"Up until my early twenties, I subconsciously fluctuated between trying to conform to white beauty norms and Asian standards of beauty (which are, undeniably, also influenced by Western ideals of beauty). Growing up, I remember being bombarded by images of women with light skin, big eyes, thin noses and curved bodies nearly everywhere I looked. 

To mimic the poses of these women who represent conventional notions of physical beauty was to become acutely aware of how much I had been altering my face, body and behaviours to fit into these norms when I was younger. I remember staring at myself in the mirror as a teenager and feeling an overwhelming sense of inadequacy spreading through my body. I remember saving up money to get Korean Magic Straight perms, buying questionable products to grow longer eyelashes and spending too much time researching ways to have more pronounced double eyelids. I remember the countless times I looked at myself before leaving the house – surveying the contours of my face and body – from what I imagined to be the perspective of a conventional man. Perhaps it’s why, now as an adult, I felt most uncomfortable and unnatural when 

Kate