Her Morning Terror

Do something for me.  Go to Google (or your preferred search engine) and type in "looking in the mirror".  Hit images and take a good look.  How many of the images that come up are women?  Of those images, how many of those women are smiling?  Not that many, right?  Look into the eyes of those women who are not smiling.  What do you see there?  Uncertainty, disappointment, nervousness, resignation?  I would argue that it is fear.

There is fear in every woman.

You have to really look to see it.  It looks like vanity in some, or even pleasure, when they pause to glance at themselves in a mirror or a window.  Sometimes it's simple busyness when a woman is preparing for her day.  But I see it, when my friends pluck at their clothes and sigh, or when they cringe at photos of themselves posted online and hurry to disconnect their names from their faces.  I see it sometimes in my own mirror, in the moment when I realize the reflection isn’t going to get any better.

The world makes us afraid of ourselves.  It makes us afraid of the way people will look at us, the judgments that they will make.  It makes us afraid to eat that scrumptious-looking hamburger, afraid of the little pudges that form at our sides or in our belly.  It makes us hide behind thick makeup, uncomfortable shoes, sticky hairspray and heavy earrings.  I remember several occasions where I was drawn to some brightly colored shirt or dress in a store.  I would pick it up, hold it up to myself, dream of myself wearing it, indulge myself in that brief happiness—and then I would put it back.  “I’ll never be brave enough to wear that in public.”

I have it better than some women.  I know that.  Having heard friends talk about their strict diets and moan about their figures, I know I have a better self-image than they.  But even I struggle with myself in the mornings when I’m preparing to step out.  Now if I venture out of the house with loose hair, no makeup, wearing jeans or a T-shirt, or any combination thereof, I do so in a faint haze of fear.  “Who’s looking at me?” I wonder.  “Someone is.  I know someone’s thinking that I look like a slob.  Look at that poor girl, they’re thinking, she doesn’t know anything about fashion.  She’s so ugly.”  And I put those thoughts into other’s mouths because I’ve thought the same thing about other women.  I’m just as much prosecutor as defendant.

I’m sure this happens to men too.  I remember when, growing up, I would walk out of my bedroom into a cloud of cologne issuing from my brother’s room; back then he paid more attention to his wardrobe than I did.  Everyone, male and female, suffers the scrutiny of others.  But when there is an entire industry—really, multiple industries—telling you what you should be and are not, it increases the pressure exponentially.  I won’t even get into the fact that “plus-size” models always look exquisite to me, whereas supermodels look like some strange cross between teenage boys and aliens. 

It hurts me to think that the weight of those stares in some way diminishes what we are.  It hurts me to think that we sometimes look at ourselves in the mirror and feel that tiny despair of not being good enough.  I wish there were a way my sisters, my mother, my friends, and someday, my daughters, could walk out into the world and not care what others think, not even the smallest bit.  I wish we could wear our hearts on our sleeves, certain of coming home in the evening with them undamaged.