Confidence means knowing that you have the ability to get the job done. It starts from there. Being confident you can do it.
Confidence means knowing that you have the ability to get the job done. It starts from there. Being confident you can do it.
Femininity: The quality of being female; womanliness.Feminism: The advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. – Oxford Dictionary
While my own mother wore no make-up, and god bless her, was and continues to be naturally beautiful (I know we all say this about our mothers, but in my case it really is true!), the image of the ruby-red lipstick wearing Latina was something Hollywood always made sure I was aware of. Not wanting to be that spitfire stereotype, by the time I fulfilled my childhood dream of going to UC Berkeley, I quickly learned that there were a few no-no´s about my look:
Make-up? In the bin. Wearing it was succumbing to patriarchal notions of femininity. Besides, people should love you for what you have on the inside and not on the outside.
Beautiful high heels? Toss ´em, another symbol of female subjugation. I became all about the Birkenstocks, flats, and sports shoes (though I didn’t exercise)
Frilly dresses that gave any hint of the female form? Jeans were best but sweats a close runner-up. At one point, I had about 15 pairs of jeans. Dresses? No way. All of us, male and female, were the same and dressed only accentuated societal notions of gender. (And I will never forget a friend offering me a change of clothes when I showed up in my flowery dress…I can only laugh now!)
shaved legs and armpits? Natural was the only way to go.
Interesting enough, the only class I took while at UC Berkeley that supported the idea that femininity and feminism could perfectly co-exist was one on Gender! But everything else about being at CAL made clear that my version of femininity was too backward. So I adjusted.
By the time I hit law school, my dress code was set in stone. I occasionally wore a dress if the situation merited it, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. So it became permanent: I couldn´t shake the notion that my notion of femininity, as I had experienced it, equated weakness.
In the subsequent 15-20 odd years, I married, moved countries, had two children. During that period, my workplaces reflected my attitudes about femininity: jeans acceptable, little if any makeup, plain hair.
And amidst all this, in my early 40s, my husband and I had faced a serious crisis. After several years where the highs were incredibly high, and the lows incredibly low, we had become roommates…without benefits. We lived in stone cold silences, only to reconcile with the sweetest of whisperings, with my husband asking me why I was hiding that diamond inside. Only to find ourselves feeling alone and lonely again a few days later. After seriously considering a divorce, we re-committed to one another. And each of us set on a path of self-discovery in order to get that spark back (you can read about it on my website here).
The result of that emotional re-commitment made each of us face some hard truths about ourselves and about each other. One element for me was discovering that I had, indeed, squelched and smothered a diamond inside. That everything that made me wonderful was there, waiting to be discovered…not by anyone else, but by me. So it was that in my 40s, I began wearing make-up again. I learned how to walk in heels again. I got my first waxing treatment (I can still hear the hair removal specialist’s yelp…that’s another story). I got my ears pierced at a jewelry store in Indischebuurt, where my very girly friend Ileana was only too happy to hold my hand. (I will forever be grateful to her).
Of course, wearing make-up and heels did not make me more feminine: I am a woman, I am feminine (see Oxford definition). I believe in equal rights for woman. I am feminist. But through the entire process, I learned that I don’t need to hide what makes me feel happy and feminine…and that includes rejoicing in my female form. Even Alicia Keys, a supporter of the no makeup movement, said on the Today show, an American morning show, that she has nothing against make-up. “I love make-up too…“It’s about how you feel. It’s about who you are. It’s about being who you are and not being told who you should be. This conversation shows our obsession with the standard we hold women and beauty.” Alicia and I are at the same time having reached the same conclusion. And I no longer buy my story that only makeup-free women are taken seriously. It simply is no longer my story, and I feel liberated. Free. My story is rejoicing in my newfound notions of femininity. And relishing in each and every one of them, high heels (well…2-inch platforms max) and all! And part of that was participating in Cristina Stoian’s amazing project.
That said, I also don’t let it all hang out. But even if I did, the decision to do so would be mine. And that is feminism and femininity at its best.” Leticia Vasquez
Since this is the month of LOVE, I would like to kick start it with a portrait reveal of someone who took their first step to love.
Self Love.
I believe it is impossible to love someone else or to care for someone else until you really love who YOU are –
EVERY aspect.
Of course this is not easy. Maybe it’s not achievable in one day, one week or ONE month. Maybe you need a year for this or even twenty. This is your journey of self discovery, self acceptance and self love.
Take this journey.
It starts here.
She is creative writer for the movie industry and also art history and civilisation, as well as a conference interpreter. She’s truly a free spirit and as been living all over the world. I have asked her to describe our experience together and she surprised me with this:
“A rewarding moment was that day of the shooting, when she woke up and saw her again in the mirror:
The person she got to see every morning in that same mirror became now her best friend.
For so many years she’s been talking to her: She didn’t hear her.
She didn’t talk with her: She was lost in words.
Those words were him, her love, who carried himself to become themselves.
Her best friend was created by fate.
Fate created the woman she became.
The person in the mirror is her words, the echo of her best friend’s name.
Twenty years were all she needed to come to this photo session with her best friend.
Perhaps it is a short period of time, or not, but that is all she was.
The woman in the mirror and the images, revealed herself to her.
And now all she sees, are words revealed as herself in a visible impression as poetry:
She.
She got dressed with a colourful palette of desires and thoughts;
travelled by plane, boat, and her eyes together with his.
She got naked under Amsterdam’s skies thinking of their eyes.
They travelled, they lived, they kissed, they loved.
Today she lives like a river in his forest, she is water in his soul.
She travels in his body to find herself eternal in his ocean in images that captured her best friend,
the one he loves.”