DR SELINA TUSITALA MARSH
The poet and scholar believes definitions of beauty aren’t as narrow as they used to be.
Apoet who runs mountain marathons, an academic who works with seven-year-olds at South Auckland schools, and an author who has been photographed for Vogue – Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is a walking contradiction, and she’s proud of it. “I both occupy a number of stereotypes and I have completely busted the boxes – educationally, class-wise, gender-wise,” she says. “It’s almost like if someone tries to contain me, I’ll do the opposite and go, ‘Well, why not?’”
It takes confidence to go against the grain, and to Marsh, there’s nothing more beautiful than a confident person. Marsh’s own journey towards self-acceptance has been well documented thanks to her two graphic memoirs. The first instalment, Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference, tells the story of 10-year-old Selina learning to accept her natural hair despite being teased for it by kids at school. Selina tries to tie up her hair and fit in with the other students, until a visit to her school by New Zealand poet Sam Hunt sparks an epiphany. Hunt’s “wild hair and wild words” inspire Selina to let her hair out and be herself. “The turning point for me was finding my own voice and recognising that my voice doesn’t have to or want to sound the same as everyone else’s, which is connected to my physical being not having to look or wanting to look like everyone else,” says Marsh, who acknowledges the irony of being inspired to embrace her difference by a white male. “We couldn’t have been more opposite to each other, and yet the connection was made because he made no apologies for his difference.” Marsh says it’s taken years to be able to stand proudly with her difference, but sees that society is starting to move with her. “What was once the bane of my existence, my wild moppy hair, is now my crowning glory.”
Marsh notes that she hasn’t been overly exposed to the beauty industry in her work and she certainly doesn’t feel pressure to adhere to beauty ideals in her job in the English department at the University of Auckland. Even so, having “always stuck out”
“BE YOU, IN ALL YOUR HUES.”
makes her unafraid to wear what makes her “look vibrant” and “feel good”. “It’s definitely for me a power move to wear my Russian Red M.A.C lipstick to work, but over the years it’s become less for others and more for me,” she says. “The beauty that I subscribe to has to come from the inside, and it’s your choice as to how you manifest that outwardly.” Women being criticised for how they choose to present themselves is inevitable but Marsh believes judgement is only given power if we let it. “Anything will be used to pull down a powerful woman, whether it’s what she looks like, or how she acts or what family she comes from.”
Marsh feels that definitions of beauty aren’t as narrow as they used to be, and there’s more room for us to find our own unique ways of being beautiful. “I just think that beauty can’t be separate from wellbeing and identity. And identity is a lifelong journey.” Marsh says she recently created a graphic to share on her Instagram page that outlined what beauty means to her. “I’d written the word ‘beauty’ actually and then I pulled out ‘B U’. That’s my definition of beauty. Be you, in all your hues and textures and colours and shapes. Just be you.”