2017-05-31

CV and Makeup

I submitted grades last Wednesday so for a couple of days after that I binge-watched makeup tutorials on YouTube. As per usual.

And then I also used my newfound freedom to give comments on a CV that's in development. Man, I love going through CVs.

Then as I was rolling around on the floor trying to finish reading two books before the library due date, I realize that the process of putting on makeup was very similar to the process of revising a CV.

Yeah, I know. The kinds of things I think of when summer vacation is knocking on my door.


It's been just over 10 years since I actually started wearing things other than just lipstick, but I still feel a certain level of discomfort with the object and practice of makeup. The gender inequality, the capitalist empires, the dismantling of self-image... The whole industry just creeps me out a bit.

But I also admit that makeup really fascinates me. Every time I learn about some new product (eyelash tonic?! setting spray?!) my mind gets in a tizzy trying to figure out how in the world producers and consumers manage to keep this weird cycle going. And it's mostly just one gender that seems to be involved. I'm flabbergasted.

As I was going through that CV, though, I thought about the purpose of a CV, and the things to keep in mind when revising one. A CV is meant to represent you as a scholar—your course of life, as it were. With some ink and just a few pieces of paper, a CV is supposed to provide an accurate (and somewhat complete) representation of the work that you've done, but also hope to make you look the best that you can in print. It's supposed to help you get an interview, a fellowship, an invitation to give a guest lecture.

A CV, I had forgotten, is not just a document; it's a means of communication. It's supposed to be my best face forward, so that I can get in the door. More than a single article or presentation, a CV encapsulates all the ammunition I've got as a scholar. If written right, it's my most powerful thing that I can present to the world.

The discomfort I feel with makeup is that it feels like a lie, an extra layer I'm being made to put on my face because I'm not pretty enough, not good enough. But that shouldn't be the way I feel about it, I suppose. Makeup doesn't cover up my face, it just... presents it to the world in a different way. With makeup, I decide how I communicate my face and my self to the world. I don't have to make it look like anyone else's face, fit anyone else's standards. I can look objectively at my face and decide: What do I like about my face today? What do I want to highlight, to forefront? What do I want to (if not erase) put a little bit in the background? What color would be right today? What shape? What thickness, what angle? What length, what texture?

I have just one face, and I have just one career. Whereas makeup enables me to present my face to the world in a particular way, a CV enables me to present my scholarship to the (academic) world in a particular way. I decide what I want to highlight; I decide what I want to (if not keep off) bury into a part of the document that is a bit harder to find, so that I'm not telling a lie. I get to decide the angle and length. I control how I communicate myself to the world.

This, of course, should be obvious. After all, clothes work the exact same way, as a method of self-representation. I guess the whole "beauty standards" thing was throwing off the way I thought about makeup.

I've been wearing makeup for just over 10 years, and I think I've been writing CVs for just a couple years longer than that. My most favorite makeup purchase was when I held off on buying Bare Minerals's limited edition Modern Pop line's Dream Big lipstick in Spring of 2015 because the damned thing was ¥3,200, and instead I bought it seven months later for $8.55 when the thing finally went on sale online. My most prized CV was the one that got me my current job. I've just about used up my entire tube of Dream Big, and I think it's about time I updated my CV, too.

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