Just in time for a rant.
Oct. 10th, 2010 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleI got an angry text from my booth manager, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
galiagodel, this evening. "Girl looked stunning in the curvy Black Watch corset-- her boyfriend's mother tells her how ugly she looks in it. WTF?"
WTF, indeed.
I'm a big girl. I can hold my own, and I won't end up crying in a corner or stabbing myself with a fork if you tell me you don't like my corsets. I've heard it all: they're too expensive, they're not period, they can't possibly cost that much/be that hard to make, they're too flat in the front, they're too froufy, they're too long, they're too short-- you name it. People aren't afraid to say such things pretty much to my face. It annoys the hell out of me, but then I have another Pepsi, and another sale, and forget about it.
But you tell a seventeen-year-old girl that she looks ugly? You berate her for wearing something that makes her look good? You mock and deride her? Oh, now it's on, bitch.
I remember being seventeen. I remember how awkward and raw I was: I had nothing in the way of shields. I was out in the world for the first time, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was wide-eyed and naive and I believed almost anything anyone told me. Everything was new, and I tasted it all with wonder, trepidation, fear, and more wonder. I got used to the fact that whereas I once thought I knew everything, I actually knew nothing. Everyone around me was smarter, more experienced, more sage. When someone said something nice to me, I laughed. And when they said something cruel, I thought it was the end of the world.
I was massively insecure about my body, and my appearance. I didn't trust anyone's motives when they looked at me. I didn't believe boys who told me I was pretty, and I took to heart all the magazines that told me I wasn't.
In other words, I was pretty typical.
So it absolutely baffles me that a grown woman would stand there, in my booth, and tell a seventeen-year-old girl that she was ugly. I'm going to have to assume the woman herself had heard similar things her whole life, and, of course, misery loves company. When you're trained from birth, beaten down into someone else's mold, that's simply how you see the world, and how you have to process everyone around you. Bitter and joy-sucking, cutting and dismissive. You're presented with a fun-house mirror, and told it's normal. And you're taught to make everyone else see that mirror alone, that that's what mirrors are: the twisted version of the truth, and not the actual image. I get that. I do. But still: when does your sense of maturity, your shred of adulthood kick in and say: You do not say "you're ugly" to anyone? Much less a teenage girl?
I was quick to say that should that ever happen again, I give blanket permission to kick out from the booth anyone so devoutly miserable. Our business, at the deepest level, is to make people feel good about themselves. To make them feel pretty. To build them up. I tell people I sell cleavage, but I also sell pretty. I sell self-confidence. I sell, "Oh, my G-d, is that me?" I sell the new swing to the hips, the raised chin, the glint in the eye, the sudden grin. I sell "Look at me!" I sell, "I should have known I had it in me-- I just never looked."
My crew handled it well, and I'm proud of them. Apparently, they separated the woman and the young couple, and made sure the girl knew she looked fabulous. I'm not sure what I would have done, had I been there. Part of me would love to believe I'd've shoved the woman out the door headfirst, but I've been raised better. I also know it'd have to be a hell of a crack to the skull to let any sense in. Obviously, this woman thought she was acting in the best interests of this girl, pre-smashing her confidence before the world did it for her. Thanks. That always works out well. Didn't it do wonders for you?
There are always people in the world who will tell you you're ugly, you're awkward, you're untalented, you're bad, bad, bad. No one will want you. No one will listen to you. No one will care about you. And as I told someone last week: a hundred people can tell you you're beautiful, but if one person says you're horrible, what's going to stick in your head? It doesn't make any sense, but when you're dealing with foundations laid before you could eat with a real spoon, not much will make sense. All you can do for yourself or for someone else is recognise that there's a need to put the brakes on the train that never veers off the one-track of "You're ugly, you're worthless, who would want you?" Take someone by the shoulders and shake them and say, "Who told you that? How do they know? Who knows you better?" Start over. Stop the train. Hit the reset button.
I can't make it all better. I can't get rid of that cloying negativity, that need to believe the worst about ourselves, for anyone. I can't force the duckling to see she's a swan. I can't pull someone out of the funhouse. And truth be told, it's advice I myself constantly have trouble taking. But it's also advice that's easier to take to heart once you realise we all need it sometimes, that we're all looking in that mirror some days.
And really, it's almost impossible to smash that glass for anyone else, even with a PhD and a shelf full of SSRIs. Someone's probably going to get cut that way. But there's one thing to remember: you don't need a cannonball to smash a mirror. Sometimes just a pebble-- just taking a girl aside and saying, "No, you're beautiful"-- is enough to start it cracking.
galiagodel, this evening. "Girl looked stunning in the curvy Black Watch corset-- her boyfriend's mother tells her how ugly she looks in it. WTF?"WTF, indeed.
I'm a big girl. I can hold my own, and I won't end up crying in a corner or stabbing myself with a fork if you tell me you don't like my corsets. I've heard it all: they're too expensive, they're not period, they can't possibly cost that much/be that hard to make, they're too flat in the front, they're too froufy, they're too long, they're too short-- you name it. People aren't afraid to say such things pretty much to my face. It annoys the hell out of me, but then I have another Pepsi, and another sale, and forget about it.
But you tell a seventeen-year-old girl that she looks ugly? You berate her for wearing something that makes her look good? You mock and deride her? Oh, now it's on, bitch.
I remember being seventeen. I remember how awkward and raw I was: I had nothing in the way of shields. I was out in the world for the first time, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was wide-eyed and naive and I believed almost anything anyone told me. Everything was new, and I tasted it all with wonder, trepidation, fear, and more wonder. I got used to the fact that whereas I once thought I knew everything, I actually knew nothing. Everyone around me was smarter, more experienced, more sage. When someone said something nice to me, I laughed. And when they said something cruel, I thought it was the end of the world.
I was massively insecure about my body, and my appearance. I didn't trust anyone's motives when they looked at me. I didn't believe boys who told me I was pretty, and I took to heart all the magazines that told me I wasn't.
In other words, I was pretty typical.
So it absolutely baffles me that a grown woman would stand there, in my booth, and tell a seventeen-year-old girl that she was ugly. I'm going to have to assume the woman herself had heard similar things her whole life, and, of course, misery loves company. When you're trained from birth, beaten down into someone else's mold, that's simply how you see the world, and how you have to process everyone around you. Bitter and joy-sucking, cutting and dismissive. You're presented with a fun-house mirror, and told it's normal. And you're taught to make everyone else see that mirror alone, that that's what mirrors are: the twisted version of the truth, and not the actual image. I get that. I do. But still: when does your sense of maturity, your shred of adulthood kick in and say: You do not say "you're ugly" to anyone? Much less a teenage girl?
I was quick to say that should that ever happen again, I give blanket permission to kick out from the booth anyone so devoutly miserable. Our business, at the deepest level, is to make people feel good about themselves. To make them feel pretty. To build them up. I tell people I sell cleavage, but I also sell pretty. I sell self-confidence. I sell, "Oh, my G-d, is that me?" I sell the new swing to the hips, the raised chin, the glint in the eye, the sudden grin. I sell "Look at me!" I sell, "I should have known I had it in me-- I just never looked."
My crew handled it well, and I'm proud of them. Apparently, they separated the woman and the young couple, and made sure the girl knew she looked fabulous. I'm not sure what I would have done, had I been there. Part of me would love to believe I'd've shoved the woman out the door headfirst, but I've been raised better. I also know it'd have to be a hell of a crack to the skull to let any sense in. Obviously, this woman thought she was acting in the best interests of this girl, pre-smashing her confidence before the world did it for her. Thanks. That always works out well. Didn't it do wonders for you?
There are always people in the world who will tell you you're ugly, you're awkward, you're untalented, you're bad, bad, bad. No one will want you. No one will listen to you. No one will care about you. And as I told someone last week: a hundred people can tell you you're beautiful, but if one person says you're horrible, what's going to stick in your head? It doesn't make any sense, but when you're dealing with foundations laid before you could eat with a real spoon, not much will make sense. All you can do for yourself or for someone else is recognise that there's a need to put the brakes on the train that never veers off the one-track of "You're ugly, you're worthless, who would want you?" Take someone by the shoulders and shake them and say, "Who told you that? How do they know? Who knows you better?" Start over. Stop the train. Hit the reset button.
I can't make it all better. I can't get rid of that cloying negativity, that need to believe the worst about ourselves, for anyone. I can't force the duckling to see she's a swan. I can't pull someone out of the funhouse. And truth be told, it's advice I myself constantly have trouble taking. But it's also advice that's easier to take to heart once you realise we all need it sometimes, that we're all looking in that mirror some days.
And really, it's almost impossible to smash that glass for anyone else, even with a PhD and a shelf full of SSRIs. Someone's probably going to get cut that way. But there's one thing to remember: you don't need a cannonball to smash a mirror. Sometimes just a pebble-- just taking a girl aside and saying, "No, you're beautiful"-- is enough to start it cracking.