The Unpublishable

Share this post

1-Minute Musing: Ego-Expression

jessicadefino.substack.com

Discover more from The Unpublishable

What the beauty industry won't tell you, from a reporter on a mission to reform it.
Over 82,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

1-Minute Musing: Ego-Expression

A super-quick, 7-sentence thought (and a meme).

Jessica DeFino
Mar 31, 2022
95
Share this post

1-Minute Musing: Ego-Expression

jessicadefino.substack.com
5
Share

I’m currently reading Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos (which I highly recommend for writers!) and in it, the author references this quote from British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott: “It is joy to be hidden and disaster not to be found.” This is exactly how I feel about beauty and exactly what I hope to get across in my work.

The performance of physical beauty is often touted as self-expression, and sometimes it is just that. More often though, I think, it’s actually ego-expression — a prop, a placeholder for identity, not an armor for protecting the self, but an armor for protecting against the self.

Don’t get me wrong! Covering up (with lipstick, with acrylic nails, with microbladed brows, with a 20-minute moisturizing face mask) can be an absolute joy.

But never uncovering is an absolute disaster.

95
Share this post

1-Minute Musing: Ego-Expression

jessicadefino.substack.com
5
Share
5 Comments
Share this discussion

1-Minute Musing: Ego-Expression

jessicadefino.substack.com
Cris Pearlstein
Writes Hi, It's Your Older Sister
Mar 31, 2022Liked by Jessica DeFino

This is it isn't it?! It's the idea that the covered/treated/makeup-d face is your ONLY face is deeply saddening. Thank you for putting it in this context. Also, adding that book to my list of things to read stat!

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
1 reply by Jessica DeFino
Sandra Heerma van Voss
Apr 1, 2022·edited Apr 1, 2022Liked by Jessica DeFino

Self-expression? Hmmm… I think it is always questionable - unless it’s one’s political stance (punk hairdos and leather jackets in 70ies Britain, skinheads, Femen’s bare breasts), but that isn’t so much individual as collective self-expression. Other than that, any performance of beauty is an ego-booster - or a means to fit in (although again, the ‘self’ hardly figures in that one either)…

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
2 replies by Jessica DeFino and others
3 more comments...
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Jessica DeFino
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing