The other day I couldn't be bothered to wear make-up, I bundled myself on to the train with my face full of the blemishes that you see on the average teenage girls face (see my 'My Imperfections' post to hear my outrage on this subject), my eyes squinty without mascara and eye-liner. And I felt like shit for the rest of the day. I didn't have my make up bag, so I avoided looking in mirrors, in fact I didn't even go to the toilet in case I saw my face. I know, so pathetic. I know exactly what you mean, if I don't wear make-up I feel like people are talking to my spots or just generally staring. It is probably all in my head but girls most definitely do pass judgement. I personally think they are all secretly jealous they aren't brave enough to ditch the slap.
In most if not all contexts, I don't really think wearing makeup is a "choice." At least, it's not a choice in the sense of a decision where the branching options are neutral and equally weighted and carry few, if any, negative social consequences, the way making the decision of what to have for lunch for example. Culturally speaking, the playing field is tilted pretty heavily in makeup's favor. Often, if I don't wear make up people actually comment that I look ill, or tried. This is so true, and then there is nothing worse than after a stint of not wearing make up you do wear some and everyone comments on how nice you look, how pretty you look today as if they are rewarding 'the effort' you have made. It just makes you feel worse about your ACTUAL face. I can't concentrate on my work because I feel uncomfortable. I'm not comfortable in my own skin without a layer of gunge caking it.
In many ways, I wear make up for myself, to make me feel better. Sometimes, even if I'm not leaving the house I can waste away hours playing with make up, just for the fun of it. This is make up at it's best, when you experiment and do things you probably wouldn't actually wear out on a normal day because even make up wearing has its regulations. But this is enjoying it for what it is and I think that is okay. Yet I also admittedly wear it for others, so that I look good in their eyes. And that kind of makes me feel ashamed. I probably wear it because a life-time of exposure to society has taught me that make up = pretty, and being pretty = being liked. If you look at TV show depicting a successful business woman they invariably have red lips and carefully coiffed hair, they don't 'slum' it make up-less, society therefore has taught me that successful women wear make up. Also make up is a waste of ten to fifteen minutes in the morning that I could have eating breakfast or in bed, I use dead time on the bus to do my make up which is also met by equal amounts of judgement. It is as if it is supposed to be a secret ritual everyone knows happens but never witnesses in public, so basically we have to do it but then pretend like we haven't. This is all so messed up. Make up is, for women, is considered standard in the 21st Century. A certain amount of make up is "good grooming." It's the default. As women, we don't have the choice to engage with the beauty industrial complex: it's so ever-present in our lives that women who don't wear make up are commonly taken as defining themselves against it. To not wear make up, for many women, is to invite misunderstanding or, worse, judgement.
I also think it's telling that society encourages women to frame wearing make up only as a matter of simple personal choice — and as something that indicates self-love ("Because You're Worth It"). Adverts suggest that Make up is a treat, a way of expressing some self respect. That we are letting ourselves down by not treating ourselves to some new eyeliner or blush. The ideal is always supposed to be "natural," every skinny actress is always supposed to tell her interviewers that she eats burgers and milkshakes and never really works out. I'm sorry guys, if I need to say in shape, I go to the gym, and to look good I need to wear make up , and I can accept that. Beauty, at least societies view of it is not really 'natural'. The desire to appear as though we all haven't tried and just wander around looking excellently groomed but putting no effort in is the ridiculous ideal being sold to us. I am done buying in, I don't look like shit because I am not wearing make up, I look like myself as all my REAL friends and family see and have seen me thousands of times. If society can't cope with this then society can just go away because for every tiny, flawless, beautiful movie star there are millions of real, intelligent women . It is called perspective.
Dorothy and Daphne
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