“Since Mephis knew he’d been hoping Jaenelle would buy more clothes, Saetan growled in disappointment.  Sylvia’s idea of appropriate girl clothes hadn’t included a single dress, and the only concession she and Jaenelle had made to his insistence that everyone at the Hall dress for dinner was one long black skirt and two blouses.  When he had pointed out- and very reasonably, too- that trousers, shirts, and long sweaters weren’t exactly feminine, Sylvia had given him a scalding lecture, the gist of it being that whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and anything she didn’t enjoy wearing wasn’t, and if he was too stubborn and old-fashioned to understand that, he could go soak his head in a bucket of cold water.  He hadn’t quite forgiven her yet for saying they would have to look hard to find a bucket big enough to fit his head into, but he admired the sass behind the remark.”

~Heir to the Shadows (Black Jewels Series #2) Bishop, Anne

The Black Jewel Series by Anne Bishop has become one of my favorite book series.  I re-read them regularly.  I find some strange comfort in them.  The quote above came to mind this morning after a conversation that began on my personal Facebook page.

I mentioned that I was thinking of buying curlers for my hair, but didn’t want to actually spend the extra money on them because I may only use them once.  It’s the same reason I don’t own a hair blow dryer.  It’s an extra “thing” to add to my clutter that I’d only rarely use.  And they’re expensive!  In response to this, I had to friends pipe up suggesting rag-curls.  Rag curls, in theory, are insanely easy & inexpensive.  There are hundreds of tutorials on the Internet.  The tools to do rag curls are minimal.  It’s a fabulous idea.

I pride myself on being able to pick up almost anything after seeing it done once or twice.  In this instance, I suddenly felt woefully inadequate in my gender role as a female by not just knowing how to do this.  I think that women are often assumed to just know every “arcane trick” as The Boy calls them to look super-model perfect.  The problem is we aren’t born with that knowledge.  It has to be learned.

Most women I know learned their first arcane tricks from their mothers or older sisters.  I never had this.  My mother has never worn make-up for as long as I have been aware of what make-up is.  Out of my two older sisters, who are 13 and 11 years older than I am, only one was girly enough to wear make-up, and by the time I was at that stage of my life she had already moved out and had two children!  My young experience with make-up was limited to stage make-up that was required for my dance performances, which does not lend itself to everyday life, and even then my mother’s friends helped me.  It seemed Mom was almost as clueless as I was.

The same applies to hair.  My hair was always kept long growing up.  It made it easier to get it into a French braid or bun for dancing.  However curling my hair or any elaborate-looking hairstyle was left out of my growing education.  My mother’s idea of personal hair styling was wash & air dry.  Oh! And occasionally running a pick through it.  My mother, bless her heart, was granted beautiful thick & naturally curly hair.  She didn’t have to do anything other than let it be.

I don’t want to get all preachy about how we aren’t women anymore because we don’t take time to put on make-up before we run to the store, but I think there’s something wrong that we don’t even change out of our pj’s anymore to run to the store.  I can’t imagine leaving my house in anything but decent outside the home clothing.  I’m not sure I can specify the difference any more than that.  It just bothers me.  I find there’s something lacking in my personal education.  I’ve been thinking about how to fix it.

With the interest that seemed to creep up on my Facebook page, I think I may hold a get together with a few of my fellow crafty friends so that we can all fill in the gaps in our girl-education.  Being feminine doesn’t require us to do anything specific, and only do what we find we want.  I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m trying to set Feminism back almost 100 years. I just think that women like Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for their rights as women in the United States, and still probably gave a damn about how they looked and running their home.  Does that qualify as a “first-world problem?”  Maybe.  I don’t care.

But because I want to I’m going to learn to apply eye shadow & eye liner in a way that will suit my face better.  I’m going to learn how to foil-color my own hair.  I’m going to learn to be a better seamstress so I can make the dress I want instead of having to pay more for something that’s close to what I want but it’s quite it.  I’m going to learn to make lotion & lip gloss.  I’m going to vote in the election so I can keep the rights my fore-sisters fought so valiantly to obtain.  And damn it, I’m going to learn to rag-curl my hair!

~Robyn