S4E141 Why I Refuse to Follow the Black Beauty Social Contract

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Good morning Bowes and bow ties. Black Opinionated Woman here and also known as a bow. I'll be bravely on camera before I come off camera. Now, basically I just wanna talk about why I'm, I just don't really, I kind of refuse actually to be like, in full support of this black social contract. And you're probably wondering what are you talking about? And so a social contract is kinda like, like a, a, a common set of rules that like everybody like agrees to in society, you know, I guess for the betterment of society or whatever.

Kind of like little things like when you're walking on the sidewalk, you typically will move to the right. If somebody sneezes you say, God bless you, there's grooming habits like, hey, washing your hind parts, et cetera. I'm probably gonna come off camera so I can drive in peace and it's raining, so I wanna concentrate on this road. So basically when you have like these social contract contract, you just basically have like these common understood sets of rules.

But I've gotten to the point in my life, like, I'm like, I don't abide by certain social contractual bylines. Now I just came off camera, so I need to point out my hypocrisy for a second. One of the social contracts that we have in the black community is typically not all the time, but typically we, we are in spaces where we're gonna be on television. In Hollywood professional environments, we typically will wear our hair straight.

You'll see lots of wigs, slick edges, all that good stuff. People don't typically wear their hair in its natural state, whether it's kinky, curly, quality, whatever it is. Now, I just came off camera because I just happen to be wearing my hair straight today. But for those of you who have been on my channel, you do understand I wear my hair in all kinds of hairstyles. I've worn like little aros and twist outs. I'll wear my hair straight. I would wear braided, I wear every hairstyle, but that's just because I get bore, right?

I don't have a problem with wearing my natural hair as well. So I've done it many times. I'll go long stretches of time where I just wear it and it's like a whole situation up there. But it is what it is today. I just happened to be wearing it straight for a while. I don't know why. That's just where I'm at with it. Sometimes you'll see me wear braiden, but the point I'm making is there's a social contract that is for, at least for people who look like me, where in order to be palatable in society, your hair should be straight and it should be super long.

So what's happening is you've got women engaging in covering up. Once comes natural for them is how, how their hair goes up their head. They're going to such lengths to adhere to the social contract of wearing your hair in a certain manner to the point that it is damaging. You got edge gate going on, you know, like a lot of these people are out here, they don't even have edges. They have done so much to the, their edge. They have slipped up from them, straightened them, all that kind of stuff.

They have hidden them. They've been glued down from their, their wigs and stuff like that. And so now many of these women are recognizing like, oh my goodness, I no longer have edges. Oftentimes women will claim that they're wearing these wigs And they so-called other spouses 'cause they're protecting their hair, when in actuality they're not protecting anything. They're hiding it, they're hiding their hair. I want to make sure I made myself clear. I said what I said, protecting your hair is usually if you're, like, for example, if you're doing something for a period of time, a short period of time, maybe if you're on vacation, maybe you don't wanna bring a whole bunch of tools and, and you know you're gonna be in a lot of water.

Maybe you wear your hair braided, I don't know. But then eventually you come out of those braids, right? Well, there's women who will be saving for years, refuse to be as a yard. They're protecting their hair when actually they're not. They don't like their hair, they're hiding their hair. So they're more interested in adhering to the social contract that in order for them to be aesthetically pleasing, they have to abide by certain unwritten rules. These women are walking around here harming themselves.

They're going, they're, they're ripping out their edges. But lemme talk about these other beauty standards. One of the things that now I say I have to be delicate with this one, you're gonna find that people prioritize also being lighter. So if you look at who the, the people who are on television who are darker, if you look at what's happening, you look at how they wear their makeup, their makeup takes them up a couple of color, like a couple of shade.

I remember when I was watching those real housewives, Potomac, excuse me, like I felt like the darker women were constantly trying to light their skin with lighter foundation shades. I did not notice that on the wheelhouse eyes of Atlanta as much. The women were just gorgeous. Didn't matter which shade they were, they were just, they were everything. They were really pretty, pretty ladies psycho or pretty.

But I think part of where, where I'm going with is that I, I don't want to be rooted in eurocentrism, meaning like, I have to be light. I have to have straight hair. Now granted, my skin is not dark. So I guess I've never had to deal with the societal pressures of being dark. I've had to deal with societal pressures of being black, but not necessarily of being dark skinned. So I think where I was going when I said I didn need to be delicate with that is it is a sensitive topic within the community because there are sensitivities centered around, centered around colorism and rightfully so.

Think about what's, what's happening with people in their foundation and, and not foundation, I'm sorry, contouring. People are contouring the heck out of their noses to make them look slim. And do you understand what I mean? Like the notion of this is what a nice nose looks like, it, it shouldn't look like a nose. So anyway, I, I have decided that I was just like, look, I'm not dealing with that. Like, I, IM partially because it's just too exhausting.

Hmm, sorry, tired today. But anyway, I just find that when, when you engage in all these activities, it's, it, I feel like what happens is like we are all starting to look the same. Like we, we lose our individuality. I look at the women now. Everybody has a bust down lashes. Like it's like the same look, it's the same look. Everyone's lightening their skin with different shades, like foundation shades. Everyone wears the same hairstyle.

It's just, it's actually kind of like we have no individuality anymore. We all look the same. And I don't choose to adhere to that social contract, and I don't feel like I have to answer that in order to be considered beautiful or anything like that. I, one another reason why I, I have chosen not to adhere to this social contract, come back on for a while so you can see me here, is because I feel like it just costs so much money. I feel like we spend so much time trying to adhere to the social contract of the, these, these common laws, these common rules that we spend so much money.

So many people, like there's, people are constantly getting their hair done. They spend so much money on wig installs and their makeup and like, they have so much going on with makeup. My makeup is so limited and I don't even like to use it all the time. Like right now, the only thing on my face is a little bit of lip gloss and well, like I have a lot of moisturizer stuff, but I don't have on any foundation or mascara or lashes or anything like that.

Partially just because I don't want to, right? So when you see me, this is what my face looks like. Okay? And you'll see the darkness under my eyes sometimes. And it doesn't mean I can't put anything on. It's just that I'm choosing not to, and I'm not anti-me, by the way, because there are times when I do put it on. But I am saying is I'm choosing not to necessarily go all in on a social contract because it's not beneficial.

It is expensive. You lose your indi individuality and it's definitely rooted to Eurocentrism and trying to achieve an aesthetic of something that you were not born with. You're not born with it. I wasn't born with certain features. I was, you know, I looked the way I look 'cause God is not playing with me. He didn't make a mistake on me. That what I said. I just haven't done a couple of bullets here. I, this is my last thing I'm gonna talk about.

Talk about, we come back off camera again. I wanted to say this. I feel like when we are trying to adhere to this social contract of what standards of beauty are for black women, I actually feel like it's very exclusionary. Now. I would say a year or two ago, I've made several videos on, I, I quote, what did I call it?

But I, well, I was kind of ping poking on at black femininity because in order for black women to be considered beautiful based off of what I have seen online, it was like they were expecting black women to this weird whispering thing. Like I said, everyone looked the same but the same. We stalls, bust downs, hair park down the center, waves, et cetera.

I felt like what they were trying to push is beauty, which was not kinky, not dark, not, you know, any of those things was just gonna align for everyone, at least not in the community. So already for so, for so many people, they're gonna be excluded because they're not gonna fix the aesthetic of what we're seeing online. If you take the chance and you go and search YouTube, you're gonna find a lot of the people who are talking, when they come online, they are so done up, they look a certain way.

And I feel like, look, for me to come online, look, I'm just gonna say what I'm gonna say. And that's it. That's it. I mean, I'm not pushing a beauty product or anything like that, right? So I'm just talking about my opinions. But many of the people who come online, they have a certain look or aesthetic. I don't think there's anything wrong with that aesthetic, but I think it is a little exclusionary because there are people who are not gonna reach that. They're not gonna look like that, right? So what they're trying to unofficially market as feminine people.

Some people cannot achieve that. And I just kind of felt like, this is silly to me. Like I don't, I can't participate. And it doesn't mean that, like I said, it doesn't mean that I don't wear makeup or wanna wear makeup or wear my hair straight or wear my, like, it doesn't mean that at all. What I'm saying is I don't feel like I have to subscribe to that. There's oftentimes I come on here, my hair looks, looks the way it looks. That's how I'm wearing it today. It's, it's, and it's natural state. And I don't typically do a whole lot of edge slicking.

I don't really go out of my way to slick my edges down because I'm like, that's how they grew out of my head. If I was going for a particular style, yeah, but generally speaking I'm not doing that. I'm just not like, I just feel like, you know, like you, if you don't wanna hear what I have to say, there are so many other channels, right? But I'm just going to come on here, share my opinions on things and that's it. And you don't have to accept it, I don't think I'm an ugly looking woman, but I don't wanna go out of the, out of my way to make sure that I'm done up for, for everyone.

If I'm gonna put on makeup, it's because I want to do it. I'm not gonna do it in order to please everybody. Now do understand. I know that also when you want to grow your channel, there, there are certain things that you should be doing, right? I I, I'm not blind to that and I don't not going to do it. I'm just saying I am choosing not to, I think, subscribe to what's considered the black social contracts for women, at least in terms of beauty standards.

And I'll also say this, it doesn't mean that I won't in the future, right? It doesn't mean that I won't in the future. What I'm saying is I don't feel like I need to do those things. I don't necessarily want to do those things. I just don't like where it's going. Anyway. All right. I'm gonna start sipping on my coffee because I am a little tired and I think I'm going to end this.

Hopefully you guys will leave a comment and, and share your thoughts on what, what is, you know, well now leaving of commentation thoughts. Ha ha, the the ones you're not disrespectful. Make sure you subscribe and share this video with other people and I will talk to you again.

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