On Hiding Behind Lenses
I recently renewed my prescription and got a new pair of glasses. My prescription is slight, and mostly for when my eyes feel tired and strained, but I am finding that I want to wear them more and more. As a writer and someone who often interviews people, I find it really comforting to have something to hide behind. It’s not so much a lack of confidence, but when I’m working professionally I think it gives me a leg up. That is, it’s harder for the other side to know what I’m thinking.
It’s very likely this barrier is entirely in my head, but Gloria Steinem, in her trademark aviators, apparently felt the same way. From an interview with Maria Shriver in Interview magazine:
SHRIVER: You talk a bit in the film about the idea that you were hiding behind your aviator glasses when you were younger. What did you feel like you were hiding from?
STEINEM: I was literally hiding because I thought I had a very round face. All my life as a child, people were pinching my cheeks and asking me if I was going to whistle … [laughs] So I think some of it was quite literal.
SHRIVER: But do you think you were hiding from anything else? I mean, you had these big glasses and a lot of hair, and you’ve spoken about your fear of public speaking … Were you hiding from being out front or from being the star of the revolution in some sense? Did you ever think of it in that way?
STEINEM: Well, I knew that there would be punishment for being out front, and it just wasn’t my nature to be out front. My idea was that you send manuscripts out the door and you don’t have to go out the door yourself, you know? [laughs]
SHRIVER: What sort of punishment did you think there would be for being out front?
STEINEM: I think the first price you pay as women who step out front in that way is that conventional society doesn’t consider it feminine, so you’re challenging your gender role-in the same way that men are when they don’t assert themselves. Then another price you pay-especially right now-is the attention you get from the media, which is just unpredictable. And then a third price, in my case, was that no mat- ter how hard I worked, whatever I accomplished was attributed to my looks. If you’re working your ass off, then you don’t want to be told that you only got what- ever because of the way you look … You know, it takes the heart out of you.
SHRIVER: Do you feel that part of your success was due to your looks?
STEINEM: I think that part of everybody’s success is due to their looks, but it just works in different ways. If you’re whatever society calls attractive, then people say that you got ahead because of your looks-especially if you’re a woman. If you’re whatever society says is not attractive, then they say you got ahead because you’re compensating, you couldn’t get a man or what- ever. So everybody pays the same penalty for the fact that women are assessed for their outsides rather than for what’s in our heads and our hearts. Incidentally, I have to say that I was not considered beautiful before I was a feminist. I was a pretty girl before, but suddenly, after I was publicly identified as a feminist, I was beautiful. So, many people were really commenting on what they thought feminists looked like.
