The constant maintenance of womanhood

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Another thread about the pill got me thinking. Taking a pill every single day is tedious as well as a health issue.

But there are so many things women are supposed to do to 'maintain'.

Health is the pill as the obvious one. I know biology is a bastard so smears too. And breast exams.

Body. Waxing or trimming, hair being coloured and styled, face free of random hair.

Life. Wife work and house work and presents and school and appointments. Occasional DIY isn't like that.

I don't do 70% of the above BTW but I know women who do. And I know men would argue shaving but beards are now everywhere. A woman's work is never done I suppose.

And I think the body stuff is actually regressing for women. With more expectations of perfection requiring enormous cost and commitment. And it's worse for certain women. The expectations on black women and older women, plus teens is immense!

But all of those are male preferences. I didn't ignore the rest.

And actually I don't think it's all male. The worst DD got was a girl from another culture who told DD the hair on her arms was 'disgusting'. Much as I applaud her not accepting western standards of beauty, she's policing my daughter's body at TEN.

And does prove that expectation may be culturally specific. But that there is one is not.

@Usernamenotavailabletryanother

Budge up in that hammock, *@MrsTerryPratchett*!

I could do with it right now!

I agree the burden on women is getting worse. I think if you look at photos of ordinary people from the 70s, 80s you will see that- women may have worn make up but there just wasn't a lot of the stuff available then that there is now (spray tans, fake nails/lashes- Ok they existed but rarely used)
However it is entirely possible to ignore all this. There is really a minimal difference in grooming standards between DP (male) and me. I appreciate that I have greater range of cloting etc to choose from but only ever wear clothes that are comfortable and last wore very low heels for a special event about 10 years ago.

@Grellbunt I just do that and look fine. Just try it!
I am planning on just doing that as soon as all this stuff has ran out. To be fair to me I’m not bothering with it all for anyone but myself, I just haven’t quite accepted being middle aged yet but the make up, bra, shaved legs etc all went by the wayside during lockdown and I’ve been bringing back bush for years now 😆

Nah cba with all that malarky. I never did get why faffing around with a load of chemicals and ripping the hair from various bits of your body is supposed to be pampering. But a nice soak in the bath while listening to an audiobook, hell yeah.

The worst thing is that loads of blokes don't care about the non vital stuff and if they do you're better off without them!

The pressure comes from I suppose. The current stereotype of hot/ attractive woman derived usually from various media. Taken as what men want. But as much just. How women (esp girls) are supposed to look.

And this gets sort of picked up and circulated and models and glam women on the telly and consumed and in mags and etc. By women and girls many of whom then feel the need to try and meet that standard.

Eg irl I've seen women in an office loads of them adopting higher and higher heels in a sort of feedback loop.

Generally men don't care.

I mean about more than clean presentable similar level of body looks. And they like.

No man turns away a good looking woman and there's a mutual attraction because she doesn't shave her legs or leaves pubes alone etc.

If he does he's a wanker anyway.

It's capitalism. It goes- from loads of angles-

Create feelings of could be better/ inadequate
Encourage focus on different bits rather than overall effect.
Flog stuff to make it what it could/ should be.

The health factors are not things you're "supposed" to do, but just questions of self interest. It's really up to you whether you want to get breast cancer or not.

The cosmetic ones, I don't know. If you don't like them, don't do them?

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur

My brother told me in the summer its embarrassing to be seen with me because I rarely shave my legs. I told him I felt the same about him

Brilliant!

You don't HAVE TO do all that stuff, you know. It's not compulsory.

There are girls in my DD's class at school who spend an hour in the mornings doing their hair and make up. They're 12.

@Alektopteryx

There are girls in my DD's class at school who spend an hour in the mornings doing their hair and make up. They're 12.

Where I went to school - make-up, nail polish, fancy hairstyles etc were completely banned. As an adult, I realise the value in such strict standards even though I probably complained at the time when we had to line up for inspection and the teacher handed out cotton balls and nail polish remover and those who were caught had to remove their nail polish.

A friend of mine did spend an hour each morning doing her hair though, but we were 15/16 and she had very long hair that she liked to straighten - no hair straighteners back then.

It's hard shielding kids from peer pressure, but parents and schools can still have considerable influence if they were able to work together to ban some of this stuff at least during school hours.

StillWeRise, I was at high school and uni in the 70s. Any woman plastered in make up, fake nails, fake tan etc would have been regarded as a “cheap tart”, and probably a professional one!
The Womens Lib movement of those days was against shaving body hair. I vaguely recall a magazine article saying that hairy armpits were your “powder puffs, announcing your presence with a gentle waft of pheromones!”
The whole emphasis was different then. Feminism meant rejecting the male agenda, not “empowering” yourself with sex work and pandering to men’s idea of feminine beauty. Hence the storming of the Miss World contest.
I despair when I look at today’s young women, wasting hours preening for Instagram pics, and queuing up to sell out their rights to violent TRAs.

A huge amount of industry ad advertising goes in to making women feel they need all of these products.

I buy in to 90% of it. Colour my hair, love makeup, love skincare, love clothes.

I wouldn't like to not do this stuff. The issue I have is the obligation which is constantly implied to women in all aspects of life. Advertising. The way women in the public eye are spoken about in media. The difference in perception from both men and women between when I'm groomed and made up and when I'm makeup free and in casual clothes.

It is depressing, but complicated. I don't think people will ever not react favourably to well groomed people, male or female. But the expectations for women and the way it's acceptable to constantly comment on appearance, makeup, hair, fashion choices of women in all sorts of unrelated contexts is what really gets to me the most I think.

I was at high school and uni in the 70s. Any woman plastered in make up, fake nails, fake tan etc would have been regarded as a “cheap tart”, and probably a professional one!

Is that not equally awful though?

The issue surely is judging women by physical appearance. Hating women for being sexualised is just as unfeminist as objectification, surely? And really it's the same thing if you think about it. It's all objectification.

And yeah it's definitely a capitalist/consumerist thing too.

It's no surprise that blonde hair is constantly touted as desirable, given it's easily the most expensive and high maintenance hair colour. I feel like we are shifting away from that a bit now though.

The mark up on beauty/ cosmetics must be huge: Alan Sugar kept on about how desperate he was to get into the market.

Absolutely agree. There was a piece on radio 4 recently about women in their twenties and early thirties being in massively increased credit card debt. They didn’t look at the reasons at all but it was blindingly obvious to me that the expectation of expensive constant maintenance for that age group would be a significant factor.

I agree with you about the societal expectations on young women is getting worse, when I was in my 20s I felt socially “expected” to be slim and toned, wear make up most of the time outside of the house and to dress up in dress/skirt and heels on a night out, have my hair cut and highlighted fairly regularly, have underarms and legs shaved, plus straighten my hair most days. If I really felt like making an effort for a special night out I would use fake tan and do my nails and put fake eyelashes on. However it wasn’t “expected”. And it was ok to slob out and do none of that if you were hungover or just couldn’t be arsed when at home or with friends.

Now I feel like they have added in Botox, lip fillers, breast surgery if breasts aren’t “perfect”, hair extensions, fake tan, gel nails, and long lasting false eyelashes, heels all the time, and curled hair sometimes as part of what is expected as the daily “normal” base level standard, no more slobbing out ever even at home or with friends. Oh forgot also shaved down below. It seems exhausting. I have also pretty much opted out of it all too partly because I’m just too busy/stressed/tired/broke to be able to participate in it as a single mother and don’t even know where to start with some of the new stuff like extensions and lashes, and partly because I really object as a feminist to feeling under social pressure to do anything but the bare minimum of being clean, but agree this comes with a cost.

That Klarna credit payment system sounds like a menace.

I agree and have made a conscious decision to reject all that.
I'm lucky in that I had a mother who never wore make-up and only used the cheapest moisturiser, who told me I didn't need anything else as we had natural good looks in our family !
I've never waxed and can't walk in high heals.
My DH has seen me precisely once wearing make-up and that was for our wedding when I thought I should make a bit of an effort for the photos.

I've also been lucky with my easy to manage hair. I always thought it was boring when younger but it's straight and dries nicely on it's own if cut well.

I do like occasionally 'dressing up' to go out and looking good so it's contradictory.

But yes, I don't like the judging of women in the public eye's appearance instead of focusing on how they do their jobs.

I found reading Naomi Woolf's The Beauty Myth was a real eye opener. Lots about how diverting womens money into this stuff reduces their power, and how women are often charged more for the equivalent man thing (I think trousers was mentioned) but many more examples. I do have a routine involving some potions, but I have set a limit in terms of money/time.

I make a point of not doing it... I don't wear make up, I brush my hair and let it dry naturally. I had laser a few years ago, so I dont need to shave my legs that often, and the hair is light and fine. I wash my face with soap and water, and put on a moisturiser. I wear jeans and t shirt. I spend the bare time and money on my appearance. Cannot be bothered. If men don't have to, I dont see why I should...

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants

I found reading Naomi Woolf's The Beauty Myth was a real eye opener. Lots about how diverting womens money into this stuff reduces their power, and how women are often charged more for the equivalent man thing (I think trousers was mentioned) but many more examples. I do have a routine involving some potions, but I have set a limit in terms of money/time.

I wonder what happened to her? She just went right off the scale didn’t she?

Oh do stop whining, none of this stuff is life threatening, don’t do it if you don’t want to do it. The right people will love you regardless.

As someone with ungroomed body hair the fact that the thread below this on active threads just now was "Re-wilding a Shady Area"