#face equality week

[large text: How to Support People with Facial Differences - the Face Equality Week 2024 Special]

Today is the 13th of May, which means that the Face Equality Week has just started. This year's theme is “My Face is a Masterpiece” which is probably my favorite sentence ever said about having a facial difference. Huge fan, should be used way more often in my opinion.

Because of this occasion, I would like to share some thoughts about Face Equality that I think are rather entry-level, i.e. you don't need to know much to execute these, but you can still support us.

Stop the stare.

I know it's fun to stare - or so I guess, at least - but maybe you shouldn't. Next time you see someone who has a scar or who's face does not move the same way as yours, just mind your business. We can tell when you're “discreetly” looking.

Don't call us deformed. 

Knowing how the people you're trying to support actually call themselves should be an absolute first step, but most people still fail here. Most of us don't appreciate being called “deformed”. I certainly don't. Say “facial difference”, or “disfigurement” if you must. It's 2024. Leave “deformed” to medical reports from the 70s.

No more “What happened?!”s.

If you aren't a doctor, there's a high-to-100% chance that it's none of your business. It's cool that you're curious - keep it to yourself.

Stop insinuating that we are ugly.

“Support people who are ugly!” isn't very supportive. I would say, not in the slightest. Say “people who don't fit the current beauty standards” if that's what you mean. 

Or, to go with this year's theme, “people whose faces are masterpieces” : )

Use critical thinking online.

Is the reaction photo actually funny, or is it just a person with a craniofacial condition? Is the meme actually a meme, or is it just making fun of a person with a facial disfigurement? Is body-shaming suddenly hilarious to you when the person shamed has strabismus? 

If the entire punchline is “lol they have a disability xd”, it's ableism. Plain and simple.

To go with the point above - your joke is probably not funny.

We get it! You can't help telling us how "you're going to hell for laughing" (which yeah, probably) and how we remind you of the ugliest character you have ever seen. I guarantee you that we heard it, and that you are behaving like an edgy middle schooler who hasn't "found out" yet. It's boring and annoying. Also ableist, but you're aware of that already if you're saying that you're going to hell.

Stop with the goddamn trigger warnings. 

We aren't “body horror”, we aren't “gore”, we aren't something that you need to advise your viewers to use their discretion over. Every “graphic footage: child with neurofibromatosis” and “#tw burn scar” is a sign of ableism and disfiguremisia. People with facial differences deserve to be seen. Ableds can survive seeing a person without a nose.

Do a basic reading on what disfiguremisia is.

New word! And an important one. It's a brand of ableism that intersects with more or less everything, and it means discrimination and hatred of people with facial differences/disfigurements. The bullying, harassment, endless name-calling, and microaggressions are all results of disfiguremisia. The ways in which everything is harder for us isn't some unchangeable rule of how the world works, it's just an extremely prevalent type of discrimination.

Understand that we are people.

I know, revolutionary - and yet impossible for so many people to get. We can be a visual representation of evil when it's necessary, we can be a feel-good inspirational story on a morning talk-show, but not much else, it seems. In reality, we are complex, we have our own lives, we can be happy and sad and have the same exact joys and worries that you have.

Hey, artists - facial differences don't make you evil.

Title stolen from a great essay by Lise Deguire (link). When's the last time you saw a positive character with a facial difference that wasn't inspiration porn? I mean a character that's not edgy, full of angst, a murderer, or a villain. Based on what you see in the media, you'd think that having a scar renders you evil on the spot, but in reality it just makes you loathe how artists apparently think you are like. It's boring, it's overdone, it's ableism. Stop doing this, and start noticing when it's being done. Point it out if your friend is writing their new villain to be an evil burn survivor. This kind of portrayal needed to stop ages ago, but tomorrow will be a great time as well.

Before you reply with “I've never seen this” - Darth Vader, Lion King’s Scar (subtle name, great thing to teach kids!), Freddy Krueger, Voldemort, we could be here forever. You're just not paying attention.

Pay attention to where we are not included.

As discussed, there are some places where you see us all the time. But where do you not see us?

Advertisements (unless it's for a scar-removal cream, of course). Fashion shows. Magazine covers. Romance movies where we are the main character.

We deserve to see ourselves in what's around us in the same way able-bodied people do. Trying to make it seem like we don't exist - that's deliberate. 

Interact with our art.

We draw, write, sing, act in movies, we do everything. Support us in the most tangible way - leave us a nice comment, read our books, listen to our songs. Watch movies where actual people with facial differences star, not pseudoinspirational stories about how “being disfigured is ok” where they shove an able-bodied actor into a full face prosthetic just to not have an actor with a disfigurement on set.

Include us.

As this year's Face Equality Week calls for, include us. In art, in movies, in books, in your life. Show us as positive people who are valuable, who are a part of your community - I guarantee that we are in every one that's out there. The world is hostile and unwelcoming to people with facial differences - be the change, wherever you are.

I know that it is different from the usual posts I make, but I hope it was somewhat educational. I just like to use every occasion that I can to force Face Equality into people's heads. To make this at least a bit about writing to keep the blog's theme, I will say that if you want to write about us, you need to care about us in real life as well. Otherwise, it's pointless and, as representation, genuinely worthless.

Below the readmore are some links/resources that you can click to educate yourself further. A lot of them lead to Face Equality International because they have just about everything you should know. If you want to be a better ally to people with facial differences, I heavily recommend them.

#MyFaceIsAMasterpiece

mod Sasza

"How to include realistic features in your art - Face Equality Week Special by Kris Volyk ( NWarrior777 )

tumblr shadowbanned this post and you can't find it in tags. it's second try to upload this and reach people it was hardly made for

Night and Day

It's face equality week which I just found out about recently, so I decided to finally pin down a design for my OC Sunny (left), and experiment with a colouring style.

using face equality week as my push to finally make the sprites ive been wanting to... (design by saszor)

[Image descriptions: Three digital art pieces of Daphne, a young white woman with long wavy brown hair, a large scar on the right side of her face, and brown eyes with the right eye pointing down and outwards and having a droopy lid. She is smiling in all three pictures.

Image 1: A bust of Daphne looking at the viewer, facing right in 3/4 view and wearing a black shirt.

Image 2: Daphne standing with a lime-green glow stick, right hand on her chest and left eye looking up as she reminisces. "They were one of my favourites when I was in high school," she says, "so I'm really excited for this concert!" She is wearing a dark purple shirt with the words "The Wailing Nightjars" written in pink (mostly hidden by her right hand which is on her chest), faded jeans, a magenta glow necklace, and an orange glow bracelet.

Image 3: An art piece made to resemble a photo printed on glossy paper. In the photo, Daphne is doing a peace sign in front of the Niagara Falls. Foaming blue water crashes down past the railing. Standing next to her is her friend Ash, another young white woman who is also smiling. She is taller than Daphne, with pale skin, black-streaked silver hair in a messy bob, several piercings, and amber eyes.

End ID.]

I found out Face Equality Week is a) currently ongoing (though near its end) b) has art as its theme this year and c) invites everyone to join, so I decided to draw some new Daphnes and repost an older one. I have a couple of other characters with facial differences, namely a guy who has vEDS with the associated facial features (this counts, right?) and Florence's father from the Verdantland Trilogy who also has a notable facial scar, but neither are well-developed characters yet so this post is just Daphne.

Daphne is a major character in my dark urban fantasy WIP The Claws of the Ounce, the second draft of which I finished on Friday. She has a facial scar and oculomotor nerve palsy as the result of an early childhood injury (oculomotor stuff came from the post-trauma hematoma - also damage to the zygomatic nerve, but it almost completely healed and so isn't visible). Though I somewhat explained it here, this information is not in the story itself, as Ash (the MC) has the sense not to ask invasive questions.

She’s a big music fan, former goth / emo who still wears black most of the time, and Ash’s roommate and only friend for a good chunk of the story.

I don't post much personal stuff here. I mostly draw my RP characters, or other people's RP characters. This drawing is a self-portrait, drawn for face equality week - an event that celebrates the diversity in people's apperances and tries to work to lessen the stigma people with facial differences face.

When I was a young teen, around 14, I got acne. It was much worse than my peers, and it has cleared up some but never gone away. As a consiquence my skin is covered in little dents and scars. Mostly as a teenager but going through into adulthood I've had bullying, nasty comments, well-meaning unsolicited advice, and speculation on my lack of ability to attract a romantic partner. A lot of this was from my family, even.

So here's my face - with it's scars, crooked teeth, wrinkles and spots. I have a loving partner who enjoys my textured skin - take that, mother. I don't need to change, to 'work on it', or to cover it up with makeup. It's a far, far, less visible difference than many others have, and it impacts my life very little. But I am aware I am lucky to be confident in my body, and that if this is what my very mild differnce provokes, how much more are other people dealing with?