#makeup discourse

[soggydotcat]

Goths, drag queens, and circus clowns are the only ones who know how to use cosmetics as they should be used. If you're not gonna be as dramatic, fucked up and weird as you can with it what is even the point

[transandrosis]

What frustrates me the most about the kind of makeup discourse and plastic surgery discourse that radfems engage in is that radfems seem to think that women are incapable of enacting misogyny on other women.

When a man tells a woman something like, "you shouldn't wear so much makeup, sweetheart, you'd be prettier without it," even radfems understand that these remarks are misogynistic. Somehow when it's women who are shaming other women for wearing makeup or having plastic surgery, though, it's actually feminist praxis! /s

I wish people understood that 1. It's not okay to shame women for the decisions they make because of the patriarchy and 2. Women being interested in changing their appearances is not necessarily due to misogyny. Even if we lived in a non-patriarchal society, there would always be people of all genders who'd be interested in altering their appearances.

Then there's the inherent transphobia. The whole discourse and the willingness of other feminists to engage in it gives me such a headache!! 💅🏽

[theweeklydiscourse]

In discussions about makeup/femininity and choice feminism, l've noticed this pattern where people start to take on a kinda childlike attitude when they're pressed on the societal factors that shape their behaviours. Stuff like: “Well, I just like the pretty sparkles!” Or “Wydm shaving my legs is a behaviour enforced by patriarchy? Idk I just love being smooth.” Like…you sound like you’re five years old.

[incorporeal-les]

I think my least favorite thing about makeup is that women believe and sell to other women that it’s like…an actual hobby. That makeup is a real productive thing that you can spend your free time and money on that’s on the same level as hiking or painting or photography or volunteering. That there are women out there that spend all their personal time practicing how to look better to others around them and they have nothing else to offer even themselves because men and other women have told them makeup makes them as whole as any other hobby would.

[babyprime]

as someone who genuinely fully loves makeup on a special interest level its like.... confusing and weird that its seen as so mandatory for women, even in feminist spaces often

for me its like.... imagine if other artistic hobbies were treated the same way. women expected to pay big money on paints and brushes and being judged for not being good at it. and then when they say oh I dont want to paint actually, people are like oh thats ok! You can just do a bit of watercolor :)

idk its very bizarre and also fucked up to me on 2 levels, both on a "why aren't womens god given appearances enough without augmentation" level and a "why do people feel like its fine to insult an entire hobby by making it something Everyone Needs To Do"

[akajustmerry]

i see make up discourse is rearing its head again so i would like to remind the court of this one time i was working overnights at mcdonalds when i was 20. for a quite a few months i asked multiple managers (both men and women) if i could be trained on drive thru and my requests continuosly fell on deaf ears and vague “eventually” promises. 

this one night we were really quiet so once again i asked if i could have a quick rundown of how drive through worked so i could help when we were busy. the manager (who was a woman) called me into the office for a chat and i assumed she was going to take me through drive thru protocals so i followed. once in there, she closed the door and told me that the managers had all talked over the idea of me doing drive thru and agreed i’d be trained IF i started wearing make up to work. 

i laughed, thinking it was a joke because it sounded ludicrous to me as someone who worked both back area (making food) and front area (serving/cleaning) during shifts to do that because a) it was potentially unhygienic and b) any make up i did wear would innevitably be ruined from sweating, etc. plus, i wasn’t really someone who wore make up anyway but i always kept my skin clean, etc so i didn’t see the issue. 

i asked her why and if she was being serious and she told me straight up that while it wasn’t a written rule it was expected for girls on front area and drive thru to wear make up and i wouldn’t be trained on drive thru without it (btw, this was the only area i wasn’t trained in meaning it was the only thing standing between me and a higher rate of pay/ eligibility to be promoted to a crew trainer). i asked her again if she was serious, if she was telling me that no one would train me on drive thru because i didn’t wear make up because i wasn’t presentably pretty enough to work a drive thru at night and she nodded, apoligising. 

after i quit a few years later, i found out from a friend who used to manage various mcdonalds that often when female crew are reccomended to join overnight crew, it’s because they aren’t deemed presentable enough for the day crew, when the majority of customers are recieved. again, i was 20 and this was mcdonalds. 

the choice to not wear make up quite literally effected how i was treated in my workplace by my superiors and determined my eligibility for training, upskill, promotion and thus, higher pay. i do not and never will see make up as an art, as a choice, or as a form of feminism. it alligns more with the qualities of an oppressive tool, than anything else. 

[brettdoesdiscourse]

I've seen this take come up a lot where people insist any afab people who like makeup legitimately only do it to impress men. And this is supposed to be some groundbreaking, feminist woke take. And firstly, insisting an afab person is only doing something for a man (yes even in a "down with the patriarchy!" way) is NOT the feminist take you think it is.

But more than that, what about afab people trying to look good for others afab people? Whether in a solidarity way or in a romantic way.

What about afab people who put on makeup because it's fun or they feel good and nobody else will ever even see it?

But even more than all that, so much makeup that we see (especially in modern times) is NOT appealing to men. At all.

The patriarchy loves afab people in makeup, sure. But more often than not, it's traditional and modest makeup. It isn't the Jojo Siwa type of makeup. It's not the tons of glitter and pink. It isn't special effects or horror makeup.

[dothexe]