On Getting Hurt and Being ‘Pretty’

I have an ambition – I want to join the London Rollergirls. I’ve got my skates, I’ve got my tiny shorts and my fishnet tights, but some of the safety gear did give me pause for thought. Kneepads, elbow pads, wristguards, a boil ‘n’ bite mouthguard, and my old purple cycling helmet wasn’t allowed: no, I needed a heavy-duty ‘skating helmet’.

When you’re biting down on a piece of hot plastic you boiled in a saucepan, making sure to follow the instructions to the letter, carefully pressing the chewy, artificial tasting stuff around each of your teeth in turn, it’s hard not to wonder, what if I get hurt?

What if you get hurt? asked my mother, when I told her. My mother and I have an arrangement. She’s had both hips replaced; I’m allowed to tell her to slow down and be careful, and don’t start climbing up ladders and repainting your bathroom when you’re supposed to be recovering from major surgery. In return she’s the only person in the world allowed to tell me not to walk down dark big city streets alone at night, without getting a lecture on third wave feminism. We live in different cities. We worry about each other. I find myself filled with filial guilt that starting roller derby will worry my mother.

My dad was a boxer, as was his dad, and his dad before him. My great granddad was, apparently, a boxer who boxed illegally on the streets of Liverpool. Made a good living from it, I hear. My granddad’s house was full of my dad’s boxing trophies, and my dad would point at professional boxers on our TV and claim to have fought them in his youth. I have no doubt that, were I a boy, I would have been encouraged to be a boxer too.

I also have no doubt that, because I was a girl, I wasn’t. My suspicions are corroborated by the appeals to my vanity which came from both parents when I suggested the possibility. “But you’re so pretty,” they said. “Don’t you want to look pretty?” I did want to look pretty, I agreed. Even my heroes Jean Grey and Catwoman looked pretty when they were kicking ass; I didn’t want to lose that.¹

When, as a child, my nose was broken in a non-boxing related incident, I was as terrified as my parents that I would have a ‘boxer’s nose’. It’s still a bit weird-looking, to be honest.

I cracked a tooth last year. In a restaurant. At a business meeting. I played it cool, got drunk, laughed about it (even when one of the authors I was with tweeted about it), then got home, saw the big black gap where my front tooth should have been in the mirror and cried and cried! Could barely smile at my own boyfriend for the two weeks it took to get a false tooth put in.² I cannot begin to imagine what a blow to your self-esteem real, serious external injuries can be. Burns, scars, facial disfigurement. Charities such as Changing Faces are doing a lot to combat this stigma, but as a society we’re not there yet.

There is nothing wrong with wanting your child to be pretty – ‘pretty’ or at least ‘conventional-looking’ people have an easier life, in lots of respects. There is nothing wrong with wanting, yourself, to be ‘pretty’. (Common misconception about feminists, that.)

Technically, my false tooth was cosmetic surgery. Not life-threatening, not a source of pain when the old tooth is gone completely, not a medical condition. But I damn well wanted that cosmetic surgery. And there was small difference between me having that done, and an older woman replacing what she’s lost by having botox on her forehead. I don’t think I’d ever have botox, but I’m not going to condemn anyone for wanting it. How could I, as some magazines do, laugh at the ‘false’ breasts of an actress when part of me, when a part of my appeal (my smile) is false?

So yes, it is okay to want to be pretty. I can worry about getting seriously hurt, but I can also worry about suffering a cosmetic injury, (for instance, breaking my nose again,) without being ‘unfeminist’. I don’t need to feel bad that eight year-old me decided not to be a boxer, nor do I need to feel bad that, starting a dangerous sport, I am still a little afraid. This might seem obvious to some of you, but it took me a little while to not feel guilty about feeling this fear.

However, none of this changes the fact that society still finds it much easier to deal with men getting hurt than with women getting hurt.

I once had a conversation with a very sincere ex-co-worker about how when they’re talking about British soldiers on the news, if a woman soldier has died or been injured, it makes him furious. Angry that girls are allowed to go to war, angry that her family let her, angry that she wanted to go. He doesn’t have the same reaction to male soldiers. Historically and even now, the reaction of men to the death and injury of female soldiers is used as a reason why women shouldn’t go to war. (Which seems like such utterly backwards logic to me. If the men can’t deal with it, aren’t they the problem?) In the UK, among many other things they’re not allowed to do in the military, women still can’t fight on the front line. So much for equality in the workplace, I guess.

It’s understandable, if you look at the messages we’re fed every day. Don’t hit girls, save girls from danger – that’s the message pop culture gives us. So what does the hero do, if the girl’s willingly putting herself in danger? Get angry, as above, or try to persuade her otherwise?

If, as a woman, you start a dangerous sport, or make another decision that seems like it could damage your health (I remember the reactions from friends and family when I briefly wanted to join the police force), you will meet with a lot of resistance. I doubt that many men have to face the same concerns from their loved ones when they start a sport like boxing or rugby, even though there’s danger of death, serious injury, and the fact that no one seems to come out of these sports with their looks intact! Just ask rugby player Daryl Gibson’s nose or boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear. But it’s much more acceptable for a male sports celebrity to wear his scars with pride than for a woman to do the same.

If you’re a woman and you want to do something dangerous, you will meet with resistance to the idea. This resistance might come from a well-meaning place, from those who love you, it may even come from inside you. It’s okay to listen, but it can be useful to interrogate how your gender plays a role in the dialogue.

1. In fact, the only time I’ve ever known a comic book superhero to have her looks compromised by kicking ass was when Emma Frost had her nose broken by Sublime, in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men #118. As the X-Men’s resident high-class rich blonde bitch (well, it’s true), she’s also one of the only superheroes I’ve ever known admit to having plastic surgery, and therefore the ‘reset’ button could be pressed and Emma could be drawn with a perfect nose in all following issues. [↩]
2. Team BadRep’s editor Miranda only managed to get me out of the house by promising me alcohol and telling me the missing tooth made me look like a lady pirate of the high seas. [↩]