I Don’t Wear Heels/Bras/Nylons/Makeup

My Feminist Manifesto

When I was a teenager, I wore heels because that was what girls did. It was required. For church. For special occasions. For interviews. For jobs in a corporate office. I often wore makeup and nylons, as well. Of course I wore a bra. If you have breasts, you must wear a bra. It’s disgusting not to wear a bra. Your breasts will bob about. And besides, everyone knows that if you don’t wear a bra, your breasts will sag down to your navel and you will regret it.

When I became a stay-at-home mom and left the corporate world, I didn’t wear skirts and heels and makeup anymore. Except for church and on special occasions. Like getting family pictures taken. And then I realized that wearing sneakers was so much better on my feet when I was heavily pregnant. Just, so much better. My back pain became so much better when I just started to wear sneakers, even to church. Of course, I had an exemption. I was pregnant. I got to break the rules of femininity when I was pregnant.

Slowly, over the years, I got rid of my nail polish. My makeup. My nylons (no one wears them anymore now, yes, I know that. Lucky you). And then I qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2017. The price of this was a long-term Achilles problem. But of course, I didn’t stop training. That wasn’t one of the possible choices I had to relieve my pain. So I started to wear heels again to church on Sunday. Even though I wasn’t pregnant. When the little girls (who were forced to wear uncomfortable Sunday shoes every week) asked why I was wearing those ugly sneakers, I explained about my injury. Yes, special rules for me. I didn’t have to wear shoes that made it worse.

I never went back to wearing Sunday shoes. At some point, in the midst of the divorce in 2020, I made a choice. I got rid of every dress I owned. They held bad memories of those last years of church when I felt so unwelcome, so judged as evil and insufficiently faithful. I threw out all my church shoes, too. All I had left were a pair of sandals, a pair of boots for winter, and several pairs of sneakers in various levels of good repair (the nice pair for running long distances, the less nice pair for short distances and the really ratty pair for wearing on walks).

I used to wear shoes all day long. And then I stopped wearing them around the house. I left them at the door. Now I realize how much I hate shoes. Yes, they are a necessary evil. They protect my feet from the painful rocks and glass that are on the ground outside. They allow me to walk, and sometimes, to run. But I do not like them.

I stopped wearing makeup somewhere in there, not even for photos. That was partly because a friend saw a photo I’d had taken for my big book debut (The Bishop’s Wife) and said she couldn’t even recognize me. “Why would you want a photo that doesn’t even look like you?” She told me I should either wear makeup regularly or—have a photo taken without makeup. It was 2019 when I was brave enough to do that. I loved the photo so much! I call it my “don’t fuck with me” photo.

And now, I don’t wear makeup anymore. I’ve had two children get married in the last four months. I probably should have caved and worn heels. I kept telling myself I was going to do that. A small sacrifice for the sake of the all-important wedding photos. My older sister offered to buy them for me for my birthday as a gift. We had them all picked out. She’d taken me to the mall to try on shoes at a department store and these were the lesser of all the evils. But no, I never bought them. I DID buy a pair of shoes for the second wedding. Not heels, but flats. They were—uncomfortable.

As for bras, when I left Mormonism and stopped wearing the garments, I found that bras were extremely uncomfortable right next to my skin. So I moved to entirely sports bras or “sleep bras.” Who knew that there were sleep bras? Bras so comfortable you’d war them to bd? Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? Oh, yes, they did. But I didn’t listen because I thought that I was supposed to be constantly worried if my breasts looked good enough to make m appear properly female. Who cares about that? Not me, not anymore.

Why is it that women must wear uncomfortable clothing and footwear and apply expensive creams to their faces and take time to curl and dry and primp their hair? Why? It’s been a slow revolution for me. I never intended for it to be a battle cry. It is a giving up. I just don’t care enough anymore for the rewards that come with being viewed as sufficiently feminine. Or maybe I was never good enough at those rules for me to feel like I’d been accepted into the club.

I’m aware that there is a tax that women pay. They can pay it in the makeup and heels and the cost of all the time and energy that women spend and men do not so that they can be seen as equal, or close enough to it in the corporate world to be considered for promotions, to be “leadership material.” I pay a different price. I pay the price of not being leadership material. And I find I care less about this than I thought I would. I’m not ambitious anymore. I want enough. I don’t need money to buy status. Other people can have it. It costs too much of me, and it costs me resources that I find I can’t restore anymore.

I am getting old. I can wear purple now. And I can wear ugly shoes. And no makeup. I can look and be myself. Most of the time.