Makeup and grooming thoughts

Ok I will grudgingly admit the patriarchy didn’t cause my menopause

Why spend time oppressing a group when you can make them do it to themselves? And believe they’re freely choosing to spend time, money and brain power on it every day?

Sorry I’m in a grumpy mood today, bloody peri menopausal hormones plus the joy of single mothering against my will and with a work deadline.

Oh the infinite joys of being female under the patriarchy. Please send wine

I'm fine with dying my hair, make up etc. But anything 'false' like extensions, gel nails etc no way! It's like society is looking for the next thing to influence women to do to themselves. At the moment it seems to be dermaplaning. I've done very well so far without shaving my face ffs!

None of our decisions in life are made in a vacuum. This has been a hard lesson to learn as I have got older!

bigdecisionstomake none of our choices are made in a vacuum, not women's, and not men's. All our choices are influenced to a greater or lesser degree, whether directly or indirectly, by our society, culture, and socialisation. To think that all our choices are totally freely made is just naive, as is thinking that pointing this out somehow denies women the ability to exercise choice and agency. You can choose to do whatever level of grooming you want, but that doesn't stop your choice being the product of many different things which you can't control and probably aren't even aware of. Even my choice not to participate in elebaorate grooming has been influenced by my political beliefs, the norms within my peer group, the examples set for me during my upbringing, the requirements of my lifestyle, and probably even things like my relationship status and social class. That doesn't stop it from being my own choice, in the sense that no one is actively forcing or coercing me into making it, but it didn't just fall out of the clear blue sky and into my head either. As for big eyelashes being influenced by porn, I have no idea if that's true but what I will say is that you don't need to personally watch porn to be influenced by it. If porn leaks into mainstream fashion to the degree that it becomes a dominant part of our cultural asthetic, then you don't need to be watching the porn to be influenced, you just need to be part of the culture that its dominating. Think of high street fashion. It starts off with high fashion concept outfits on the runway, and ends up as mass produced every day items in topshop. You don't need to be buying copies of vogue or attending catwalks to be influenced by it, you just need to be shopping at topshop. In the case of pornogrpahy a better analogy might be a pile of toxic waste leaking into the water supply. Just because you can't see the toxic waste, doesn't mean you won't be affected by the contaminated water supply.

Thanks @WerkHorse for reminding me how old I am 😭

I do remember briefly going through a phase of plastering myself with some kind of special green foundation to try and take the red out of my cheeks. Then one night I saw myself in the glaring lights of the nightclub toilets and I think that was the day I broke up permanently with makeup.

On the one hand there does seem to have been an exponential increase in what passes as everyday grooming. On the other hand, we no longer set our hair on rollers every night, or wear painful girdles to give ourselves a 24" waist, both of which I can remember my mum and sister doing. (Spanx underwear can be uncomfortable too but that's far more of a going out somewhere special thing, rather than everyday wear as girdles were.) Flat heels, trainers and comfortable gym wear are all in fashion. There is a movement to let hair go grey which I imagine lockdown has helped along.

If we're going to discuss it, please lets discuss the whole picture and not ignore the things might be inconvenient.

I agree with Goosefoot's point: grooming and playing with your appearance, sometimes with outlandish effect, seem to be standard human behaviour and at times, men have been the more heavily painted.

I think the normalisation of Botox and fillers and the prevalence of apps and filters which change your appearance without you even putting in any effort, are all far more significant - and for for me, more troubling - than a trend for outsized eyelashes.

@Jellyeggs
We weren't drawing lines up the back of our legs and ironing our hair in 1970! (Try 75 years ago) I know what you mean though, used to be that saying 50 years ago meant the dim and distant past but seems like yesterday to me.

Personally I think it’s weird that people spend hundreds each year on getting their hair cut. I’ve used the same pair of scissors (€3.99) For the last 13 years

On top of the money, it's the hours on end in the salon that I can't understand.

On their own ,lashes aren't an issue or particularly linked to pornography. Just like many other things.

The issue is that in a lot of cases they are part of a particular look. That look can be linked to porn/oversexualised media and is often based on exaggerating features that are deemed sexy/attractive/sensual.

Then there's the whole problem of extremes, which are never good.

this stuff is just more available, and more affordable. When I was a kid, mascara was a fiver

I actually disagree that make-up is more affordable now. I think it's become more expensive, relatively, in the last twenty years. Rimmel and No7, etc, were cheap as chips in my young days.

Gosh how bizarre to think that women's choices about personal grooming stem from pornography. I don't think I've ever seen any pornography, nor does my partner use any to my knowledge. It's something that's just never factored in my life. But as I get older and start to have a little bit more disposable income I love experimenting with various skincare/make up/treatments. It's all just for me and it feels like the self care I've missed out on through twenty years of raising kids pretty much single handed.

Surely as women we should be given credit for being able to make choices in life that aren't a direct result of the influence of men?

JurgenKloppsCat, I AM a doctor! And a radical feminist. And I don’t see any evidence that young women are valued for their intelligence or skills any more now than when I was young. If anything, social media makes it worse, with all those airbrushed and photoshopped images of vacuous celebrities, and the ubiquitous porn culture. And the absurd idea that any teenage girl who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes of make up and fashion must really be a boy. In my day it was just basic sexism!

I always dress my female Sims in jeans, trainers and a t-shirt or baseball shirt or whatever is available. 😂 Trying to make little me Sims I think. Their pyjamas are rubbish compared to male Sim pjs though

I was just playing The Sims 4 with my daughter and whenever you create a female character, she comes equipped in all her outfits except Sleepwear with a full face of makeup (including athletic and swimwear?). I’m like... shouldn’t people (espcially kids) playing this have to opt IN to makeup rather than opt out? It shouldn’t be the default, imo, especially when removing the makeup is a pain.

The game also by default gives you only “feminine” clothing choices for female characters and “masculine” clothing choices for male characters (even though all characters can actually wear all clothes).

Anyway I just found that very annoying and wanted to share.

Be careful in the use of forbidden words!

Oh, I think the filters used by phones now are also a big issue. Plastic surgeons say that now many clients coming in don't bring a celebrity photo, they bring a filtered photo of themselves.

It does work to create a sort of dysmorphia I think. When you get used to seeing yourself a certain way, it can be very uncanny valley when you see your natural image.

I would say it's very natural for humans to do some grooming, and when people stop altogether it can be a sign of mental illness.

What is expected in terms of grooming is largely determined socially. What we find pleasing to the eye and expect to see. It's also pretty normal for special occasion grooming to be more complicated or just different. That's not necessarily a problem.

Sometimes however the social norms can become dangerous or burdensome, and it's worth it IMO to be conscious of it and try to push back.

Anything unhealthy like a lot of the medical cosmetic stuff now should be right out, IMO. But I think it's also worth thinking about it when the time commitment and cost begin to climb.

Part of that is also understanding that for many things, we are always going to have some social expectations attached, so the idea that individuals will opt in or out by personal preference is a bit naive. Our preferences are shaped by the environment, so many people might accept that something is needed only because they are used to it. If we stopped doing it, we'd soon not notice.

For me, hair colouring falls into that a bit. The idea of covering grey has a lot of appeal to many, but as a result of it becoming common, we now have a really unrealistic sense of how people age. When we see someone in her 30s with more grey, which is really quite common, we tend to overestimate age, for example.

I think it’s instagram and constant photographs being posted to be fair! Thank god I missed all that. I love make up but the expensive lashes, nails, tan etc are a step too far. All the young girls look the same at work- lip filler, eyelash extensions, fake tan etc.
Heather shimmer lipstick made me laugh OP, I must be your age!!

In a society that only values women for their looks and youth, some women will internalise the misogyny and desperately buy any product claiming it will make them more beautiful or stave off ageing. It’s sad and pathetic.

Well that's a bit harsh. Would you tell that to women who are doctors and nurses and lawyers and engineers and politicians and accountants and a hundred other high status positions that they have worked hard for? That nobody cares about their achievements as soon as they put a bit of lippy on? You've written off a huge number of individuals there with a blanket statement. I'm sure my friends would have something to say about that.

I love my eyelash extensions! I don't wear a lot of makeup, my lashes make me feel happy and pretty. I do agree that Instagram social media etc are damaging to young people sadly.

I dunno, I'm in my 30s and I remember mascara ads when I was a teen focusing on huge lashes. I don't think that's a new aesthetic, just a different way of achieving it. Tbh I don't know anyone who is very into personal grooming. My social circle is almost exclusively mums from playgroup, and I can only think of one of them who obviously wears makeup or does much more than tie her hair back. I very very rarely watch TV, don't read magazines, and use ad blockers online, so I don't really know what's trendy atm in terms of appearance norms for women. Fashion and beauty isn't something I'm personally interested in participating in (that's intended as a neutral statement btw, not an indicator of moral virtue). If people are using fake lashes then maybe it's because they want them to look more natural? Like, huge and thick, but not caked in mascara, as if they just naturally have very thick lashes? Idk. The more important question would be, what are these lashes made from? Where do they come from? If the human rights violations I've heard about in the human hair extensions industry are anything to go by, that's the bit to focus on.

In a society that only values women for their looks and youth, some women will internalise the misogyny and desperately buy any product claiming it will make them more beautiful or stave off ageing. It’s sad and pathetic.

I don’t see a problem if women are just doing it for fun, or a morale boost, but I feel so sorry for the many women I’ve met who daren’t leave the house without covering their face in a pile of gunk. Their whole self esteem has been undermined by the beauty industry for profit. And it’s much worse nowadays with social media and the incessant pressure to post flattering or sexualised pictures.