make up and 6yo DD - what to do?

[resisterpersister]

Please help me deal with this situation!

DD's cousins came to visit yesterday, and gave 6yo DD a make up set. The cousins rarely visit and I didn't feel up to souring the visit by rejecting the gift in front of them. So she spent yesterday with her cousins, covering themselves with make up. She bloody loves it. First thing she did this morning? Put more make up on.

Lots of DD's classmates are allowed to play with make up, but she knows I won't buy it for her. I don't wear it myself. I talk to her in an age appropriate way about why I don't like make up and don't wear it.

If it was up to me, this would never have come in the house! But it's here now. I could just take it away, but I'm worried that'll make it into a huge thing, I'm not sure if that'll achieve anything other than make her want it more and feel she's been treated unjustly (and, oh, do I remember the times I felt my parents were being unjust to me!)

I suppose I could let her play with it for a few days till she forgets about it and then quietly "lose" it. (Is that cowardly?)

I could impose boundaries around it (what?). She's already said she wants to wear it to school every day and I've said errr... no!

We've been talking a bit about why adults wear make up, and I've told her about how if you wear make up every day, it's a bit like it casts a spell on you and you feel you can't go outside without wearing it, and we talked about how much of a pain that would be if her friend came round to ask her to play, but she missed out because she couldn't just leave the house.

What do I do, oh wise FWR women? I want to just throw the bloody thing away, but I'm worried about creating a bigger deal out of it and making it an even greater object of desire!

The age on the box say 5+ . Who makes this stuff FFS?

You can completely disagree with something but err on the side of caution wether banning it makes more appealing and "forbidden fruit" kinda thing. Banning something outright or give promises of "when you're x age" xan make something exciting, longed for and a rite of passage.

My mum wears make up everyday, always has.

I barely wore any as a kid - save for a bit of eyeshadow when I started going clubbing.

I wore full make up at work from 21-35 and now I've lost interest and barely wear any.

I've never been into nail polish or false eyelashes etc.

Mum always told me I was beautiful, and I believed her.

My 6 year old has play make up (bought with pocket money). She used it a bit at first but has barely touched it in months.

I treat it as face paint. She can't wear it at school but can wear a little bit to a party. Mainly she never mentions it.

She can't avoid make up. I think taking it away makes it desirable. So let her get bored, you can always then move it to a less obvious place.

I understand your concerns, but surely there is a balance

I'm here wondering has the kid forgotten it yet?

Which will wear off quickest?
The novelty for the child or the angst of the parent?

Male political thinkers don't get accused of seeing things in a particular way because of their "personal baggage".

This isn't true, I don't know why you would even say that. Male writers, like all other writers, speak from their personal perspective. Sometimes very intimately. And sometimes they do have personal baggage that is part of that.

Male writers e.g. novelists might speak from their personal experience, and in discussion of their work that point might reasonably be made. However male political thinkers, like female (feminist) political thinkers, are writing about and analysing wider cultural, social and economic trends, and no, male political theory is not dismissed as "personal baggage" in the way Andrea Dworkin's has been on this thread. The phrase "personal baggage" means the opposite of the political, it's dealt with in the therapist's office not by political movements or analysis. Women's suffering, including the demand we adhere to male beauty standards, is political however. Dworkin knew this and made theory out of it. To dismiss her insight into the situation of women as something only personal to her is simply wrong and yes, sexist. Her work on male violence has created the anti-pornography movement, the anti-prostitution movement and led to a deep understanding of the way male violence especially controls and limits women.

Another male example, Martin Luther King, was directly affected by white supremacy as Dworkin was directly affected by male supremacy but again, his call for freedom for black Americans was never dismissed as "personal baggage". That's an insult that's left for women theorists in particular the radical ones. (See also "strident" and "harpy" that have appeared on this thread too).

What personal baggage of Dworkin's can you point to that contradicts the fact that women are under massive social pressure to conform to male beauty standards? Her "personal baggage" doesn't negate the existence of the beauty industry, the diet industry, the fashion industry, the cosmetic surgery industry - all overwhelmingly directed at women, marketed at us to make us feel "not good enough", so we'll hate ourselves and buy their products to change our bodies. Those industries have expanded exponentially since she wrote Woman Hating. As Mary Daly called her "the prophet Andrea Dworkin" - she saw what harmed women and recognised what was coming down the line for us. Her theory has been proved to be right.

If you don't think women are under massive social pressure to conform to male beauty standards why are even six year old girls (six year old girls!) being given make up sets so they can look in the mirror, paint their faces and try to look "pretty"? It's pretty obvious except to those who refuse to see and then analyse.

I wouldn't have allowed her to accept it and tell her make up is for grown ups, like lingerie and other things.. It's just sexualisation of children and making them precocious before their time.

Erythronium

I've already said that I think the beauty industry, like the fashion industry, is corrupt and sexualises women in a terrible way. I wouldn't, then, try and porvide evidence that it doesn't.

Dworkin however, when I read her, sees things from a very extreme point of view, where you could easily conclude that even basic attempts to look presentable that are common to both men and women are, in women, responses to patriarchal pressures.

She takes what could be very deep insights and I think made them much less plausible to people because she couldn't step back to look at it from a different perspective, and ask if her insights applied in every case in the same way.
That inability to step back is always a problem with a psychological or political writer, whatever the cause. And if you look at her writing and her life, I think the reasons was because of her life experiences, she was an a significant way terribly hurt. Sometimes people who are hurt struggle with seeing things as harmless or different in other contexts. I'm not even sure how that is debatable, or how it's then unreasonable to see that in her writing. I don't actually give a shit if no one says that about any male writers, though I don't see that as true. But even if it is I think it was true of her.

In any case, just copying a bunch of quotes by one writer doesn't really refute anything, if people disagree with her.