A couple weeks ago, a friend and I were laughing as we stumbled upon a not-so flattering picture of us together from middle school. Our hair was messy, our posing awkward, yet our energy and excitement seemed to radiate through the screen. I stared at the image a bit longer, simply noticing how different we both looked compared to now, before switching to the next picture. This time, it was her behind the camera, taking a picture of me painting a mirror with flower and sun motifs. The frame wasn’t the only thing adorned with bright, saturated colors, as on my shy, baby face lay bold electric-blue eyeliner with squiggles of yellow face paint cascading down the wings and across my cheeks, swirling into spirals and dips. I laughed as I looked at the photo, thinking back to how cool I thought I looked, who I wanted to be (with Jules from Euphoria being my main muse), and how distinctly different my “style” is now. 

It was an episode I almost completely forgot about, but as I continued looking on our phones, I found weeks and weeks worth of these creative makeup looks. The more I looked, the more variety I found, seeing everything from rainbow butterflies on my eyes to jewels glued in my hair. 

Despite the extent of this experimentation, I never dared leave the conclave of my room with my face painted. I remembered how badly I wanted to build up the courage to simply go downstairs and grab a snack looking how I was, or, even in my wildest dreams, go to school – to show everyone around me what I thought at the time the best version of myself was, the one who wore her creativity right on her sleeve. 

I knew at the time and definitely recognize now how distinctly “uncool” that would have been, which is exactly why I never did it. As I continued to scroll through the relics of my past self expression, however, it made me quite sad for my younger self how gradual the change from outward creativity to dressing and looking “normal” was, and moreso, how it coincided with the realization of what femininity is expected from young women, and how in order to perform femininity properly, those bold forms of self expression had to go. 

Bold artistic expressions that don’t fit the mold of femininity have long been criticized. With artists like Frida Kahlo or pop culture figures like Yoko Ono, who also fascinated me in adolescence, women who express themselves in lighthearted, unconventional, or honest fashions, or worse, a combination of all three, can do almost nothing to be taken seriously, especially by men. But artistic ability isn’t the issue with female artists, as obviously there have been numerous successful, patriarchy-backed artists, actresses, and singers.

This reveals the unwritten rule female artists have been held to throughout history: when given a platform as a female creative, your ability to express yourself and make bold decisions is shockingly limited in order to keep with the standards of femininity you are expected to perform. And if you fail to keep with those objectives, then your self expression isn’t really self expression at all, it’s condemnation. 

Thinking back to Yoko Ono, even though her music isn’t my style, the hellish torment 60s-70s media put her through over a peace-driven, eclectic, and unique approach to music was incredibly overzealous considering she was simply existing and making the art she wanted to see in the world. As for Frida Kahlo, many of her pieces were seen as graphic, grotesque, and antithetical to what was expected from a female artist. This led to widespread criticism of her art and public image. In addition, both of these artists were also women of color, which adds another level of complexity to their almost widespread hatred. However, the point still remains clear: the bolder and more unconventional your self expression is, the more discredited your work becomes, even when there is nothing objectively wrong with it. 

Art has always been a way to voice rebellion, but the virtue of creativity in and of itself is that it challenges existing norms. At its core, creativity is thinking of ways to do things that no one else has thought of. It’s looking at what has been done and examining new ways to do it. Naturally, this leads to movements against the grain of what is expected from society– it’s a fundamental part of what it means to be creative, and as time goes on, the bar is going to continue to be pushed in new directions.

Despite this, there is a very formulated way to be the “right” type of female creative, and they continue to be the ones that dominate pop culture. Figures like Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo (don’t come for me), are not creating anything that is revolutionary. Although their art can be good, the self expression their art conveys is anything but bold, and the glittery outfits, sad pop ballads, and soft makeup is nothing we haven’t seen before. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying these forms of art, and it’s not bad art, simply because it’s viewed as more basic. Almost all art made by women is unjustly trivialized in some way or another, and calling this music bad is just another example of this.

However, the issue lies with the fact that bolder forms of expression by female artists that tend to make the patriarchy uncomfortable are viewed as not only less than, but completely unacceptable, and that message has been echoed to young women for generations. In order to be taken seriously, your appearance and the art you create must be conventional. 

I began to realize this dilemma as the urge to express myself in a not-so-conventional way grew. It was the same period of adolescence where kids start to have their first crushes, girls gossip about each other rampantly, and adult judgement becomes painstakingly clear. And with it, all forms of self expression seemed to be washed away from me and my peers in a systematic way. When a girl got a pixie cut, all the boys who liked her vanished as if in a puff of smoke, my friend who wore red lipstick to school was picked on for days, and when my sister tattooed me with henna, covering my hands and arms almost completely, my teachers disciplined me for being “unprofessional” as if we were in a workplace and I wasn’t 12 years old. 

Even though self expression waxes and wanes, and I probably wouldn’t make many of the same artistic choices that I used to, I don’t think we should force the same culture surrounding creativity that we apply in pop culture to children, especially young girls. The more we normalize bold forms of self expression for girls, the less jarring it becomes later on in life. 

There is beauty in all forms of self expression, even if they seem a bit ridiculous to others. Because it’s not just about the art, there’s also a person behind it. I simply don’t understand how someone can look at someone who put so much effort into creating music or art, for example, and only see difference, and not the beauty behind it. It’s such a hard thing, to examine what you want to express, and put it on display for the whole world to see—and it’s even harder and crueler to be met with ridicule. 

It makes me sad to think of how easily I gave up on that part of being creative. It’s not that I never stopped painting, writing, or participating in other forms of self expression, I simply felt there was no room for that kind of creativity in the world I was maturing into. But I have hope for girls younger than me, that maybe they will feel free to take up the space so many female creatives have been criticized for occupying, for being bold. Being bold doesn’t have to be an act of rebellion, only to be met with criticism. It could be what artistic expression is intended to be: an act of freedom.