From Maura:
For as long as I can remember, I envied girls who I thought were more beautiful than I was. Whether it was playing with makeup or dolls, I was playing a role of how I wanted to look or appear to others. And this was normal behavior for a young girl. From early childhood, boys and girls are socialized to learn, play and interact differently from each other (Rudman, 59). My photograph is intended to capture how gendered codes of play can psychologically impact women throughout their lives.
My photo shows me with markings on my face, indicating that I am getting cosmetic surgery, and I did my makeup to look swollen, bruised and bloody in post-op. The symbolism behind the makeup is that although I am getting cosmetic procedures done to improve and adjust my appearance, it’s quite dreadful to look at and fathom. The media targets young girls who are quite impressionable to believe that to be a woman, you must be beautiful. Corporations such as Disney Channel use animated characters (human and non-human) to have petite figures, batting eyelashes, thin waists and perfect hair and makeup to be the protagonist female character (Picker, 2002). And I never met a girl growing up who would choose to be Maleficent or Ursula in place of the princesses who juxtapose these roles. Despite the role I am playing in my photo, fresh out of surgery, I still have lipstick on and mascara. It is routine or instinct for a multitude of women to wear makeup. It is so normalized that it is not questioned why women do it.
Another aspect of the photo is that I’m not looking at the camera, but am gazing away and appear to be in a daze. Both of these creative techniques give the subject of the image less power. When the subject is looking directly at the camera, the viewer of the photo tends to develop eye contact with the subject focusing in on the center of the face, establishing power of the subject. When the subject is not looking into the camera, the viewers eyes tend to wander to other parts of the photo. My shoulders are bare and the frame cuts out right below my bare shoulders, suggesting that I am not wearing clothes because it is not visible in the frame. The image is close to my face, but I am also off-center, which diminishes power of the subject as well. Plastic surgery is often used to even the symmetry of a face (Dr. Rodriguez, modified 2019) and because half of my face is showing more than another, the symmetry of the photo is off. Facial symmetry has played a paramount role in the body dysmorphia I have developed throughout my life. I had been self-conscious of my teeth since elementary school and my enamel grew in very yellow due to febrile seizures I had during infancy. I would get bullied and teased for my teeth so I begged my mom to have them fixed. Since fourth grade, I have had veneers on my front six teeth. But the problem for me got worse. I noticed my smile was crooked and to myself, I look like I talk out of the corner of my mouth. I thought I had a huge nose and uneven eyes. This relates to the topic because girls are given positive reinforcement based on their appearance. A survey in my Sociology textbook asked young girls if they were worried about their appearance. In a study conducted by psychology professor Stacey Tantleff-Dunn and doctoral student Sharon Hayes at the University of Central Florida, nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old girls stated they worry about getting overweight. A third of those say they would alter a person's appearance like their weight or hair color (cconover, 2009). This is three to six year olds wanting to physically change their looks, which can be achieved through plastic surgery. There needs to be a shift in society and media, moving away from the niche physical appearance of girls that is perceived as attractive and start to represent girls in a more diverse way.
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