Decentering Men?

We all want to be attractive to somebody, that's a given.

But who holds the monopoly on what attractiveness is?

How do you fit in when your features don't equate to the idea of femininity and grace? 

A lot of talk about decentering men has been taking place lately, which implies that we are too consumed with what men think and feel about us as women.

I'm assuming the goal is to reclaim your identity and sense of selfhood without the corrosive opinions and expectations of men.

But how will you succeed at decentering men when you are still worried about measuring up to the standard of beauty you say men subscribe to?

To me, it's not about decentering men at all. Men are not the ones who've tainted your self concept. 

Men are not the ones pressuring you to lose weight or wear straight hair.

Men are not the ones who you go to in order to determine whether you are fashionably current or not.

It's Women.

Before I retired from hairstyling, my primary driver was to make women look fantastic!

And my incentive for wanting to do that was because I personally felt that I looked like shyte! 

I wanted to be pretty by proxy and what better way to do that than to aid in making other women look better than I could ever look.

There was a power element to me wanting to be a part of the beauty industry. I thought that in a way, I got to control the level of beauty that other women had through my handiwork.

I trained to be able to build a self image through making them more attractive, and that was my attempt at having clout and some semblance of status.

And this is what women do: control the narrative of who is qualified for what category by telling you, lovingly, of course, what you need to look like you have some worth.

If you retrospect your own life, you'll find a mother, auntie or best friend who started you on a path of self obsessing over flaws or things they felt you had to alter about your face and body.

The men looking at you holds value, but the value assigned to his gaze comes "after" you are approved of by other women. 

Think about it!

If no woman ever affirmed you and it was only men who gave you compliments and attention, you would question men's sincerity. 

You would think they were pretending to like what they see because not one woman backed you up and said "Yasssss" in approval of your presentation.

It's other women who give you an identity, who tell you what to be and what isn't appropriate.

Men will take anything until another woman shames him into second guessing his tastes. 

It is women who create desire because it's women who are used to validate ALL types of consumption. 

From vanilla pudding, laundry detergent or sports cars, if a woman's smile ain't at the end of the pitch, the product won't sell! 

Do you want peace? 

It will come when you stop allowing other women to police your vagina!! 

It will come when you stop letting other women play head mafia boss over who is more attractive and valuable based on looks.

It will come when you clip HER wings and sit her phukking ass down somewhere, tied and gagged from ever cursing you with her doctrine of self-loathing  because of the size of your ass! 

“Medicine Woman”

~Salkis Re 

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