Selfies

I had said it was coming, but I finally started doing the 365 feminist selfie thing on March 1st.

Originally it seemed like a good idea to start right after completing the Throwback Thursday thing I was doing. That would have had me starting in November, but when my camera died in September that went out the window.

I ended up forgoing any other birthday wishes and only wanting a new camera for my birthday. That worked, making a January start possible, but there was still the process of figuring out how the new camera worked. It's a little different than the old one.

As I was starting to get the hang of that, I started obsessing over it being Leap Year. Would I have to type #366feministselfie? The simplest thing seemed to be to wait until March 1st to start, so that's what I did.

For a year I will take a daily selfie and post it to Facebook and Twitter. I am using the hash tag #365feministselfie on both, because that provides an easy way for anyone who is curious to get a better idea of why I might be doing it.

With 8 down and 357 to go, I probably haven't learned that much yet, but there are a few things I am noticing.

One is that I am already trying to think of different ways of doing things. I don't have that many different shirts. I don't know that I will be going anywhere cool in the near future, so it is just going to be this boring me over and over again. Will I be seeing anyone? Let's get them in the picture. Oh, I'm leaving the house today; maybe I can work that in. "Daily" is so relentless; there's no getting away from yourself. That's probably the point - that over and over again, just yourself is enough.

There is no getting away from flaws either. I know I am going to be fat in every picture, but my chin bothers me more than I thought, and my forehead is so huge. That's why I always wear bangs, but then in some of the pictures they fly away or are falling back, and there I am: fat, dorky, and with a huge forehead.

Also, my skin is really spotty lately, especially around the nose. For a long time I had pretty good skin without trying, and now I guess I need to try. Today I did a purifying mask, but of course that just made it worse for now. I knew that would happen, too, we had a young women's activity on it once. (Don't get a facial on the day of your date. Do it Sunday night so you look good at church and it has time to go down by Friday or Saturday night.) Only I still don't care enough to wear makeup.

I remember seeing a comment on someone not too long ago that her Facebook page was all selfies so obviously she was a total narcissist. I'm not sure that was true in her case, though there were probably other issues. One reason I put the hash tag is so people will know there are other reasons. A selfie can be an affirmation that you are there and you exist, and that you don't need to pay for a photographer to prove it.

My selfies are a tool that I hope will get me to a point where I don't cringe at how I look. Previously I thought the only means of accomplishing that would be somehow looking better, a goal which was always sadly elusive. Later I found that many beautiful women had similar levels of insecurity, as if it were against the rules to appreciate your body no matter what good points it has. It makes alienation from your body really easy.

The way I notice my flaws may make it seem like it's not working, but face yourself often enough and maybe you make peace with it.

The first obvious lesson is that no one has a problem with my body the way I do. This is important, because another of those rules seemed to be that women have to be attractive. No one is acting like I owe them any beauty, so maybe I'm okay there. Those affirmations are nice, but ultimately what will be most important is when it feels real to me.

It's a good time for it. The reasons that I chose March 1st may have been somewhat arbitrary, but in my other work I have gone through that initial sense of shame and always feeling like I was being silenced when I was sad. The next emotional hit was being told I was fat, and the disconnection from my body, and everything that went along with that. That's what I'm working on now, and daily selfies can help.

Moving on.