To be fed up with this type of make-up article?

[Flugelpip]

www.the-pool.com/beauty/beauty-honestly/2016/35/juno-dawson-on-discovering-the-sisterhood-of-make-up

The author is a YA writer who is transitioning from male to female, and this is her take on best make-up practice after wearing it for less than a year.

I'm not prejudiced against trans people - I know and like people across a spectrum of genders and none of it bothers me - but it irritates the life out of me that someone who has been wearing make-up for a year feels they can give advice to women who probably know a lot more about it than they do. I don't care what thirteen-year-olds think about make-up either although they are probably better at eyeliner than me. I'm not VERY annoyed at the author for writing it but I'm peeved as hell at The Pool for commissioning it.

[cardibach]

I don't wear make up at all I've been a woman for nearly 52 years. Where does that leave me?

[Willywolly]

[Flugelpip]

Wherever you want to be. But I bet you don't offer advice on it to people who do wear it...

[TheSparrowhawk]

People who are brought up male have male entitlement. That entitlement is so pronounced that male-born people expect to be able to tell female-born people what a woman is and how a woman thinks and feels.

[biscuitkumquat]

It's sometimes good though to get the perspective of someone who has only known the new products that are out.

I think, sometimes, I still do things with my makeup that my Mum told me to do 30odd years ago!

[KanyesVest]

I'm pretty sure I've never had a "sisterly dialogue, both asking me what I was wearing and others offering tips and advice" about make up. I'm 37 and have a lot of female friends.

[TheSparrowhawk]

I've never had a single conversation about make up (beyond saying that I don't wear it) in my life.

[TheSparrowhawk]

I lie. I had to endure endless discussions of make up when I was planning my wedding because of course a woman is never actually acceptable unless she's painted to look entirely different to her normal self and when better to put on a show for other people than on the happiest day of your life!

[Thefitfatty]

I know loads of make up artists of various ages and sexes. Honestly, age and sex has nothing to do with it. Was Picasso a worse artist at 19 than some guy who'd been painting for 59 years. No. Talent is talent

[MothersGrim]

You're fed up to see a trans woman talk about make up? Is this a common problem in your life?

[RestlessTraveller]

Why do you care?

[Waffles80]

Transphobia is the ugliest side of MN.

[alltouchedout]

OP, your transphobia is showing.

[chipsandpeas]

i dont see the difference between this author writing about the make up that suits them or any other beauty blogger or even the posters here in style and beauty
makes no difference the length of time they have been wearing make up

[ShiroiKoibito]

I don't see anything wrong with this, they have asked for advice and put together an article

I think you're looking for non existent problem

[SoHairy]

I don't really understand what the author means here:

"In the same way that our ancestors swapped stories around open fires to keep children in line, women share stories – both positive and negative – about make-up to steer each other right."

I would say it's more like society tells women they need to wear make-up to keep them in check, and many men and women like to shame those who decide to opt out of the entire thing. This includes making statements that suggest that all women like and wear make-up, as it sets that as the norm by which all women will be judged.

They say:
"The art of make-up is passed from generation to generation; from mothers to daughters; between friends, between women."

Which is just rubbish. It's really not some magical thing to a great many women.

I've never worn make-up, I wish the stuff had never been invented in all honesty. So yeah, I am fed of of this kind of make-up article...

[SaucyJack]

Has anyone tried that Clinique mascara? Does it curl as well as lengthen?

[TheSparrowhawk]

My mother has never uttered one word to me about make up. My grandmother never wore it, ever.

And I agree with you SoHairy, that make up is another thing women have to deal with in the endless onslaught of not being young/pretty/thin enough. It is not some warm and fuzzy thing and it is definitely not a 'hugely feminist domain' as the author puts it, unless you count the many feminist arguments about how it is a tool to oppress women. It is so incredibly galling to see someone who didn't have to deal with any of this shit growing come along and spout a whole lot of bullshit about make up 'stories' being passed down generations. I couldn't see any born woman ever saying anything so saccharine and ridiculous.

[EttaJ]

What a load of old tosh. Whoever wrote it , it sucks.

[Flugelpip]

Yeah, I did say I wasn't transphobic, but for the hard of reading comprehension I'll say it again.

And I do seem to run across this kind of article a lot, as it happens. And the author isn't a make-up artist. She's a writer. I haven't been driving for very long. I'm not going to write an article about how to drive and expect Top Gear fans to be interested. I don't see why I should be interested in someone's top tips on something they don't know much about. Sorry.

[Fauchelevent]

The modern university feminism as I call it will never ever criticise make up. I'm on a forum of mid to early twenties feminists and to me it really does feel like everything feminism began to look at critically as a patriarchal thing is radical because someone who "identifies as a woman" is doing it.

So when i tried to broach the subject about make up amongst our cohort of feminists, and how often it's not radical, how often it's forced upon us - without make up we look unwell, we're not trying, we're slobbish, but with "too much make up" we're not appealing, how many brown women are using contouring to give themselves more european features, how i don't buy it for a second that a muslim woman in a hijab is instantly not oppressed because she has the modern make up look, how i'm tired of the main interest feminists my age are into are make up when make up industries make huge amounts of money off ideals seemingly opposite to what they're fighting for. I added the fact that i do wear make up myself, but i acknowledge i personally do not wear it entirely "for myself"...

nope, no one would have any of it. Make up makes women feel "beautiful" thus it's important and to say otherwise is "shaming". No one could tell me why women felt ugly in the first place! Or indeed why beauty is so crucial to them!!

I'm so tired

[TheSparrowhawk]

To be clear, I wouldn't have nearly as much problem if the author had come along and said 'I'm transitioning and so I've had to have a bit of a crash course in make up, this is what I've learned...' and then went on to do the whole advertising bit, it's the whole 'because I wear make up I'm now part of some (fictional) womanly community who sit around the (fictional) fire and share make up 'stories' across the generations. Seriously? Is that what women do? How would we ever know without someone to tell us, someone who didn't actually grow up as a woman at all.

[TheSparrowhawk]

It's the sheer arrogance of someone stating that they know what women do simply because they've decided to wear women's clothes and makeup and have a woman's name. It reduces being a woman to a farce.

[TheSparrowhawk]

Imagine if I, as a white European person, blacked up my face, made my hair look like an afro, wore 'traditional' African clothes (ie clothes that African people wear in movies) and then claimed to identify as African, then went on and wrote an article about, say, how to wear make up to suit a dark complexion. What might the reaction be to that I wonder?

[unicornthong]

So don't read the article?

How truly awful for there to be a role model for other young trans women to look up to and learn from...