Why are so many women hellbent on acting against their own interest?

@PaintedEgg speaking as a bisexual, I doll myself up for both men and women, but I stop short of things that will cause me harm: cosmetic surgery and injections, disordered eating/juice cleanses/starvation diets. I know my worth goes beyond attracting and keeping a partner.

lesbians enter the chat...

honestly - no, i don't. in this day and age if your in-laws and partner give you grief over your own name I'f reconsider getting married at all. I've been married twice, changed my name only once and in neither case I was pressure either way.

and you cannot "demand" more of people who don't want to give more. People having one night stands are not looking for a relationship and if they don't find something for the night they won't suddenly turn to marriage and commitment as an alternative. If women at dating scene are looking at these people for commitment then I bet they're a type to seek out fine wine at a petrol station

there sure is the difference in how the motivation is judged after being 100% assumed by others

14 pages of women explaining why they like certain things that have nothing to do with being judged, while being judged by other women to be brainwashed, but suuure, your explanation is 100% reflective or reality

You really think the 99% of women who change their name after marriage don't make it harder for the 1% who have to battle their partner and their sniffy in-laws?

Its 90% in the U.K., not 99%

and it’s not universal, even in the US, only 70% of women take their husband’s surname:
https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/family/2022/03/15/the-maiden-name-debate-in-which-countries-do-women-not-take-their-husbands-name/

If there is one life skill every girl should be taught from the earliest age is that of independent thinking. It unlocks so much advantage to women, being able to think for themselves, protecting themselves from being brainwashed into being perfect, looking perfect, having poisons injected into themselves to be more appealing to men. They would argue "oh but I'm doing it for me, not anyone else". Yeah right, no it's to make themselves more attractive to, and to please men in many many cases.

awaiting my thrashing....

I don't think majority of things you have listed affect others when made as a personal choice.

I wish this was true but it's not. You really think the 99% of women who change their name after marriage don't make it harder for the 1% who have to battle their partner and their sniffy in-laws? The women who have one night stands and no expectation of an orgasm don't make it harder for other women on the dating scene to demand more?

I'm not claiming to be holier than thou here. I've made lots of choices that definitely weren't feminist ones. It's not easy, especially if you're young, but there's no point being in denial about it.

Ha! Cross post, but proves my point on sexist assumptions.

Yes, it is assumed that everything women do that affects our appearance or mannerisms is done for “the male gaze” (keep in mind this was a film studies theory about the female lead in a film being presented as an object of desire for hetero male viewers, it’s not meant to be applied to all women in society).

But when men do similar, it’s assumed to be self-improvement.

We give men agency but not women.

Is there a difference in motive though? Men do these things for themselves because they want to and it makes them feel good- no one will judge them if they don't do this stuff. Women do these things because it's expected and they are judged by others when they don't.

@thedankness I don't think majority of things you have listed affect others when made as a personal choice.

What I find odd is that you would like women to change their personal choices to fit your preferences...even in the most private areas of their lives. You probably don't even know what sort of sexual preferences your friends have and it's absolutely the right way to go about it, but you would like to educate them to make sure these preferences are not some of the things you don't like

speaking of vanity - its funny how when men do things for vanity its framed as dedication and ambition (exercises, fitness diets, investing in expensive cars...), and nobody will think a man brainwashed or not enlightened enough if he pays attention to clothes he wears or is very much into his facial hair care (maybe some people joke about hipster beards, but its nowhere near as malicious as what women endure)...

anything women do for vanity is supposedly a proof of some sort of bad character trait or at least being uninformed, and that's a view promoted by other women as well

sisterhood my a*, sisters

Sounds a lot like you are describing and lamenting the sin of vanity in women, only wrapped a faux feminist ribbon.

think of it as a marmite of body grooming - people either love it or hate it, but you shouldn't feel ashamed of your preference. If you think about it - it is very weird to even have an opinion about somebody else's body hair and with that perspective it's much easier to care less about what other think about your body hair. They're being weird, not you

Likewise there is a fair population of women that sneer at others because they weat makeup.

I think cosmetic teeth straightening is really a myth. Teeth whitening that is 100% cosmetic, but straightening isn’t. I’ve travelled all over and it’s only the U.K. that thinks it is cosmetic.

Yes, You do need your teeth to be very poorly aligned to get free braces on the NHS, but that doesn’t mean teeth that are less crooked are not also going to cause long term health issues. In addition, it isn’t just the appearance of teeth it is also the bite.

So many people who get braces and their teeth look to only slightly irregular, it is because of their bite and they will have been advised by their dentist and orthodontist that it is better to spend the £7k now on teeth straightening than much more in dental bills later in life. Even slightly irregular teeth can cause gum recession, gum disease and increased tooth decay because of overlapping, inability to clean between teeth and so on.

@WhatWouldJeevesDo how groups treats this individual and their choices matters more than what these choices are - this is social pressure after all. women shaming other women is vile whether you do it for shaving or not shaving..:or any other thing on the list. It's still trying to enforce your preference as a norm, as if two things could not be widely accepted

@jillgreenI think your post illustrates why some people are so deep into other people's business - did you really feel ashamed by how another poster referred to her own hair?

There's a sizeable proportion of the population (men and women) who think natural pubic hair on women is disgusting and will openly refer to it as so. Plus another sizeable proportion who think it's unkempt or unsightly. Of course this makes other women feel ashamed, you'd have to have a very thick skin to not let that bother you.

Edit - kudos to all the thick skinned women here, I'm trying to be more like you!

The more I think about this the more conflicted I feel.
On the one hand I love the idea of the solidarity of the sisterhood.
On the other, reading the argument that, "You don't really enjoy make up / waxed pubes / erotic strangulation, you're only doing that to please men," reminds me of nothing more than Churchmen of the religious community I was raised in telling me, "You don't really enjoy dancing, you just want to flaunt yourself infront of men." Which, fuck off, I love dancing more than life and if there are no males around I actually love it more.

(I also have a story I could tell about my own father's reaction to my pre-teen self attempting to apply make-up made from beetroot juice mixed with sorbelene but even though we're strangers on this forum it's a little too raw, still).

It treats women like empty shells, whose actions can be understood only in terms of how they impact on male people, never in terms of the interior life of a woman herself (feelings, physical sensations, personal narratives, &c.).

In this case isn't it the behaviour of one individual effecting how another individual feels about herself? Bit of a rhetorical device to position one of them as "the group."
I'm not sure what our obligations should be to eachother. I might change how I talk about myself if it triggers someone I love, but a person otherwise unknown to me? Probably not.
Maybe that's the idea of the sisterhood - every woman is responsible for the wellbeing of every other woman.
@jillgreen if it helps, I call the hair on my pubis my bush because I love it. I have a special brush to make it super fluffy. I hate it at the end of the day when it's been flattened by my clothing and love to get back to bushy bush. But this is such an intimate and ideosyncratic feeling! There's no way I could say the way I feel about my bush is right, or anyone else is wrong.

These are all quite half formed thoughts for me, on a boozy Boxing Day afternnon. Thank you, everyone, for a thoughtful discussion.

What does?

i think it doesn't

You mean the behaviour of the individual affects the group but it’s rude to say so?

@WhatWouldJeevesDo I think there is a difference between conversation within society and what people do in private.

For example, there is a lot of conversation about keeping own surname after marriage and with growing acceptance more women who want to keep their surname do keep it. There should be, however, zero expectation either way, and someone who does change their surname to that of their husband should not be questioned because its none of yours or mine business.

I also think that people nowadays are simply more open about things - sex always existed, fetishes always existed, sex work and sex industry always existed, you don't need to normalise anything. However, all of these being spoken about in daylight means some people feel their brand of morality is being undermined...

@jillgreen I think your post illustrates why some people are so deep into other people's business - did you really feel ashamed by how another poster referred to her own hair?

I see it all the time online where person will say something about themselves and another person will feel attacked by it. It gets to a silly level where the language we use about ourselves gets to be scrutinised.

for all the talk about not being focused on one's body and appearance, some of you are so focused on both that you project what others do and say about themselves onto yourself

While you don't need to shave, wear makeup, change your surname or like sex just because someone else does, but it is unlikely that people will change what they do to make you feel better about yourself.