I have a, what I now call, aristocratic nose:). As did my parents and grandparents. My mum however got hers corrected in her mid twenties. She both made fun of my nose and praised me for it as a teenager. I found both terribly embarassing. Luckily I never corrected it and I've grown to love my nose.
Two years ago I posed for a portrait series of women with big(ger) noses. And people's first reaction was to tell me my nose did not look big at all. As if to comfort me. It shows the assumption is that a big nose is ugly by definition.
Caro Verbeek wrote a really interesting book (in Dutch) about noses and the way we have characterised them through history.
This story HIT HOME for me. I am the only one in my family with a big bump at the bridge of my nose and growing up, my mother told me that if I ever wanted it fixed she would help me with that. I have never liked me nose (which turned to hatred thanks to the dressing rooms at H&Ms when I was in high school) and have considered changing it. But now as an adult I think about the recovery time, how much it would change my face, and what I'd rather spend that money on. Logically I know all of this but certain photos or reflections of my nose take me aback to this day. It's definitely a constant struggle for me. Sending you love from another big nosed gal.
I have been trying to fix my nose since I was a kid. Not because it felt too big or too crooked, but because it was deformed. That's not a word I usually use because of all the ancient and instinctive stigma that comes with it, particularly for women. Deformed people were thought to be touched by evil, and men didn't want deformed women to carry their babies. But it's the truth, I had a birth defect, a cleft lip/palate, and five operations later it still lists to the right, and is sort of collapsed on one side like a tent. And the upper lip underneath is bunched like a badly-done hem. This means my left and right profiles are totally different. Turns out, symmetry is the hardest thing to recreate once it's gone. One side would be the pretty one, and if a camera caught me from the other side, I'd be repelled. I spent years with my hand over my mouth and nose when I spoke. That got better, now you can't shut me up. But the kids teasing, the shame about the nose was absolutely formative, and still distorts how I see myself. This is not to say that I think I'm ugly, though some kids called me that when I was younger. My face is, as the French would say, jolie laid, a little odd, but interesting, and sometimes even beautiful. People often think I've been in an accident. I still think about it every day, but it matters so much less now. And I'm not sure all those painful operations I had, the bone grafts, the stitches were worth it. They didn't make difference in the way I looked. There was no way not to look somewhat damaged. So the only thing I could have changed was my mind. But I do wonder whether I'd be different as a person if I'd had been born with a 'normal' nose, a noble nose like any one of the ones in those photos on this story. Would I have settled for certain relationships, would I be more confident? These are unknowable things. I do know that it's not vain for those women who want to find out whether their lives will be different with a different nose. I get it, even as I envy both their before and after noses. Here we are in the 21st century and women are still under enormous pressure to conform to some invisible measurement of attractiveness, it's in our bones, it's in the air no matter the self affirmations. But I sure wish it weren't so. Yours, Susanna (p.s. A cleft lip is when your upper jaw doesn't form properly in utero and there's a hole, a crevice from in your top lip that extends right into one side of your nose.)
I have a, what I now call, aristocratic nose:). As did my parents and grandparents. My mum however got hers corrected in her mid twenties. She both made fun of my nose and praised me for it as a teenager. I found both terribly embarassing. Luckily I never corrected it and I've grown to love my nose.
Two years ago I posed for a portrait series of women with big(ger) noses. And people's first reaction was to tell me my nose did not look big at all. As if to comfort me. It shows the assumption is that a big nose is ugly by definition.
Caro Verbeek wrote a really interesting book (in Dutch) about noses and the way we have characterised them through history.
This story HIT HOME for me. I am the only one in my family with a big bump at the bridge of my nose and growing up, my mother told me that if I ever wanted it fixed she would help me with that. I have never liked me nose (which turned to hatred thanks to the dressing rooms at H&Ms when I was in high school) and have considered changing it. But now as an adult I think about the recovery time, how much it would change my face, and what I'd rather spend that money on. Logically I know all of this but certain photos or reflections of my nose take me aback to this day. It's definitely a constant struggle for me. Sending you love from another big nosed gal.
So hey,
I have been trying to fix my nose since I was a kid. Not because it felt too big or too crooked, but because it was deformed. That's not a word I usually use because of all the ancient and instinctive stigma that comes with it, particularly for women. Deformed people were thought to be touched by evil, and men didn't want deformed women to carry their babies. But it's the truth, I had a birth defect, a cleft lip/palate, and five operations later it still lists to the right, and is sort of collapsed on one side like a tent. And the upper lip underneath is bunched like a badly-done hem. This means my left and right profiles are totally different. Turns out, symmetry is the hardest thing to recreate once it's gone. One side would be the pretty one, and if a camera caught me from the other side, I'd be repelled. I spent years with my hand over my mouth and nose when I spoke. That got better, now you can't shut me up. But the kids teasing, the shame about the nose was absolutely formative, and still distorts how I see myself. This is not to say that I think I'm ugly, though some kids called me that when I was younger. My face is, as the French would say, jolie laid, a little odd, but interesting, and sometimes even beautiful. People often think I've been in an accident. I still think about it every day, but it matters so much less now. And I'm not sure all those painful operations I had, the bone grafts, the stitches were worth it. They didn't make difference in the way I looked. There was no way not to look somewhat damaged. So the only thing I could have changed was my mind. But I do wonder whether I'd be different as a person if I'd had been born with a 'normal' nose, a noble nose like any one of the ones in those photos on this story. Would I have settled for certain relationships, would I be more confident? These are unknowable things. I do know that it's not vain for those women who want to find out whether their lives will be different with a different nose. I get it, even as I envy both their before and after noses. Here we are in the 21st century and women are still under enormous pressure to conform to some invisible measurement of attractiveness, it's in our bones, it's in the air no matter the self affirmations. But I sure wish it weren't so. Yours, Susanna (p.s. A cleft lip is when your upper jaw doesn't form properly in utero and there's a hole, a crevice from in your top lip that extends right into one side of your nose.)