The most aggravating thing about the radfem anti-makeup discourse, on a personal level?
That whole “don’t buy in to patriarchal beauty standards, resist conforming at all costs” attitude was almost identical to my mom’s reasoning behind not allowing me to do the fun shiny stuff I wanted to do. She thought she was “protecting” me from getting brainwashed into thinking that I had to be pretty to be worthwhile, but what ended up happening in reality was that I learned that I don’t deserve to own things that make me happy because they’re “wasteful”, and that I should be afraid of attracting ANY attention whatsoever, because all things bright, gaudy, attention-grabbing… I couldn’t have them, because drawing attention meant drawing negative judgment, in my mother’s social-anxiety-warped mind, and anything that went even a little bit beyond the bare minimum to serve functionally while avoiding looking so ugly as to be attention-drawingly so, was “wasteful”. And yes, I had experiences of growing up poor, but the real poverty hit when I was in high school, when my dad left and my mom lost her job within the same year. I’m talking here about stuff that was a well-established dynamic even when we were comfortably middle-class (my private-elementary-school life) and there was room in the budget for things like a burgundy leather four-piece living room set, a new car (not new-used, I mean an actual new car that no one else had ever owned) and occasional weeklong vacations to the coast. When my parents got me a kiddie passport because they genuinely anticipated being able to take an international family vacation soon enough for that to seem like a practical thing to get out of the way ahead of time.
Even for special occasions, where it would have been entirely socially appropriate for a kid to wear a glittery dress, I learned fast to always include an option in my clothing picks on the shopping trip that my mom would actually have a chance of approving, lest I be forced to wear something I hated. My opinions were taken into account JUST enough to give the illusion that I was truly being permitted choice. Just enough that most of the time, I could look in the mirror and not completely hate the reflection of someone else’s dress-up doll.
And contrary to maybe most AFAB folks’ experiences with similar dynamics of being forced to wear stuff that doesn’t really suit their personality… I wasn’t being forced into hyper-femininity. I was being pushed AWAY from it. Sure, there were Events where I was expected to wear a dress – no hardship for me, I liked dresses just fine, I still do. But I wasn’t allowed makeup until I needed it for stage performance reasons (at which point I got to own one eyeliner, one blush, one mascara, and one eyeshadow quad. I still wasn’t allowed black mascara or eyeliner, just browns, because something something my mom’s assumptions about how complexions work and me being a brunette… YES I know that’s not ideal stage makeup don’t @ me, my mom wouldn’t fucking listen). I wasn’t allowed much in the way of jewelry – I had a few small, subdued necklace pendants, but I wasn’t even allowed to get my ears pierced until middle school, and my earring options were heavily restricted afterward. I wasn’t allowed to shave my legs, I was only permitted clear nail polish. I wasn’t allowed to wear heels for the most part – my first pair was half-inch high, plain cream-colored maryjanes, and I had to practically grovel to be allowed to get those. I wasn’t even allowed haircuts besides various lengths of straight-across-the-back and an option of fringe or no fringe.
Even as an adult my mom tries to bully me into conforming to her boring aesthetic sensibilities. She’ll say whatever she thinks I’ll find shaming enough to stop doing the thing she said it about. She’ll mock my “grand rebellion” in one breath and then tell me I “look just like everyone else” in the next. She’ll tell me I look like a trashy teenager and then turn around and tell me I look old.
Stop assuming that everyone grew up with the same pressures toward hyperfemininity that you personally experienced. Y’all sound like my mother with the assumption that I must only want any of the trappings of femininity because I’ve been brainwashed into it (despite that I also wasn’t allowed to watch tv that my parents hadn’t first watched and given approval for, or read magazines besides NatGeo and Readers’ Digest for the vast majority of my childhood), and y’all can fuck right off with that. My mom did her damnedest to brainwash me to NOT like makeup, nail polish, glitter, and Being Fancy. She failed overall, though she did succeed in leaving me with an internal flinch reaction every time someone Notices My Aesthetic, because her Notice meant a berating, and she impressed upon me that I can’t even trust a compliment from a stranger, because she insisted that if I had gotten any compliments at all on an outfit SHE didn’t like, that the compliments must entirely have been fabricated out of an attempt to “sabotage” me. But y’know what? I know how to hear the little inner voice that tells me what I like for myself, what actually makes me happy, and I’m not about to let trauma responses and brainwashing attempts keep me from doing the things that make that little voice SING.
annaxmalina
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
ellievsbear
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