Filters
I LIVE MY LIFE IN STORIES
I have recently found myself back on Facebook, and I am already noticing all the reasons I probably did not need to be there in the first place. Apparently, when you become single, Facebook quietly circulates a notice to every man you have never met. I do not know exactly how that system works, but suddenly men I do not know from Adam are everywhere, sharing their opinions and occasionally deciding I need to hear them.
One of them posted something the other night that he clearly thought was funny. It was some crude remark about women using so many filters on their pictures that men cannot recognize them when they see them in public. It was not clever enough to make me angry on its own. It was the sort of thing that normally earns an eye roll before I keep scrolling and continue living a life in which no one has asked that particular man to identify women in public.
Then I saw the comments.
There were women everywhere, piling on and talking about how ridiculous other women look, how deceptive filters are and how they would never need to do such a thing. They seemed almost excited to help this man ridicule women so everyone would understand that they were different. They were natural. They were confident. They were not like all those other women.
And all I could think was: Ma’am, he is still not going to pick you.
Even if he does, I am not sure the prize is worth what you just made yourself look like trying to win it.
And since we are discussing people who may look very different once the filter comes off, I have a thought for the men too. If you are a grown-ass man over forty, still sitting on Facebook making crude comments about women’s faces while searching for the next woman to impress you, perhaps women’s photographs are not the most misleading thing in front of us. At some point, the performance of being the man who is too clever, too desirable or too difficult to satisfy begins to look less like having standards and more like avoiding the work of knowing one woman, loving her and building a life with her. Maybe the filter you need to remove is the one convincing you that perpetual judgment is the same thing as discernment—and that refusing to settle down means you have somehow risen above everyone who has.
That was the part that made me fume. It was not a man making an ignorant joke. Men have been making ignorant jokes about women since someone first gave them an audience. It was watching women line up to help him do it, each apparently believing that criticizing another woman’s appearance somehow made her own more impressive.
If we are going to judge what everybody looks like, what they looked like to me was mean. Mean has never been especially flattering on anyone.
I use filters on some of my pictures. I do not use them on others. There is no deeper confession hiding in that statement. I especially like them for professional photographs because I like what they can do with light and contrast. I like black-and-white pictures. I like a certain glow. I like photographs that feel like something instead of merely documenting that my face and I were both present at the same location.
Sometimes I use a filter simply because I like the picture better with it. I have never understood why women are expected to pretend we do not enjoy looking pretty, as though admitting that immediately cancels out every serious thing we have ever accomplished. I can practice law, raise children, run a business, survive things I never expected to survive and still prefer the photograph with better lighting. These ideas can coexist without bringing down civilization.
I also do not believe that using a filter means I am ashamed of what I really look like. I am not. I work hard to take care of myself, and I am proud of how I look. I think I am pretty with makeup, without makeup, with a filter and without one. I have good days, bad days and days when the front-facing camera is clearly acting on behalf of one of my enemies, but none of that determines how I feel about the woman in the picture.
Filters themselves are neutral. The reason for using one may not be.
There is a difference between using a filter because you like the color and using one because you cannot bear for anyone to see a flaw. There is a difference between enhancing something and trying to conceal it. But if we are going to have that conversation, I think we should be honest enough to admit that photographs are not where the most troubling filters are being used.
Some people use filters on their entire lives.
They are one person in public and another in private. They cheer for people where everyone can see them and tear those same people apart as soon as the room changes. They perform kindness, concern, loyalty and friendship beautifully, provided there is an audience. They know exactly how to arrange the lighting so no one notices what is happening just outside the frame.
Some people filter cruelty through humor so they can call everyone else too sensitive. Some filter gossip through concern so repeating someone’s pain can feel like an act of service. Some filter jealousy through honesty and say they are only telling the truth when what they are actually doing is enjoying the chance to make someone else smaller.
Those are the filters that interest me. Not the one that softens a line around a woman’s eyes, but the one that lets someone behave badly and still see herself as good. Not the one that changes a face, but the one that disguises a character.
At least when I put a filter on a photograph, I know I have done it.
So I am adding several pictures to this story. Some have filters because I liked the effect. Some do not because I liked those too. One may have makeup, another may not, and I am not going to turn the unfiltered ones into some grand declaration of bravery. It is my actual face, not evidence that I have returned from war.
I am the same woman in every picture. I do not need to dislike one version of myself in order to justify enjoying another.
Use the filter. Do not use the filter. Wear the makeup. Wash it off. Adjust the lighting until you look like you slept peacefully through a night you barely survived. None of that tells me very much about who you are.
How you treat other women when there is a man watching tells me considerably more.
Judith L. Hampton
Attorney-at-Law
Hampton Law Firm
Filtered
Unfiltered
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