Yes, another one of those polls

[sabotabby]

[Poll #831370]

I bring this up because there are posters all over the streetcars lately for some show called Ugly Betty. Now, I have no idea what this show is about, but the posters feature a woman who is Hollywood Ugly.* Among her ugly features are prosthetic eyebrows. I know they're prosthetic, as I read it in a magazine somewhere, but they actually look pretty normal to me. This is when I noticed that it was the first time in ages I'd seen a woman in an ad who didn't have plucked or waxed eyebrows.

I looked around on the streetcar, and practically every woman my age had done something to her eyebrows. It was bizarre. I've never really had the temptation to take hot wax or tweezers to my face, and no one's ever suggested I do so (and really, my eyebrows are pretty faint, so it'd look bizarre). Is this a new mandatory thing, like shaved legs and waxed pubes? When did this happen? I'm all for doing über-femme, but it sounds painful.

Discuss.

* Basically, she has unattractive glasses, hair styled in a very plain way, natural-looking eyebrows, and braces. She's otherwise attractive enough. I don't know the plot of the show, but I gather at some point they will fix her hair, wax her eyebrows, remove the braces, and take off her glasses. And then she will be hot. I hate this particular plot line in movies and TV shows, as they never take into account the complicated process of acquiring contact lenses and learning to wear them, and I'm forced to conclude that the newly glasses-less girls are actually stumbling around half-blind. We sexbots do not not require vision to fulfill our womanly duties as baby-incubators, after all.

Comments

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

My eyebrows are dark and thick enough to necessitate the occasional plucking of a few stray hairs in order to avoid the monobrow. If they weren't as noticeable as they are, I wouldn't pluck at all.

It is damn painful, even with the little I do it. I can't imagine making them as thin as those Hollywood-types do. Pluck them out and then pencil in some fake ones? I don't get it.

[sabotabby]

I know a girl who lost an eyebrow that way. One grew back, the other didn't.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

In high school, my mother talked me into getting my eyebrows "shaped". I've had it done a grand total of four times in my life, and finally when I was about 21 I decided that I'd NEVER EVER do it again. Its horribly painful, and I don't see the point. Eyebrows are eyebrows. I think the people who regularly wax, pluck, etc. their eyebrows look ridiculous.

[sabotabby]

I don't think it looks bad, but it's also a beauty standard I've had rammed down my throat. I'm not a fan of pain, though, so I've never tried it.

[lemur-man.livejournal.com]

I'm a guy who plucks, not to avoid a monobrow but because it seems untidy to have two naturally well-defined eyebrows with some stray hairs in between.

It's Vanessa Williams who looks worse in those posters - like she's made of some kind of plastic.

[sabotabby]

That's Vanessa Williams? What have they done to her? She looks frightening.

It's kinda like bonsai pruning for your face...

[dania-audax.livejournal.com]

I've been shaping my eyebrows regularly ever since late high school, to avoid the dreaded mono-brow. I keep my brows looking natural, no over-plucking.

I truly think this is a thing that women have come up with, instead of the patriarchy.

Removing the stray hairs really opens up a face. Go ahead, draw a basic scetch of a woman's face with a monobrow. Take a good look at it. Then erase parts of the eyebrows until you get Angelina Jolie, who has the most attractive brows, imho. No matter what your picture started off as, it's an improvement with the removed hair.

It opens up and defines the eye, anything more than that is going too far.

Re: It's kinda like bonsai pruning for your face...

[sabotabby]

I see men plucking the odd stray hair or un-monobrowing. (I made a word!) I see women shaping their eyebrows into weird shapes, which requires a great deal more effort and pain on a more frequent basis. If men and women were both doing it, I'd consider it politically neutral, but it seems that women are expected to and men are not. The only men I've seen with artificially thin eyebrows do drag on a regular basis.

[chibibluebird.livejournal.com]

Apparently there is or was a long-running show in Spain called Ugly Betty, with the same concept.

[chibibluebird.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_La_Fea

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I do, however, clip nose and ear hairs.

[sabotabby]

I would too, if 'twere necessary.

[threepunchstuff.livejournal.com]

My peoples are hairsome.

[sabotabby]

Mine too. I'm lucky on the eyebrow front, but nowhere else.

[purveyorofchaos.livejournal.com]

I believe your poll left out the overly lazy, I for instance, don't pluck my eyebrows because I never get around to it. But I'm not against my mother forcing me to get my eyebrows waxed, as long as she pays for it.

Also, patriarchy is not the angle I usually see pressure to pluck eyebrows from. Usually it's mothers.

[sabotabby]

My mom just had hers shaped. My step-dad and I teased her mercilessly about it.

[ocicat-bengals.livejournal.com]

Ugh! I overplucked mine in my twenties and regret it.
Plucking is not as painful but waxing is a bitch and I've
only had it done once.
Those of us in middle age have to wonder about chin hairs
these days.
Waxed pubes seems like something that has come out of the nineties.
No one seemed to write about Brazillian waxes before.
It sounds gross. Even waxing close to them hairs hurts like
a wasp sting.

[sabotabby]

I've never gotten waxing. My friend used to live with this guy who waxed everything, and he'd always leave the used wax, avec hairs, lying around in her coffee mugs. That's just nasty. I like to play with hot wax (I'm one of those people who can't keep their hands out of lit candles, but I can't imagine it on a part of my body that's hairy.

[seilduksgata.livejournal.com]

How is it possible to tell if ppl have done something to their eyebrows or not? Or were they all so obviously shave-everything-off-and-pencil-in sort of eyebrows that you couldnt miss it?

I am glad a lot of girls at least dont seem to be interesting in interfering with their eyebrows over here...

[seilduksgata.livejournal.com]

oops, interested in

[maeve66.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm in a tiny minority. I might even be alone in my, um, predilections. I do sometimes get my eyebrows shaped, though they're very light and it's not "necessary."* It's kind of a byproduct of getting my face as a whole waxed, and to be totally honest (TMI alert), I really like how the hot wax and RRrrrripp! feels at the time, and I like how my face feels afterwards. It's one of those tears-in-the-eyes, pain that fades into a glow that heightens pleasurable sensations things. I said this would be TMI.

*What is weird in my own attitude is that I don't think anyone's eyebrows, ever, need to be shaped or plucked or whatever, even with a monobrow -- Frida Kahlo's was beautiful. I don't shave anything, anywhere on myself, or want or need that in others. But I like the sensations of getting my face and brows waxed. It's kind of like publicly permissible SM. Or just M, I suppose, though I do think some of the women doing the waxing get some satisfaction out of it.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I was just trying to figure out if I enjoy the pain of threading. I'm not sure. It hurts like fuck but afterwards I feel a bit charged by it.

[missandrony.livejournal.com]

Well, I've tweezed since I was 13, but I tweeze to my natural arch. Although my hair is light brown, my brows and lashes are very dark and thick, so the stray hairs are especially prominent on my face. I've never messed with my natural arch, but that's because it's very easy to follow said arch. It's way thicker than many of the Hollywood sorts, but with my features it looks best.

As to the pain...I used to find it painful, but now it doesn't bother me. Actually, I find it to be a good way to release some stray aggression: "I'll GET you, little fucker!" is a phrase I've uttered more than once while tweezing. ^^;

The plot of the show is that Betty goes to work at a fashion magazine, and everyone at the magazine wants her fired because she's ugly. Everything I've heard so far suggests they're NOT going to fix her - that would kill the point of the show. Also, I heard that Betty has a lot of self-confidence - she thinks she's fine as she is. Apparently it's supposed to be a good show, which is a pity as its in the same timeslot as My Name Is Earl and The Office.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm a very dark brunette, and not to overshare or anything, but I even have some random dark hairs growing out of my chin *sighs* Not to mention upper lip hair that regularly requires bleaching

I started plucking my eyebrows recently. I've even had some old man comment on my bushy eyebrows, so yeah lol, I figured I should try and tidy them up a bit. I've started attacking them with tweezers, and it can be bloody painful, especially certain small hairs that are right on the sensitive skin area underneath my eyebrow. The ones above my nose hardly hurt at all though. Anyway :P

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Oh and I've pretty much left them as quite thick still, because I'm worried about messing with the basic shape of them and looking like a fool. So I'm not even close to the perfectly shaped and tiny eyebrows that celebrities have.

My issue was mostly just that I've got lots of little hairs sprinkled underneath the main brow and inbetween, those are the ones I'm removing. It takes ages, especially when those are mostly really small half grown hairs.

[ralu-1982.livejournal.com]

This Ugly Betty show is actually a remake after a South American telenovella called Yo soy Betty, la fea. Quite the hit, I may add, enhanced, of course, by the utter stupidity of the plot and the neurotic ideas behind it. She became like a standard icon for ugliness...even after she cleaned up her image and became *hot*.
Btw, she was still wearing those damn eyeglasses even after becoming the beauty queen in the Colombian version. I wonder what happens in the US version...

[goodlookinout.livejournal.com]

Yes to the first question and Yes to the second. *sigh*

Granted I have not watched the show, but just from the gist of it and all the adds, I'm also really sad that Selma Hayek is producing it! I loved her :(

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

I haven't plucked my eyebrows in oh, 20 years or so. I hve recently started to tweeze the occasional hair from my face, I'm not proud of it, though.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

That show looks thoroughly offensive.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Plucking has been around for ages and ages, just recently really thin is in. I don't pluck my brows. But, I do on occasion bleach my upper lip, because, well, I want to.

My mom pressured me on a lot of things, but not my eyebrows.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

Ugly Betty, when I first saw the advertisement for it, is based on a Colombian (I think) telenovela named Betty la Fea, which was popular in my homeland cir. 2002. Anyway, I've never actually seen a full episode of Betty la Fea, and I never actually saw the American version, since my roommate and I cancelled cable, and the only channel she ever watches once ever 2 weeks on a sunday is a bizarre channel called "i".

And, as you've guessed, the plot of the show is, indeed, Betty la fea is fea no more at the end, and she gets the h0tt manager/boss/guy she had a crush on, who is in an uncomfortably higher position than she is in the food chain.

Now, about the eyebrows. I notice the same thing too! Especially since I'm going to a university again. Every other woman in my class have modified eyebrows. And some of them are so modified, you can tell they're modified, and not h0tt at all. Twinkie, for example, barely has eyebrows left. Others still have shape that are just plain wrong!


I take pride in my family eyebrow. Every woman in me mum's side of the family has the same eyebrow shape. It gives me edge when I gnarl, or try to look serious.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

ick, just the thought of tweezing eyebrows makes me shudder.

[ironed_orchid]

I have plucked my eyebrows once, when I had a job which required me to conform to patriarchal standards of feminity, and got ingrown hairs and then got keloid scarring, so I never did it again.

You know, I'd like to see a make over show where instead of going for contacts, they show people how to find flattering frames. That would be much better advice.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

OMG that would be an awesome show. In January I'm going to get new glasses, and I'm hoping to go to a shop that can help me find some more interesting and flattering frames.

[jdubbs530.livejournal.com]

"Plucked/waxed eyebrows—a tool of the patriarchy?"

Jesus, are you always "on"?

[sabotabby]

Yep!

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine has been jokingly harassing me to pluck the few eyebrows that I have between my two main eyebrows and I've always refused to do so (I literally have about 9 hairs between my eyes, so no big deal). However, I plucked one of them last night for the first time ever. It didn't hurt so much, but I still don't see the need for/point to it.

I vote that it's a tool of the patriarchy! Down with the sexist tweezer industrial complex!