'm out with X Y and Z and they're impressed I know the hot redhead and want you to come out with us' (which guaranteed I didn't go out that night, even though I actually enjoy the company of the people in that case). I don't appreciate questions about my personal hygiene or sex life. I don't ask to be propositioned almost every conference. I don't ask people to IM me out of the blue with a url to porn asking me what I think of the picture. I don't ask strangers in the grocery store to ask if my haircolor is natural and then go on to tell me about their personal sexual fantasies.
Some of the behavior towards me I can see how I contribute to. Sometimes I joke and talk with the guys as if I'm one of the guys, and forget I'm not. Then when someone gets a little too forward I don't respond assertively - I've always felt like I had to be nice and polite and uber-nonbitchy, so I would just change the subject or laugh it off/make a joke. This summer for the first time I told someone to @#$! off when they made me uncomfortable, and probably need to do that more often.
Those are the more extreme examples, but each one is true. I wish I didn't have so many. I haven't been to a conference as a brunette yet, but grocery shopping, going out to dinner, and generally anything I have done in public has been way more comfortable, I don't feel as many eyes on me which has been kind of nice. And it isn't that I don't like the brown or the short cut. I just loved my hair before. I'm going to have to learn how to be more comfortable being myself as a redhead and setting boundaries with people who make me feel objectified.
Mid September I had a bad couple days and in a morning driven by a desparate need to change SOMETHING in my life and feel different, I went and had my hair dyed brown and chopped off. There were a lot of reasons for this. I was really unhappy with myself, and had been a redhead for 16 years, and desparately wanted to feel different about myself. Now I'm the first one who will tell you that changing your hair won't change your life - the issues you had pre-hair-change will still be there post-hair-change. But I felt like it was the only thing in my power to change at that particular moment (because I'm still way too uptight to get a tattoo). Plus, I wanted to see if people would treat me differently (SPOILER: they did). When I had red hair I would get a lot of inappropriate sexual comments/advances from people. Friends, acquaintences, co-workers, strangers in the grocery store... It was making me really uncomfortable in public, like people weren't seeing me as a person but an object. I ended up not trusting that anyone was actually interested in me, the person inside the biological container, but that they were just saying whatever they thought I wanted to hear. I always said if I weren't going to be a redhead, I'd like to try a chocolate brown, so that is what I went to the salon and asked for.
The next morning I woke up and was startled in the mirror. And a little freaked out that the my identity, both IRL and online as KymPossible wasn't what I had known and been familiar with for so long. It definitely took some getting used to. I started wearing makeup regularly though, and I did like how the color and cut made my eyes really stand out.
So it's a month later, and what do I think of it now? The social experiement was a success and people did treat me differently, and I made a point to not dress or act any differently than I had as a redhead. That was actually pretty awesome, to feel like people were seeing me as a person. Sure, I still had the occasional guy who talked to my chest (I think a tshirt with a picture of eyes across the boobs would be pretty funny) but overall it was a lot better. It is a lot more maintenance to style, and there was a fair amount of trial and error figuring out how to make it look decent and not all foofy like a muppet. It is less maintenance (and thus less $) in color, red fades pretty quickly and the roots are visible sooner than the brown. It didn't quite turn out chocolate brown, a lot of the red shines through.
Net: I like it.
BUT.
I miss the red. I was looking through photos this morning and when I hit this one I suddenly realized that I miss my hair.
I can go back to red pretty quickly. But growing the length back out will take a couple years. I'm glad I changed it, its just hair and will grow back. And I needed the change at that moment. And I did like feeling like people were treating me like a human and not a fembot. But I miss the red. Guess I know for sure now how I look as a brunette, and know that it's pretty good and still a viable option for the future if I ever decide to grow up and look more mature (I had several people tell me the brown looked more mature and sophisticated, to which I tried really hard not to cringe and roll my eyes).
In the past I tried to be someone I wasn't in order to try and make other people happy. It was a long, hard, painful realization that I was unhappy doing that. Some women change their hair all the time and it's no big deal. But my hair was such a big part of my self identity, and I changed it so rarely (chopped it off but kept the red in 1994 and 2001, roughly a seven-to-eight year cycle) that this just doesn't feel like me. I knew it would be temporary, but I'll admit I thought it would be longer than 6 weeks. :)
It was a good experiment and I'm glad I did it. I'll miss the feeling of freedom I have now when I go out, I don't feel like I'm being hunted anymore. But I'm going to go back to red soon. Hopefully I'll do a better job shutting down inappropriate comments and advances so I can still feel like a human instead of an object to acquire.
Not sure who is the bigger nerd here.
I spent $65 on tshirts (rarrr!), posters for me and for Allyson, and keyrings from Nanamation, and it required self restraint to not spend more at her booth. Super cute and awesome. Tomorrow I'm getting a spiderman poster for Christopher, but I was out of cash and that vendor didn't accept plastic.
Also met the artist who writes the semi-autobiographical The Devil's Panties web comic, she was super cool. Picked up a devilgirl pin (support the arts, yo) that will grace my office bulletin board since I can't think of anywhere else I'd really put it. It would go with my motorcycle jacket, but that is armored leather. Not sticking a pin in that.
I'm going back tomorrow with some friends, should be fun. I saw a lot of other awesome things (mostly art) that I restrained myself from buying today, but suspect I might pick up tomorrow. The art isn't expensive, its the framing that will kill you. My goal is to stay under $100 on stuff. We'll see. I already know where $50 is going. So maybe $150. :s
I don't plan on getting a Cthuthlu for the kids, but the fact that such a thing exists is awesome.
Saw lots of folks in costumes, some were really good. I liked Master Chief of course, but also two men in suits with blue latex gloves (two by two, hands of blue). I saw a woman in a Leia slave costume who I had two instant reactions to: 1. wow, that takes guts to wear that anywhere that has this many socially inept men and 2. she has no business wearing a Leia slave costume, really. She wasn't built like Jabba, but she wasn't Carrie Fisher either. Regardless, mad props to her for sheer guts. There was a really fantastic Batgirl and Captain America too.
In a way, I totally get the costume thing. I could see myself wearing my Catwoman costume, and in a way, being more comfortable. Sure, more random strangers would talk to me and I'd get a lot of attention (which I generally dislike), but they wouldn't really be talking to me. I'd be in character, someone else. And in a way, that is easier.
edited to add Cthuthlu content
I'm reading Songbook by Nick Hornby (also the author of High Fidelity), and keep coming back to the fourth chapter about Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. If you haven't read this yet, I'd highly recommend it. While this book is obviously inspired by music, this essay has little to do with the particular song and more about the song's meaning to the author. in fact, you don't have to like Led Zeppelin at all to appreciate the message the author is trying to convey. This essay has a lot to do with how we grow and evolve as people, and how we value and judge things as we mature and become 'responsible adults'. I can't go all book club on you in a blog post and adequately describe why it means so much to me, I can't explain enough to begin a dialog without feeling the need to regurgitate the essay first. So go read it, and let me know when you have so we can have a discussion about it.
