-by Kumquat

Two days ago, I found myself crying in the dressing room of the Banana Republic. Something I find not only embarrassing, but borderline sinful.

After all, I am a person who considers herself enlightened. When I'm with my female friends, I join them in their dismissive scoffs of Barbie, of Botox, of bimbo-ifying beauty treatments. Our generation didn't create the Ugly Duckling (who turned into the lovely swan), but Shrek (who embraced his, ahem, uniqueness). While our moms may not have themselves burned bras, they taught us that bras are not tethers to a "feminine" life. Yes, we all know – and proclaim loudly ourselves – that anyone who loves us must love us for who we are, not how we look.

And yet... And yet... I can't help it. I want to be pretty.

I'm not exactly ashamed of my desire to be attractive. It's more a shame for any efforts I make to achieve that. We educated, liberal women of today, we're not supposed to put our beauty above anything. Certainly not our brains, and certainly not our career. The priority for prettiness is somewhere between finishing that one hobby-related project that was started eight years ago and learning a dead language just to sound erudite.

At best, the driven, talented, liberal women I know will devote a couple quick minutes to some foundation and lipstick. But this is done itself with a blush, and an explanation that today, this day of makeup wearing, is unusual. At best, they "indulge" themselves with manicures once every long while. That's called pampering, not beautifying, and it's done with the same near-guilty thrill that one would get from a banana split (certainly not a beauty product!). At best, they dye their hair at the hairdresser's – one beauty-related trip that is uncharacteristically regular. But it's either done for a "change of pace," or it's just plain not mentioned, thank you very much.

Which is the case for almost anything done solely to look good: it's just plain not mentioned. Anti-wrinkle lotion? Not mentioned. Exfoliant? Not mentioned. Waxed eyebrows (or anything else for that matter)? Not mentioned. This tight-lipped approach is so wide-spread among my female peers that I actually did not know that one could wax (or otherwise remove, lighten, or disguise) facial hair until after I graduated from college.

At first, I thought it was a result of the realm I choose to inhabit. Surrounded by math- and science-minded folk, one rarely finds the world of Vogue. But then I started paying more attention. When a girly occasion arose, most stepped up to the backlit mirror with aplomb. Tweezers were everywhere, as were mascara wands, bottles of self-tanner, and cellulite cream; I just never knew to look.

No, it's just that vanity – and by vanity, I don't mean acknowledging one's own beauty; instead I mean acknowledging that beauty is a (largely) guilt-free pursuit – is the seamy underbelly of the liberal, professional, female realm. A woman is allowed to indulge herself, but it must never be spoken of. If it is spoken of, it must be done either in disparaging terms – generally with an off-hand comment of how rarely it happens and how little time it actually takes, with an embarrassed shrug of a foolish but barely harmful habit, or followed by a Let-She-Who-Is-Without-Sin-Cast-the-First-Loofah glare.

All the same, thoughts cross my mind: I'd rather be skinny. I don't like the lines peeking out from my forehead. What if I actually did know how to apply a full arsenal of makeup? I wish I knew how to pick out flattering clothes. Maybe laser-hair removal is something I could look into...

And then I slap them down. My friends seem to look at me as some sort of paragon of liberal female values. "Oh, you are one of the few people I know who is truly comfortable with the skin she's in," I was once told. I laughed and said thank you, but the proper answer would have been, "Hell no! I want to be prettier-than-thou as much as the next girl (oops, pardon me, woman) just as I'm totally, overwhelmingly, pointedly aware of each and every flaw the mirror reflects, as well as many it does not."

But I also know that it doesn't have to be this way. After all, my sister is not only striking, but strategically so. She knows all the moves, does all the processes. She's smart and talented, and no one could call her conservative, but she remains unashamed. Tereza Heinz Kerry, too. She was both condemned and commended for her unabashed beauty treatments – yet no one could deny that she is a driven, intelligent, liberal woman as well.

So what's the difference? Is it Heinz Kerry's generation? My sister's career in a non-"professional" field? Are they more progressive than I? Or it is the other way around? Do women who choose to "indulge" their vanity further the commercial clamoring for unblemished women who, at the age of forty-five, have only the teensiest hint of crow's feet (if that), shining manes of glowing (never graying) hair, and figures that bear bikini-wearing (not to mention bikini-staring)?

I don't know those answers. All I know is on a daily basis, I am subject to a near-religious guilt. And not because I contemplate murder, betrayal, or sexual deviance. I'm also subject to knee-shaking fear. And not because I am being chased by police, monsters, or even my past. Nope. It's all because I googled "hair salon color treatment" and my hometown...