personal aesthetics?

[keryx]

A followup, based on the predominance of people saying they remove hair solely based on "personal aesthetics" in my hair poll.

[Poll #412789]

Explain the logic of your answer in comments, if you'd be so kind.

Comments

[thelicia-w.livejournal.com]

While I selected "sometimes," I really mean "partially." Whether we like it or not, we cannot completely escape our culture. And, while personal aesthetic preferences should be "personal," our culture does have a considerable amount of impact on what our preferences might be.

Personally, I'd love to be able to completely separate the two, but I just don't think that it's going to happen. We're too embedded in our culture, too concerned with what other people think. While I admit that there are those people who are capable of challenging the "acceptable limits," I also admit that I'm not exactly one of them when it comes to most things.

What's interesting about this is that it leads me to question exactly "why" I do the things that I do. Why do I choose to follow some of my culture's norms for personal aesthetics, and not others? I'm not entirely sure, but some of it comes down to convenience and/or laziness. I'm going to have to think about this a bit more before I can come up with a more concrete answer than this.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I can answer why I follow some norms and not others, if that's of interest - the effort it would take to fight them is a big part of it. Not just within myself, but with other people. So, norms that apply to how I behave at work (ie what a "professional appearance" includes) I tend not to spend much energy on fighting.

[thelicia-w.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'm stuck with the "professional appearance" norms, particularly because I teach at a rather conservative university. I always look professional, but I'm definitely not a fashonista, unlike many of my counterparts. Certain things just take too much energy to fight, but there's no way that I'm going to wear a short skirt and heels when it's -35C with a foot of snow . . . no matter what anyone says.

When I think about it, I have to agree that effort is a big part of why I do and don't do certain things. Some stuff I just can't be bothered with, as it just takes up too much of my time (something I usually have very little of). Certain things are just going to take too much effort to fight, and I have enough of that to do because of my feminist leanings, so I don't want to take on any more than I have to. Yeah . . . I'm copping out, but I've only got so much time and energy.

However, I swear that the next male faculty member who tells me that I'd look so much better if I "dressed properly" (whatever that is) or "wore more makeup" is going to get a dressing down. I don't wear much makeup, I don't "do" my hair (it's combed, clean, and in a pony tail, and that's all), and I don't wear skirts and/or heels. I'm there to teach, and get irritated when societal conventions count for more than my teaching abilities. Meh.

Well, it seems that my short answer has taken on a life of its own. What I was trying to get at is that I agree with you that it comes down to effort, both in terms of the time certain things take and in terms of the effort that it takes to convince people that I'm not a social deviant because I don't, for example, wear tonnes of makeup.