Rewriting Self Help for teens: what I wish I had gotten before I joined the beastly world!

Although Susan Douglas attempts to make a case against a linear progression from “false consciousness” or preconsciousness to feminism in her introduction to "Where the Boys Are" thanks to the constant consumption and subsequent reaction/rebellion against media, my own life experience points to a “false road” that I invested a lot of emotional energy in following until I fell on my ass enough times to get off the hamster wheel and reflect. I'm 34, as I mentioned in my last blog post, and although I feel kind of crummy harping on it like it's such a big deal to me(It isn't), it does feel like a relevant detail as I try to articulate my feelings on gendered expectations. I'm at the age now where nearly everything I was taught to care about as a teenager ---being desirable---is dismissed as trivial and infantile, even as the pressure to look youthful and sexy (and “polished”, of course; let us not forget the fact that in New York sexual attraction seems inextricable from looking like you have disposable income) is more intense than ever. I don't read women's magazines anymore, but on the super rare occasions when I do fall for some “best treatments of 2011!!” copy, I treat it like a greasy porno, hiding it in my bag and never buying it alone without some respectable buffer to convince the cashier that I'm simply a student of popular culture. I would never tell you I was reading one if you asked me, and you would never catch me, either, as I would die before I got caught reading one on the subway. As an official member of the “grown ass woman” club, reading a fashion magazine and the attending avalanche of ad copy seems like an admission of defeat, telling the world that you are still aspiring, not having arrived. It's an acknowledgment of inappropriate attachment to what Douglas calls a “narcissistic paradise”, long past the point where narcissism is sanctioned as the default female mindset.

This shame is new to me, as it represents a hard turn in an opposite direction, a token attempt at repudiation for past mistakes. Growing up, I devoured women's magazines. I read all of them---Allure, Cosmo, Glamour, Elle, Vogue, British Vogue,the now-defunct Mademoiselle---from about the age of 12 all the way to 23 or 24. I lifted money from the secret places my parents stashed cash in order to buy cosmetics. A well meaning teacher in high school pulled me to the side once and asked me if I was having “problems at home” because my look was getting more and more erratic and he thought it was a cry for help. What? You're telling me it's not normal to go to school in a poorly fitted blonde wig with shaved eyebrows redrawn in the Most Comically Inept Disney Villain Arch Ever?? It took me many years to understand the difference between an editorial look and what was appropriate for the street. I was such a naïve kid, and so taken with the glamour of it all, that I tried to copy what I saw on the pages literally. I was made fun of a lot, often taken for promiscuous when the reality was that I knew less than nothing about sex. Older men tended to look at me in a way that made me uneasy, while the boys my age couldn't have been more repelled if I had garlic strung around my neck. It's funny now, and I laugh, but I wasn't laughing back then. When people ask me why I am only getting my undergraduate degree now, I tell them that I dropped out of school because I needed to work full time and couldn't find a waitressing gig.. I don't tell them that I dropped out because I couldn't take being a dirtbag in a hoodie drinking Boone's wine and budgeting for groceries. I wanted a glamorous secretarial gig and cute dresses so a guy would finally fall for me . It was a *total* buy in to an illusion—I had no immediately pressing emotional problems (emphasis on “immediately pressing”!) and was doing well and loved school. It just wasn't sexy to be an undergrad, and I wanted sexy.

Pretty terrifying, no? This wasn't the 1970's! This was 1997! So...although I never suffered from anorexia or bulimia, thank goodness, I do relate to a lot of the charges against advertising that our readings have articulated, simply because I was such a perfect foil for so long. I have experienced the self hatred that demands constant purchases to stay sated, and I still lose to that demon on a regular basis. I have fallen victim to what Douglas Kellner calls “ a value system congruent with the imperatives of consumer capitalism”, or what Kilbourne says is “the American belief of transformation...no longer via hard work but via the purchase of the right products” (132). And, most importantly, at 34, when the desired archetype switches from Lolita and ingénue to Superwoman, I now mourn the brain power inefficiently allocated in my youth, the energy wasted, the opportunities passed over while I was glassy eyed over the latest Madonna video. What advertising does to young women has the potential to seriously hurt them, on a large spectrum of damage that correlates to other factors such as race, class, and social support, but even in the most resilient kids there is still the danger of dissipation. What are women missing out on while we are obsessing about the way we look, and who does it serve to sentence us to constantly chasing a carrot on a stick---you can do anything you set your mind to, girls, but before that, your hair had better be on point? Douglas says that the media promotes a “white, upper-middle-class, male view of the world that urges the rest of us to sit passively on our sofas and fantasize”, and I think she is absolutely right. To that end, I wanted to use this blog entry to “fantasize” about what I wish Cosmo had taught me at 13.

1. Feeling beautiful is a dead end goal. You'll never catch it if you are looking for it, and people will smell the chase on you like sharks in a bloody chum pile. They will exploit your need to be desired in all kinds of ways, some of them quite cruel. Strive to feel comfortable instead---keep playing and art directing until you hear the “click” of alignment, where your clothes and face feel like they belong with your soul. It's just as tough as finding beauty, if not tougher, but nothing beats finally feeling like you aren't straining and failing.

It's not a costume if you can pull it off...

2. Focusing on others is the only thing that has ever helped cure narcissism. Every single person I know who gives ends up getting far more in return. Extend yourself at every opportunity. Particularly when you dont want to.

3. Relationships take skill, but being a “good girlfriend” is sometimes the default obsession of the lazy and terrified. When you are going after someone you desire, ask yourself if you are substituting the “success” of seduction for a personal success that demands more sacrifice and work. Kilbourne related anorexia and bulimia to a false sense of control (132); I would argue that the search for a boyfriend can also offer a sense of success that seems too elusive for young women by any other means. Seduction is a blast, but check yourself. If the lover is a trophy (and deep down we all know when they are), consider the possibility that you are avoiding something you know you have to do.

Maybe we can include some real role models in every once in a while...

4. Spend time thinking about the differences between girls and women, and recognize infantilism when you see it. When you can name which taboo women are aping when we play “innocent”, you are armored against any number of manipulations and demonizations of your sexual drive and are ahead of the game by ten years. “Beauty and the Beast of advertising” points to “the disparagement of maturity” in advertising and “the implication that little girls are seductive” (124), and its concurrent damaging effects to women. The sooner you see a 14 year old pouting half naked in a magazine that isn't free to run ads for condoms and visualize creepy old guys plotting this nonsense hypocrisy out for their own gratification, the better off you'll be.

Cute, but not so much when you think of ten old white men licking their lips....

5. Finally, remember that you are not a vagina with ears and a wallet. You are a head, a heart, a body. You can't neglect one for long without dragging the others down with you. So cultivate yourself during this important time with great care, and stay in balance. Realize that love and acceptance aren't finite resources, but opportunities are. Recognize that there are people who have an economic interest in holding you back, keeping you from the party of life because someone has to stay behind and purchase the T-shirts. You don't have to “compete”. You don't have to conform to anyone's idea of success. Hell, if you can afford it, you don't really have to do much more besides survive. But having no interest in joining is not the same thing as being held back. Walk into adulthood always asking what your choices are, and if you discover that you have such a luxury, take it. You have more power than people want you to have. Give them a decent scare.

I don't think that magazine articles like this are so revolutionary or uncommon, so perhaps my alternative isn't as far off as it should be. But repetition is what got us into this mess , and so repetition may be what moves us toward holistic development for girls instead of this singular, zero sum, winner take all race to be the most fuckable and the most chaste. If every magazine contained just one "how to" that didn't involve lip gloss, just one article on the structure of local government and how to be a decent citizen, a decent contributor, a decent friend, I think young women would see beauty or size as just one of several ways they can control their lives. For me, what's harmful about an obsession with beauty is all the amazing knowledge it displaces.