On Being Pretty

liability or privilege in the patriarchy?

I didn’t want to write this. In fact I wrote about 700 words last week after an interaction with a dear sister friend that stirred a little fire in my blood, and then erased them.

I woke up today to an

Elizabeth Gilbert

essay about beauty ideals and a dear friend’s message reporting that her friend died in the hospital from sepsis due to anorexia, and I changed my mind.

It’s generous with many little tendrils to unpack. I am traveling only a few in this piece. For those who can hang…

---

~I dropped off a loaf of local sourdough, the real kind, to a sister as a thank you for her help. We attempted a very brief hug and hello. But as women do, we fell into our hearts and began to share what was alive for us.

She had just finished watching a documentary on sex trafficking and I had just come from an interaction with a man who I had to set a strong boundary with around intimate connection.

We were both stewing in that old rage towards men we have committed to extracting from our bodies to free up our precious energy and become vessels of unity despite the egregious wounds inflicted upon women, by men, since the dawning of our society.

Navigating and healing this deep seated resentment and rage towards men is a landmark journey for women that must be done. An exploration that I will couch for another day. (We/I love men fyi)

Our conversation rounded to my sharing about how Mr. Needed a Boundary used that same ol’ comment “but I couldn’t help it because your *ss is so cute” that if I had a dollar for…

She rolled her eyes at me.

I was taken back.

She said that if someone commented on her behind she would likely welcome it.

She then went on to say that women who fit the blonde haired, light eyed, pop culture ideal of beauty don’t have any idea what it’s like to be in a body that is the opposite of the typical beauty standard.

Pop culture is a mono crop that destroys the fertility of the personal and collective soul.

And now that she was in that 50s aging transition- that most dreaded of all, riled against territory that women must walk through, which is potentially the most important portal of a woman’s own life- she said that her awareness of beauty ideals, where she doesn’t fit and the fear that it brings up in her body around being alone, unloved and abandoned, has amplified

I was quiet. I listened. I felt like I needed to apologize for being born. Then the anger came, the compassion followed, grief ensued, memories of my own life as a “pretty woman” flooded the field. Here stood a beautiful woman inside and out, who I have admired in all ways since we met, fighting against herself because of how she looks.

Like almost every woman I have ever met.

The mysogynist power structures love a woman who fights against herself.

I am also aging- and so are you. My SM feeds as of 2 years ago are filled with women who gloat about how this one secret device, or potion, rid them of those, “you better never ever get these because it says something about you, neck wrinkles that give away a woman’s age long before the shameful wrinkles on her face, and if you want love and success you had better look like you’re a together woman, a powerful woman, a woman who loves herself and her life by looking like you’re 35 all the way through your 60s”.

artist Kat Shaw

The most devastating fallout of this is how women self inflict this wound and project it upon other women by participating in and continuing to hang our power and success on how we look.

When we are over identified with our appearance we become distracted and obsessed, narrowed down, overemotional, off balance and sick. We can’t see that the majority of our hormone imbalances and the numerous challenges we face are from this inner war with ourselves. This thwarts the feminine’s/women’s innate ability to expand our consciousness into great visions for Life and lead our communities beyond forced limiting beliefs.

Most of us are aware of the disease and how it has seeped into and poisoned every corner of life on this planet, yet we are still participating.

On being pretty…

I went home and chewed on my sister’s comment. I wanted to understand her position. We talked, I heard her pain. She said that she has heard from other “pretty women” that it is a liability and she understands how that could be.

Not one day of my life have I looked in the mirror without judging how I look. Comparison culture hit the scene very young, as it does, and ever since the inner dialogue has been-

“I wish I looked like her" when I saw a pretty, skinny, successful and therefore worth loving, girl.

Juxtaposed with:

“I am so glad I don’t look like her” when I saw an ugly or fat and therefore unpopular girl.

My brain still does this, but I can witness this habit rather than react to it. What? Are you aghast?! Is my image ruined?

That muscle has been well trained into the genetics of everyone for generations. Most of us do it everyday- look at women and judge their appearance. And not in the way we look upon a wild, often raging, beautiful Ocean and simply witness its texture and mood of the day, but to see how we compare to some standard of worth to either feel better or worse about ourselves.

I realize many women have looked at me and wished they looked like me. And how a part of me enjoyed it when I sensed they may feel that way. Oof that shadow of pain that wants others to be in the same pain.

The irony is although I never thought I was pretty I hung my entire identity on it and it almost took my life.

It is grossly futile to hang our identity on a guaranteed to change thing that gets sick, has smelly farts, wrinkles, sags, loses hair where we want it most, grows it where we don’t and then dies. Hanging our identity on being pretty will always leave us living in scarcity.

Every bit of bitter worthlessness around not having a college degree, being somewhat homeless as a teen, fighting an eating disorder and its many accompanying addictions, or being single when I was (because having a partner is an obvious marker of success), masked itself by being pretty.

No one knew I was suffering because I looked like someone who should/could never suffer as I fit the standard of what is supposed to make women, and men (therefore everyone), happy.

And with a strong social narrative that supports hierarchies of pain, “pretty” can quickly devolve herself into more silence and shame.

When pretty isn’t raised properly, she becomes a potential harbor for devastating self harm, disease and addiction. This has more to do with a society void of animist values than actual parenting. Being pretty while walking with a deep self worth wound invites harmful relationships, sexual harassment in the workplace, promiscuity, and all the other aforementioned conditions. Not always, but often.

However, being pretty is not a requirement. All women, regardless of looking like Barbie or not, navigate some level of these bi-products of misogynist culture.

I whole heartedly believed that the only reason I was accepted anywhere was for being pretty. And thank god I was, even though I wasn’t, because I had nothing to contribute other than my appearance. I was so lost, severed from any sense of soul led contribution to the world, dreams or goals in life and deeply devastated inside for decades.

There is a subconscious projection onto pretty women that the only reason they have the opportunities they have is because of their looks; that everyone is being manipulated by their pretty faces and that is the privilege they carry.

I recently got this from a neighbor friend when I mentioned that my landlord had been very generous with me in a time of need and that we had a good rapport. They made that ol’ “innocent” comment-

“Yeah I bet he is nice to you.”

No really, he and I are actually friends. And yes, he likely enjoys the intelligent conversations he has with a beautiful woman whose smile lights up a room. I mean who wouldn’t enjoy the company of such a being?

Me. For too long a time.

We can imagine how this all began. One thorough look at the archetypal impact of the sacred whore, the stories of Lilith, Mary and Eve and we can begin to piece together why this pretty privileged prostitute complex exists. Women were killed for not conforming to ideals that kept them pretty, poised and perfectly silent. They were then pitted against one another to compete for a man or a status in order to survive.

art by Sue Ellen Parkinson

It’s my responsibility to discharge this collective projection by honoring my boundaries, and keeping my legs closed so to speak, so there is no part of me that can second guess why I am receiving what may be offered and risk another compromise sludging up my insides. If something feels off I can face the fear of not receiving what I believed I needed from that situation, walk away and trust I can resource it from a deeper, more sustainable well.

This does not mean dim my light.

~A revelation I had in my 20s when I first attempted recovery that has stuck with me, was that at my core I never wanted to look like anyone else but me, be anyone else but me. I knew that one encounter with true self love and it didn’t matter if I had horns and criss crossed eyes because my creative potential and passion for sharing this unconditional love would flow without hitting all of those m-fing voices in my head.

I craved the touch of inner passion, purpose and expression that I believed pretty women must possess to look the way they do. No shame on their face for who they are.

Of course, as stories we tell ourselves go, I had it all wrong. If all “pretty women” lived from self love and radiated without need for approval or fear of rejection at all stages of their lives (and monthly cycles), we would not be facing the societal diseases that we do.

Everything follows the lead of the feminine, of women, because at a primal level all forms of life know that it’s the women who birth and who bury and therefore hold the power to resurrect- often all at once.

---

Pretty also opened doors for me, got me things.

I have a look that is good for business, a natural magnetism that makes people believe in what I am selling and that I might know a thing or two. Anyone who has survived any arduous and painful disease process has a spirit that radiates.

I like to believe that my spirit and innate talent for life is what has opened doors for me. But for a long time they were the wrong doors for this soul even though I was celebrated for walking through them. It made everyone believe that I was ok and so they could keep looking the other way when I showed up with a blood shot and bloated, but still pretty, face.

When I lost my job of 12 years in 2011, the only real accomplishment of my then life that I stumbled into, I heard through a former colleague that the only reason anyone believed I had my position-which I acquired by working my way from an hourly employee, through management, into corporate recruiting, training and teaching -was because I was sleeping with the boss.

Which I wasn’t. I sense you know me well enough by now to know that I would tell you. I had endured sexual harassment from the owner of that company for over a decade. I just recently stopped having nightmares about him. The shame it left behind was trying to process through my subconscious for over 13 years.

When I wanted to speak out, sue for some money honey, it was women who begged me not to because they were afraid of the company collapsing and losing their jobs.

“Don’t you want to leave a legacy and not shame yourself? He’s just a passionate man.” said the CFO who has two daughters and had been covering his a** with creative severance packages since day one. I wasn’t his only prey.

The harassment from bossman wasn't nearly as impactful as the projections, jealousies and assumptions cast from others in the company and the daily ingestion of toxic corporate soup I was floating in.

I was so unguarded and naive because my heart, mind and soul were gravely focused on trying to manage the addiction, which was really a daily dose of major pain management. I backed down because I didn’t believe I had anything to stand on to stand up for myself, and pretty is definitely not enough.

In fact these are the moments when pretty can be used against a woman. Because obviously looking the way she does, she deserves it.

~Being pretty inspired a large group of my peers to verbally and physically harass me from 8th through 10th grade. One boy was so taken with my beauty that he punched me with all of his adolescent strength in my left breast and sent me running home dry eyed, unable to cry in fear of my name callin’ Daddy, whose favorite word for women is whore.

By being pretty I was handed envelopes of cash by various older, lathered up in play money men when I was slingin’ drinks in swanky Seattle establishments. There was jewelry, sold out concert tickets, front of the line status, green room access, free drinks, my drugs of choice and invitations to a life of ease if I could learn to love him and suffer another compromise.

But that’s what many women do- endure one compromise after another until there is a wretching rot that worms its way through the heart and womb. This breeds that well known gnawing resentment towards others in the place where our self love has been abandoned in fear of rejection.

The paradox of all of this is that I stayed in the game to be here with you now because I LOVE myself and life deeply or I wouldn't have dropped down to play here on Earth turf. That devastating ache, as wicked as it is, also pointed to the possibility that there was more to me than the overlay of society’s orchestrated pain, that there is something inherently stronger.

I often wonder what would have happened to me if I wasn’t identified as pretty. I imagine some radical, I don’t give a flap, freebird would have flown out of my soul to direct all of that anger I internalized, and harmed myself with, into life changing art. It’s never too late. ;)

I have turned down some dark alleys, and that thing, you know that thing, always somehow kept me from falling pretty face first into the gutter of where addictions can lead a person, and I am grateful- which barely captures how I feel.

---

One last short tendril. Are you with me?

I made a comment to my sister friend about how it is up to women to unravel this for themselves and until we do there is no healing. She again was taken back and said

“We need everyone, including men, to take responsibility and do this together.”

I know that place inside that believes that if others can feel our pain and justify it, we will finally be able to rest into what we are seeking for ourselves in the validation. I understand the exhaustion of feeling like women have to do all of this work while men get out of jail free.

The collective healing is very important as it can break down many social fears and partly restore a sense of belonging. This post could be viewed as me seeking that very relief as I explore this wound. It’s good for some necessary buoyancy, but doesn’t remove the anchor on the heart.

The healing that sets us free- yes I am going to say it- comes from within. Ugh, I know- it’s still true. No way around it. We are allowed, and must allow, all of the love and support along the path. It is our birthright to be lifted up, and still it is our own hands that untie the final knots anchoring us to the past.

When women do this work for themselves, to love themselves, everything else follows.

The amplifying power of women in touch with their fertile, creative bodies is unstoppable, changes landscapes, births beauty and bounty that feed all the Earth’s children, not just humans. But we are unable to access that power fully when our nervous systems are locking down in fears around survival that are based on how we appear, in all ways, to the world.

Where the collective healing is needed most is in the encouragement and reassurance that we do have the inner resources to unravel the depleting structures our nervous systems are shaped to fit as we bravely and honestly ask life shifting questions-

When we stop fixing ourselves and fighting to be fed what feeds us? When we step off the dead end track of compromise what catches us? Who loves us when we defy status quo and begin to follow that incorruptible golden grain wound through our hearts? Is there another support system that kicks in?

I could tell you but I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

This does not mean I toss out the red lipstick and stop shaving my legs or grab some sheers and shave my head -which I have, my legs I mean (for the winter) and I did just cut off most of my pretty, no longer blonde, hair.

It means I shine, adorn and perform for that which truly feeds my being on my terms. I finally dance like my eyes are watching. I do it for the incredible gift given and my soul’s expression and to explore the limitless colors within the vast pallets of Life’s potential.

And because being a woman, an intoxicating wild flower whose nectar eradicates all hunger, is the most sought after posture amongst the stars, I am here to make beauty for the honor.

At least I attempt to commit to this vision daily as I tight rope walk this narrow path to freedom. I know I have companions.

There are millions of women on the front lines of Love so we don’t have to wake up to the news of another young woman, or any woman, who lost her life because the hole in her broken heart, over feeling abandoned for not being pretty enough, was too wide to navigate in this lifetime. And for the women who don’t hold any privilege in countries where it is legal to be killed for any look but subjugation on their face.

Sisters of the Circle - you do not need to wait for a man, or anyone else, to change how you live in society any longer and to love yourself completely for every single drop of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Ether, Stardust and Ancestral prayer that made up your never been seen and will never be seen again gorgeous representation of one of Her many pretty faces. (and neither do I)

Thank you. Your likes and comments are so appreciated. Becoming a paid subscriber sends me to the moon. xo

Shira Starfire