Beauty regime burdens

[Sunkisses]

Given recent threads on make up and false nails that have produced much debate and defensiveness, I thought a thread highlighting all the ever more elaborate and costly things and products women are expected to do to their appearance now could be illuminating. Particularly new things, or things that have become a lot more mainstream. Men are not expected to 'groom' and spend so much time/money on their appearance, and many women think just because they 'choose' to, it's not a feminist issue. It is, particularly the messages we send our daughters that our purpose is to be decorative. Things like:
Push up bras
Leg hair removal
Pubic hair removal, especially waxing and Brazilians - ouch
Underarm hair removal
False eyelashes
Eyebrow threading
Hair that costs a fortune (highlights etc)
Body contouring underwear
Botox and fillers
Plastic surgery like breast implants
Hair extensions
Fake tan
False fingernails

It is interesting that this thread was started to try and depersonalise the issue, so women didn't need to feel defensive. And immediately posters personalise the issue and become defensive.

It is the same when trying to address economic inequality and the gender pay gap. Women become threatened and defensive because it is always their 'choice' to give up work because they 'just happen' to earn less or have lower prospects in the work place.

This is why feminism is not 'about choice' as we cannot make free choices in a patriarchal society and for some people it is better to attempt to accommodate the constraints to live the best life they can rather than acknowledge the constraints and their collusion in a way that can be deeply uncomfortable.

I don't see this thread as an opportunity for posters to list what they personally do or don't do to accommodate societal norms of femininity. It is about the societal norms of femininity themselves, and whether they are increasing in an attempt to exert greater control of women in response to recent societal advances achieved by feminism.

Short haired teenage girls exist but they have to have a label. Genderflux. DemiBoi. Neutrois etc. They can't just have a short haircut, it has to have a statement attached to explain it.

And what TheNavigator said above about choice and feminism. Totally agree. All of our decisions are made in a cultural context that differs from country to country and has changed over time. Particularly important is the idea of 'appropriate femininity' and what that involves, that one is fascinating to track over time, especially its involvement with big business and consumerism.

I was planning to start this thread myself OP. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here, but it got lost in the judgement and combativeness of the last thread.

I agree with the "no choice made in a vacuum" position. No, nobody is forcing us to do these things, there's no law saying you must, and most people who don't will never even get a comment made to them about it. But when you are bombarded by media messages and surrounded by people who are doing it, it's very easy to internalise that. Especially if you're young. To quote another poster, we're like the fish who don't know that we're wet.

As a mother of 2 under 2 in my 30s I do basically no grooming. I don't wear makeup because I don't like the feel of it on my skin. I keep my hair very short so I don't have to style it. I don't shave as a political statement. I only wear comfortable clothes. On the main boards I frequently see women like me torn to shreds by posters claiming we've let ourselves go, have no pride, look dirty etc and with the heavy insinuation that it'll be our own fault if our partners cheat on us. I've got a wedding coming up and I feel hugely resentful that I "have" to buy a new dress (no I don't have to, but I know the bride well enough that she'll be pissed if I don't) when my partner can just stick on his old suit. I won't be wearing makeup because I don't own any, but I feel anxious about that as well. And wearing a dress with unshaven legs. The fact that I feel anxiety about existing in my natural state in front of (mostly) strangers makes me utterly furious.

As a teenager I felt enormous pressure to groom. I grew up during the peak of hairstraighteners and every sleepover at some point involved hair straightening. I had very very curly hair and got so much bullying over it and most of my time until I was in my mid 20s was spent hating my hair and trying to change it. I got bullied for being short and so wore high heels everywhere. I got bullied for being overweight (even though I wan't) and eventually developed an eating disorder that almost put me in hospital. Even after I recovered I was still very anxious about choosing clothes that made me appear slim. I've definitely had comments from sexual partners about my body hair - some complaining I had too much, other saying they preferred more. Most qualified it by saying "but its up to you of course" which doesn't really change the central message. I think that to say "there's no law saying you have to groom" is quite naive and ignores the huge pressure that lots of women do feel under to meet beauty standards and to hold their bodies up to the yardstick of male approval or peer approval. And for all the WATM talk of beards and top knots it isn't the same, men simply do not have the same appearance standards applied to them by society. And at it's core I think it's about 1) driving capitalism by seeing women as an easy target for the message "here's everything that's wrong with you, now pay us to fix it" and 2) keeping women too time and money poor, and too low in confidence, to fight back against these unfair messages. I honestly weep for the number of hours of my life, and the amount of actual money, that I've lost trying to meet beauty standards. Now that I've stopped I have more energy to redirect into other parts of my life.

So just as other posters are skeptical that anyone feels forced to do these things, I'm skeptical that anyone freely chooses to do them.

I agree completely TheNavigator

I absolutely accept that society and my socialisation has an enormous impact on my ‘choices’

Also, on the subject of "abolish gender" I find it so frustrating following the #genderfree thing and seeing the TRAs wholesale miss the point. So many comments saying "how can you be gender free if you have long hair?" And ContraPoints vision of a genderless world where everyone wears white and has short hair and speaks in a monotone voice. This for me is where we irreconcilably part ways wit the TRAs in the war on gender - for me the absence of gender isn't the rejection of any individual expression, it's the unshakably of gender markers from sex. If only women have long hair and wear makeup then those things are gender signifyers, if men and women adopt those things equally then they're just choices. For the TRAs a genderfree world means saying "no one can have long hair because that's a girl thing" whereas for me it means saying "everyone can have long hair because it's neither a girl thing nor a boy thing."

If every man identifying as a woman owned the fact that he was just a man who liked female appearance norms, they would stop being female appearance norms! We would make absolute bounds towards a genderless world overnight. But the relentless shackling of gender to sex takes us miles back in the other direction. It's so frustrating.

The current fashionable look for young women is almost a parody of femininity - the false eyelashes, nails, hair extensions, push up bras - it is all quite drag queeny. That interests me as in my teens it was quite fashionable to look androgynous - skinny, dungarees, DMs, short hair - Claire Grogan was a sex symbol. So there has been a shift to a more obvious preformative femininity and I wonder if that is a result of capitalism - more products/more profit or straight patriarchy in response to more women in the work place. Or a bit of both? Or something else entirely that I have missed?

My frizzy black hair - down to my ethnicity - is what makes me look unkempt, no matter how tidy I otherwise am. I resent having to go further than other women to look tidy.

If every man identifying as a woman owned the fact that he was just a man who liked female appearance norms, they would stop being female appearance norms! We would make absolute bounds towards a genderless world overnight. But the relentless shackling of gender to sex takes us miles back in the other direction. It's so frustrating.

EXACTLY!!!! We’ve gone so far back since the eighties.

Thenavigator, backlash by Susan faludi tracked rises in hyper feminine beauty practices to gains for women's liberation. She postulated there was a direct link between eg equal pay act or access to divorce and make up and wonder bras.

SuperLoudPoppingAction that is interesting - if depressing. Do you think we collude in this because if we adopt feminine norms it may be easier for us to be accepted and fly under the radar while taking advantage of the gains achieved by feminism. That is is OK that I am earning more/more senior/financially able to leave an abusive relationship because I look nonthreateningly feminine?

I think most people collude in the system they live in.
Even people who theorise against it.
The same would apply to capitalism as a system. We can eg talk about it being a system that is instrumental in destroying the environment for example but unless we want to live nomadic lifestyles risking our children being taken into care we need to participate in a system that uses money to trade for goods and services.
Is that an answer?
I just don't think it helps to blame the victims of a system. Eg proletariat within capitalism. Women within patriarchy.

An example from west Africa might be a girl undergoing fgm.
This is part of femininity.
The idea of a clitoris on a girl is masculine and unattractive.
Is she to blame for not running away or resisting?
Resisting can mean dislocated limbs alongside removal of her clitoris.
Is her mother to blame for allowing it?

Firstly her mother knows she will be targeted for child sexual abuse if she does not have it. Secondly she will not be marriagable if she has not have it and she might starve. Thirdly if she doesn't enable it for her daughter someone else from the community will just do it anyway with less control and mitigation.
Do we blame the midwife who performs it? Should she starve when realistically someone else will do it if she doesn't.

Or maybe it's beyond the action of individuals. Maybe the government who has made it illegal should police it properly. Maybe there should be peer pressure especially from men not to perform fgm.

I don't think this is a derail but I realize it might sound like one.

Things that we collaborate with under patriarchy aren't really our free choice and we have to survive in the system we live in.

All I would say is we shouldn't claim to be feminist and try to then frame those practices as feminist practices.

Eg pole dancing classes are not 'empowering'. Red lipstick is not 'empowering'. It might put you in a good mood. But what does it do for women as a class?

I think that doing something "outrageous" like demanding equality and respect is more palatable to a lot of people if accompanied by the adoption of other stereotyped behaviours. It's almost apologetic in a way - "yes I'm out earning my husband, but at least I look appealing while I do it". I think that's why butch lesbians get so much hatred - not only do they reject men, they don't even have the decency to look sexy whilst doing so. At least feminine lesbians provide wank fodder, but butch lesbians won't even give you that. It's almost seen as adding insult to injury. Looking beautiful is treated like the fine which is due if you want liberation - a way of saying "yes we've made gains in this area, but we still know our place really".

Looking at it from a different angle I think the lengths gone by old school transexuals to adopt female appearance norms went a long way towards making the genuinely outrageous demand to become legally female more palatable. Its actually no less ridiculous for a post surgical "transwoman" to insist they're a woman than for the Muscatos of the world to do so. Part of the reason that Alex Drummond is so hated is not that he's making the ludicrous claim of being a woman, but that he has the audacity to do so with a full beard. The adoption of feminine appearance norms is an apology for something society considers outrageous - a statement that the person making the demand is prepared to "stay in their lane" in other social ways. For women that means being feminine as an apology for being successful. For men that means being feminine as an apology for not wanting to be men.

choice feminism

This isn't just restricted to beauty regimes. From what I've read about 'choice feminism' is that this should be applied to all choices women are expected to make, that men aren't expected to.

For example, women who think they are feminists because they can make the choice to be a SAHM or a working mum, are not feminsts. Women are expected, by society, to be the main carers for the children, men aren't. Therefore, by thinking you are making a 'feminist choice', you are not. You are still feeding into patriarchal society.

I don't actually believe any of this, I'm just using it as an example of what 'choice feminism' means.

for some people it is better to attempt to accommodate the contraints to live the best life they can rather than acknowledge the contraints and thier collusion in a way that can be deeply uncomfortale

Do you apply that to all choices women make? What I mean is, women don't have to take thier husbands surname, when they marry, but there is a huge pressure that's some women feel to do this. Do we expect women who choose (for whatever reason) to take thier husbands surname to acknowledge thier collusion with patriarchal society?

grab I agree, i've never fully understood the logic behind the 'outrage' of a transwoman wearing trousers and beard. Women shouldn't have to perform femininity so why expect TW to? There are enough other things to get outraged about...

I thought I remembered seeing in the teen magazines I used to read in the 80s (Just Seventeen, Jackie etc.) some make up ads where they used men to model the cosmetics instead of women, and I've found them online!
www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk/retromusings/17-cosmetics-looks-even-better-on-a-girl-adverts-1980s/

(These were one offs IIRC, but they were set against a pop culture featuring not just Boy George but also the likes of Nick Rhodes and David Sylvian so not that much of a shock.)

I wonder what the response would be if these came out today?

What men have to do to be acceptable: shave (optional), shower, use deodorant, haircut (£8) 4-6 times a year, wear clothes and shoes that are clean and don’t have holes in them, maybe a bit of hair gel and aftershave (optional). The cost in time and money for this regime is minimal.

Of course blokes can spend more time and money on grooming if they desire, but there is no social pressure on men to do any more than this.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=85HT4Om6JT4

I wont comment on women's make up routines as I am not a woman, but I will say I would love the opportunity to fix my 'flaws', but as it stands I have little choice without appearing a little weird.

For example I am relatively short, and have some acne scars on my face. I would hate to be burdened with an hour long beauty regimen, especially as I'm pretty lazy. That said being able to slap on some high heels and concealer would barely add to my routine of deodorant and hair gel.

Of course, if this was a viable option, I might feel all sort of pressure to go further. Evidently A lot of women do feel this pressure, but as another poster says, it's quite democratic. My height and my acne never felt democratic, and I don't think we should overlook that being able to improve your appearance is in some sense a privellige.

' I don't think we should overlook that being able to improve your appearance is in some sense a privellige'
Gorgeous insight there.

What did you think of the link to Mitchell and Webb? Is their point that women are privileged?

I disagree with there being little social pressure on men, yes there is definitely waaaaay more pressure on women but I have had to deal with men with eating disorders, depression, substance misuse and everything in between because they feel that they cannot or do not fit in. The mens beauty industry is expanding rapidly, throw in the male models in magazines - who are also airbrushed and with plenty of make up on - shaving, waxing, creams, deodorants, clothes, working out etc. They do not have it as hard as us women to bow down to social norms but they are feeling pressure

Thanks @TheNavigator for bringing it back to the point. Not to get defensive about personal decisions but to discuss the wider pressure women and girls are under to perform 'femininity', with 'grooming' being a major part of that. There is loads of evidence that young girls are less happy nowadays and one of the main reasons they give is lack of self esteem, which is linked to pressure about your appearance (alongside financial insecurity, climate change etc). I worry about DDs and the pressure they'll be under to 'improve' their appearance all the time, instead of being happy and confident in their own beautiful skin

@SuperLoudPoppingAction

Thanks for being so helpful. I think I missed the part where you actually explained what was dumb about what I wrote.

I spend hours in the gym every week (which I do enjoy to an extent), becuase I see that as the only real way I can improve my appearance, on top of what I listed. I would love to be able to use makeup. Realistically I can't though. That is a privellige reserved for women.

It’s not a privilege, it’s something many of us do because of social pressure. Men are under social pressure not to wear any.

Exercise benefits health. I prioritise time for exercise over “grooming” for this reason.

No you keep on writing incel screeds - it's fab.

I did list plenty of resources upthread but it makes no difference to me whether you read them or agree with me. You crack on.

Thinking more widely, that's a really good point loopytiles about exercise being a positive thing that eg builds bone strength and lowers blood pressure.
I don't see girls doing as much sport as I feel they did when I was young.