Feelings and Self-Esteem

 To Feel (Part 2)

Every time I see her I think: "no one is ugly by choice."

She is dubbed "the ugly stepsister #2" by those of us who dont know her real name.
(and I so wish I did.  I really want to get to know these girls and find out if I can help any of them in any way)

She and her sister come in together usually, with the group.  Everyone at work calls them "The Mennonites" but that is because they dont have any other name.  There is one 'family' of a grandmother/mother/3daughters and one who everyone guesses is a daughter-in-law.
And then there are the look-alike 'stepsisters' who are obviously from a different family.  They are about 100lbs smaller and have oval faces and frizzy hair.   I finally saw their mother (the resemblance is undeniable) and was shocked.  The mother is your everyday QF mom and she looks about 50 (give or take a couple years).  Yet, her daughters look just as old as she does (lacking only the grey hair).
I hesitate to use the word, but sister #2 is less than plan and bordering on ugly.  Her face is unusually pale, with the washed-out and overly large shirts she wears.  Her denim skirts are about a size and a half too large and usually wrinkled.  She wears sneakers and socks like the rest of them.  The mother/grandmother/daughters group smiles and wears flower-patterned skirts and the daughter-in-law knows what colors to wear for her complexion and how to do her hair.  She is the most put together of all of them.  The Stepsisters never smile (that I have seen) and hang in the background most of the time.  Always in denim and never a deviation of style, sag, or wrinkle.

If I had 10 minutes a day I could make that frizzy hair into a classy updo.  Another 5 minutes and some blush and her face would light up.  A slim pencil skirt, a pair of flats (she is a great height) and a deep magenta colored blouse and this 'ugly stepsister' would be someone ravishingly attractive......
If I were allowed.
If she were allowed.
IF beauty were allowed.

But beauty is dangerous.  Beauty is empowering.  Beauty is like a wildfire.
Beauty is something that is kept far away from girls because of its terrible influence and how it changes everyone.


Like every other Daughter of Eve, I struggle with self-esteem and hating myself.  Ask any girl and if she is honest she could rattle off a list of no less than 10 things she hates about herself and a lot more she would change if she could.
I remember the first time I FELT truly beautiful.   The first time I scared myself by calling myself something I had never called myself before: attractive.
I put on this outfit my sister bought for me.  It was my size and it was in my favorite color.  I was hesitant to wear it because it was lower cut than anything I dared wear before.  However, I had been out for almost 6 months and lost some weight and was going to try it if it killed me.   I looked in the mirror and had to look away almost immediately.
I was PRETTY!!!!  I liked how I looked.
I went out of my room and found Mrs. G.
I asked her (I was scared to death and literally shivering) if it was "OK to feel this pretty."  If it was ok to be so beautiful to myself.  If it was okay to feel attractive and to like looking this way.

  It was scary. I literally was waiting for lightening to fall out of the sky and rapists to storm the house.

I looked beautiful.


"Femininity" is encouraged in patriarchy.  Being a dependent, weaker-vessel woman is fine.
Dressing in skirts and not climbing trees or using a chainsaw, but riding horses and making scones.
A meek and quiet spirit: Sure!
Beautiful? No way!!!
You would do better playing with barbie dolls than liking who you are.
Because confident, attractive, and self-assured people arent easily manipulated.  They dont take orders from people they dont respect.  They dont have to do dirty work to get by, because they can succeed on their own terms.  And the power-hungry control-freaks cant take that away from them.
So they squash it in fancy words and biblical terminology and keep girls ugly.  Girls who wear clothing two sizes too large so they dont defraud anyone with chest or legs, glancing furtively at the strapless wedding dress on display thinking how much she would love to be a princess for one day.  Girls who look dully at the mirror; forbidden to add color to their mouths, cheeks, or eyes which remain (respectively) downturned, sallow, and sad.  Girls who look at couples out of the corner of their eye as they walk with their myriad siblings wondering if they could every as pretty as the girl is so a guy might want to put his arm around her as well.

Dying to be seen as attractive by someone else, even if they cant feel it for themselves. 
Dying to be needed for more than the food they cook, the dishes they wash, and the square feet they can clean per hour.
Dying to have someone to listen to them.
Dying to know that what they have been through can be validated
Dying to have someone assure them that their pain matters, and that their heart's cries are heard.
Dying to feel wanted.
Dying to be beautiful.

Feeling nothing and hating themselves.
Is it any wonder we are depressed and suicidal?