When I am dead will I finally shut the fuck up

Last year, artist and actress Jemima Kirke was asked on a TikTok video if she had any advice to unconfident young women. Her response was ‘I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much’. This response has stayed with me, directed as it was towards young women, many of whom are discussing (particularly online) certain facets of themselves at length. Trends, ageing, skin, fashion, aesthetics, identity - I have been algorithmically fed many essays, thinkpieces and videos on these matters, and while I’m glad to simply see other young women expressing themselves and sharing their thoughts, I can’t help but agree with this comment. I think we are thinking about ourselves too much. Whether it’s obsessing over our skin, hair, bodies, features, style of makeup, or focusing on our personal responses to these topics, it’s still a lot of internal noise. I’ve always found any clamorous, chaotic internal debate to be absolutely exhausting.

However, such an internal debate isn’t new to me. One terrible thing about being aware of the ways the ‘system’ has indoctrinated and affected you as a woman (by this I mean the way that white supremacist patriarchal capitalist power wields media to make us obsessed with fitting a beauty ideal that is racist, sexist, ageist, fatphobic, heteronormative, and unachievable), is that, in my experience, you don’t lose one unhelpful voice, you just gain the opposition. This means that I still care about how much I weigh, how my skin looks, where hair grows on my body - but I also notice that, and continuously shout ‘STOP CARING NONE OF THIS IS REAL’ in my head simultaneously. Not to mention the internal storms I reckon with when it comes to the male gaze. The fact of the matter is that these days, it can be very difficult to know why you want to do something, especially when it concerns your physical form and the way it is perceived. Questions such as ‘am I dressing this way to fit a beauty ideal, please men, or simply for the joy of feeling sexy and cool’ don’t always have a straight answer, and that can be discomfiting. But I think Kirke is onto something. Almost like the law of attraction, I think these debates - whether internal or external - can sometimes simply lead to yet more obsession, focus and wasted time. While I think that theory and exploration of beauty ideals, femininity, male/female gaze, et cetera can be incredibly interesting and helpful to the cause, I think that on an individual level - you might be thinking about yourself too much.

(You, meaning me.)

I have been listening to some excellent podcasts episodes on radical self love and beauty standards that have blown the top off of my head (I can strongly recommend this conversation with Sonya Renee Taylor on We Can Do Hard Things and Ismatu Gwendolyn’s essay ‘There is no safety in being Beautiful’), but I did fall immediately back into frustration, questioning how to USE this information, these perspectives - how to dismantle the vice-like grip that the performance of womanhood has on me. I know more now, but it means I just have more thoughts. For now, my plan is to take Kirke’s advice, backed up and melded with the other lessons I’ve learned along my journeys. The best way to ‘get out of self’ is with service, a lesson I’ve learned in AA, and I think it applies well to this conundrum. Will I be questioning my motives behind my outfit while I’m at a community building meeting? Will I be in turmoil about the socio-political implications of my hair while I’m making dinner for a struggling friend? Probably not.

This weekend, I performed a poem inspired by a ridiculous argument I had with myself in my shower. I think it sums up how over it I am; why, for now, I am not trying to fix the problem - I am ignoring it to do something else.

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Hollie McNish’s book Slug includes a poem she wrote called ‘When I am dead will you finally shut the fuck up’ - she writes about having a poster of sexy schoolgirl Britney on her wall as a teen, being invited to a botox party at 30 and her grandma being on a tummy-slimming diet at 92 years old.

At 26, in 2024, I’m not sure I’m only contending with outside voices - like a horror movie, the call is coming from inside the house. This poem is called ‘When I am dead will I finally shut the fuck up’.

I love showers

The incredible treat of hot running water

Steam and soap

Smiling as I’m scrubbing because it’s nice to be so soft, to make oneself fragrant and lovely

Wet shiny skin, curves and shapes

I look down and think

How delicious it is sometimes to be a woman

Until

Unless

Uh oh

The perspective has flipped again

From being to observing

No longer child/creature/bundle of nerves in warm bliss but

Girl in Pornhub video.

Herbal essences ad.

Rom com protagonist.

In a word - object. Thing. Point of interest.

Point of view - switches

I groan, suddenly cold under the molten downpour, and clap my hands to my face

Drag my fingers over my eyes in frustration, pulling at the skin

But Oh NO! That voice, as old as me, reprimands - panicked, scolding

Stop pulling, the wrinkles - 30 is looming, my friends are taking fucking collagen

At 26

I slap my hands away

This overcrowded conference in my tiny shower, strident feminist and social media consumer

Clamouring cacophony

Clever, insidious marketing

Manufactured insecurity, lining the pockets of anti ageing skincare CEOs and sitting like a parasite in my brain

Must not let the war against, inside my body actually show on my face

My hard learned lessons must not manifest as wear and tear

I turn the shower off and yell FUCK OFF into my towel

Go to do something better with my time

Later ask my boyfriend how often he thinks about his appearance and he says

Some days not at all