Behind These Hazel Eyes

Happy HNT! Yes, this is a small picture and not too revealing, but I would like to write on the subject of eyebrows.

Today I had some of the hair on my face ripped out after having been drowned in hot wax. Always a fun procedure. I especially like it when they make small talk as they're doing it. ("So, you're in college? What's your major?" *RIP*) The first time I got my eyebrows waxed was in May. I avoided it throughout my teen years and had no intentions of ever getting it done until Sister, in a fit of rage, referred to me as Bushy Eyebrows. (She has called me worse, I should have taken it as a compliment.) I rolled my eyes in my classic fashion and marched straight into the bathroom to look at the alleged bushy eyebrows. Were they really that bad? If so, how could my family have allowed me to leave the house this way? Why didn't my friends tell me?



(By the way, this is how they looked.)

I sought the opinions of those closest to me. Cynic said that I was crazy and that I didn't need to do anything with my eyebrows. Father said, "What are you talking about? You have beautiful eyebrows!" Mother's response, however, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. "Well... you could thin them out, just a little bit."

For some reason, my mother's opinion is like a Supreme Court verdict to me. She may not come right out and say she doesn't like something, but I can read her. If I ask her opinion and she casually mentions that maybe the other shirt would look nicer, I will walk around self-conscious the whole day, thinking that everyone is pointing at my shirt and laughing. (Alright, I exaggerate, but still.) So when she didn't fawn all over my eyebrows, I got the hint.

It took time for me to make the decision to get them waxed. It may seem like a stupid decision, but it was monumental for me. I felt like I was compromising all my feminist principles. I spout my fervent opinions on the rights of women and the harm done by false ideals of beauty, and then I'm going to run to the salon to have hair that God apparently wanted on my body for some reason ripped out? Every month? (Since I started, I once skipped a month and the woman reprimanded me, saying that my eyebrows had lost all their shape. Give me a break, they weren't growing out onto my ears or anything.)

I like the way they look when I have them done, but I still feel like a total sell-out. I guess that once I got the whole crazy business into my head, I had to get them done, otherwise I would have been walking around, thinking that everyone was staring at my freakish face. Damn social conditioning.

Just curious what people think about this, especially the feminists out there. Is it fair that we're pressured to do this crazy shit? Men don't have to. But then, where do we draw the line? I don't think it's fair that we have to go crazy to shave our legs and armpits just so that we can be considered "attractive," but you won't catch me not doing it.