To ask if girls should be allowed to wear make up to school

[LEMtheoriginal]

Purely a question for the sake of a question.

My dd is 13 and bought her secret santa some eye shadow as she apparently likes make up. I dont wear make up and neither does dd so its never been an issue.

School allows MINIMAL make up and i was wondering should girls be allowed to wear make up as they choose?

My DPs argument is no they will look like clowns

Mine is a more serious worry about sexualisTion of young girls.

But should they not be able to experiment and express themselves? Oh and have pink hair should they choise?

I really can't get excited about this and I'm with claraschu. Children obsess about what they wear because they are made to conform in ever stricter uniform - no wonder they express themselves in other ways.

I went to school in the Netherlands - no uniform, no rules on makeup. I had a girl in my class who was always full Goth, including the multicoloured spiked hair and corpse white makeup. No-one batted an eyelid because she did her work and behaved well. The British obsession with conformity and appearance still confuses me. We should be teaching our children to be confident in the way they look and to express who they are as individuals.

When are people going to realise the only thing that sexualises a child is a paedophile.

Teenagers have sex with each other all the time. Are they all paedophiles?

Teenagers have sex with each other all the time. Are they all paedophiles?

Oh ffs. Clearly not what I was talking about.

Make up does not sexualise a child.

Dd2's school allows them to wear "discrete" makeup from year 9. I think that's quite sensible as they do object if it's not discrete so the children do seem to keep to it.

However dd2, who only wears makeup on stage, has on a few occasions been asked to prove that she hasn't got makeup on.
I have to admit to laughing when she complained to me. Not only does she look like she's fully made up when she isn't-but that it isn't even discrete makeup look. She didn't find it quite as funny as I did.

I told her everyone will envy her.

The trouble is, any rule about make-up is very difficult to enforce fairly, unless it's 'zero make-up at all', and even then, some teachers are much better at telling whether a person has make-up on or not. Male teachers in particular find it hard to judge because they don't generally wear it themselves. Even on MN, one poster's idea of light vs heavy make-up is sometimes totally different from another's. And it's all very well saying 'Why do they need to wear it anyway?', and I agree that girls and women shouldn't feel they need to wear make-up, but try telling that to the shy, mortified teenage girl desperate to hide her acne.

My first thought was acne, too, let them have a way to try to cover that up.

I see nothing wrong with it. If it gives a girl confidence, why not ? They are there to get an education, not to be policed on their appearance.

My view is that if they want to wear make up, then they should wear make up. It doesn't affect their learning in anyway whatsoever. Neither does hair that is very short or coloured. But I don't like school inform either. I believe all this fuss over what school kids can and can't wear is a total waste of time.

As an adult, I wear make up as it makes me feel more confident and I don't like how I look without it. Plenty of people don't wear it to work. No one takes any notice either way. It's when a fuss is made over things that they become a big deal.

Crazy isn't it that at uni level we can all still manage to learn while wearing our own clothes and whatever we want on our faces. I think many uniform rules are far too strict...

There have been a couple of threads here where it very much looked like a culture of heavy "done" looking makeup had become the norm at a poster's daughter's school, leading to a situation where girls were starting to feel like they had to do this full face of makeup every morning or they would invite comments. It also caused issues with girls not wanting to take part in sport or active activities due to not wanting the mask of makeup to get smeared etc., and with girls spending excessive amounts of time in the loos fixing and retouching.

I think schools should adopt a "don't-ask-don't tell" policy: i.e. they are not going to go around suspiciously wiping girls' faces with tissues, but will take action if makeup is visible/obvious. A bit of foundation, tinted lip balm, dyed eyelashes etc. will go under the radar, but makeup which is that subtle will not cause the abovementioned problems, so I have no issues with it.

I am fine with schools making exceptions for students who have skin conditions significant enough that they can suffer issues with self esteem unless they use heavier concealers. A note from a GP or derm should be enough.

I would agree on minimal if girls want to look like coco the clown they have weekends and holidays to do so.

We was allowed makeup at school

In the world we live in, not allowing teenagers to use make up to cover their spots at school is cruel.

The world we have created and perpetuate by this attitude.

It is completely normal to feel self conscious when you are a teenager, it's almost one of the defining things about being that age! Part of growing up is learning that it doesn't matter what people think about some things, whether you have visible spots, for instance. Why don't we let our children learn that confidence instead of reinforcing the idea that they're not good enough as they are?

Our school officially has 'no make up' which they enforce less strictly as they go up the years. If it is so light that a teacher can pretend not to notice then it's OK, if it is laid on with a trowel they have to remove it.

I remember our old HT saying that if someone needed makeup to give them the confidence to come into school, he would rather that than they didn't attend (it was in the context of some pupils sofa surfing iirc).

I wouldn't want my DD (and it would primarily be the girls) being peer pressured to wear makeup every day to school.

The more schools ban certain clothing, shoes, hair colours etc, the more children will want to rebel. We teach body autonomy then hit them with a load of rules policing how they look - it's ridiculous.

Make up has no impact on someone's ability to learn, therefore it shouldn't be an issue.

The only things that sexualise children are the people that sexualise children.

Why wouldn't you extend this logic to adult women? Why should they need make up to feel confident?

Ideally they wouldn't, nobody should feel they have to put on make up to step out of the house. In an ideal world, you'd wear make up because you fancied it, you might not wear it every day and feel confident with it without.

You aren't going to learn that confidence if you've not been through the "I felt self-conscious and survived, nobody really cared that I was bare-faced" stage though.

I don't see the problem with any make up. Why does it matter if a girl wants to wear eyeshadow or mascara. It's their face.

I remember having some lovely lilac eyeshadow at school and I wore a little bit and was told to wipe it off. I remember thinking why does a tiny slither of colour on my eyelid effect how I learn?

I am a professional and wear any make up I want, so this over policing of what girls wear isn't preparing them for the workplace. Nurses can wear make up, police can wear make up, solicitors can wear make up, why can't a 14 year old?

It hasn't nothing to do with sex, a shimmery gold eyeshadow does not say have sex with me. It says I have eyeshadow on.

Part of growing up is learning that it doesn't matter what people think about some things, whether you have visible spots, for instance. Why don't we let our children learn that confidence instead of reinforcing the idea that they're not good enough as they are?

If this were true, adult women wouldn't wear make up because they would have learned that it didn't matter what people thought of their looks.

Perhaps the world would be a better, kinder place if nobody wore make up and nobody felt the need to. The way to move towards that world is by setting an example and not wearing it yourself. Not by saying that nobody under sixth-form age should wear it and thus positioning it as an initiatory marker of adulthood - young people shouldn't care about their spots but covering adult acne/signs of aging is just fine?

By minimal make up the school probably means just enough concealor and foundation for ‘coverage’ of acne etc. Children shouldn’t be sexualized ever, not even if they’re wearing a full face of stockings or high heels or short shorts — it’s always unacceptable to blame the victim for men perving on them.

And it’s far better to allow make up. In S Korea make up isn’t allowed even in some universities and girls often have no choice but to resort to plastic surgery and ‘tattoo make up’ to feel confident. That’s not a better situation

You aren't going to learn that confidence if you've not been through the "I felt self-conscious and survived, nobody really cared that I was bare-faced" stage though.

I actually did this in my twenties. I wore no make up at all for a couple of years as a sort of feminist experiment. It was interesting. It did make me more confident about my natural appearance.

I chose to do that. If I'd been forced to do so by someone else/a school rule, as a spotty, anxious, self-conscious 14-year-old, it would have had the opposite effect.

Ideally nobody would feel they needed to wear make up. I agree. My point is that you don't reach that stage by forbidding it.

I say no to a full face but if a teenage girl wants to wear foundation to cover bad skin or something then fine.

I think the only make up should be concealer, if preferred.
Instagram encourages a bonkers look of pouts and eyebrows and none of this is healthy. Girls seem to be ever increasingly worried about their looks so a move towards discouraging this is a good thing.

Lots of us grew up in a time when makeup was banned at school. We survived. The world we live in now is only like it is because we've made it that way or let it go that way. It doesn't have to be like this!

I wish I had been allowed a little makeup at school. I have very pale blonde hair. A little eyebrow pencil and mascara makes my face come alive. I seem more expressive to people because they can see the movement of my eyes and eyebrows more easily. I dye them now.