For this week's blog post, I have decided to explore a topic that has recently garnered a lot of attention on social media. This is a slightly controversial topic not only in our society but even within the feminist community. That is why this week I would like to address the question, is makeup a feminist issue?
Recently on social media, there has been a picture of a woman with and without makeup on that has been circulating with the caption "this is why you should take a girl swimming on the first date." The image features Ashley VanPenevage, a 20 year old college student from Tacoma, Washington. VanPenevage, who was suffering from an allergic reaction to a medication, asked a friend to help her cover up her acne and posted a before and after picture to Instagram. The picture was then picked up by several Twitter accounts and shared using captions suggesting women "falsely advertise" themselves when they wear makeup.
I would like to start off by pointing out that people are not products to advertise. Saying that implies that women who wear makeup (or really anyone who does for that matter) are selling themselves. That's just simply not the case; women are not a product to be purchased. I don't think that wearing lipstick can be classified as misrepresenting yourself. Sure, of course women look different with makeup on, some more so than others. But that doesn't mean that these women are "lying" about what they look like, that's just simply what they look like with makeup on! And lets be honest, if you think that women naturally have bright red lips or sparkly eyelids, you might have to reevaluate some of your perceptions.
This one example brings us to a much larger issue. Is wearing makeup really a woman's choice to make? Or does society make that decision for us? Many feminists believe that the reason women wear makeup is because our culture tells us that we look bad without it. I think that this is true to a certain extent. Women wearing makeup has become a standard in American society. Think about it--when was the last time you saw an advertisement or a TV show in which a woman was not wearing any makeup? According to writer Jenna Sauers, makeup is "so ever-present in our lives that women who don't wear makeup are commonly taken as defining themselves against it. To not wear makeup, for many women, is to invite misunderstanding or, worse, judgement." In her Jezabel article, Sauers also doubts the existence of women who "wear makeup for themselves."
While I do agree with Sauers that wearing some amount of makeup has become a standard in our society, I don't agree that there aren't any women out there who don't wear makeup just because they want to. Personally, I like to wear makeup for myself. Now, I guess you could argue that I'm kidding myself and that the real reason that I wear makeup is because society says that I should or that I'm trying to please men or whatever other reasons people have come up with. But the truth is that there are some days that I wear a full face of makeup and other days that I don't put anything on at all, and my deciding factor is simply how I'm feeling that day and whether or not I have the time. I don't believe that anyone's beauty or self worth has anything to do with the amount of makeup they wear.
So as I'm wrapping up my post, I'd like to definitively answer my initial question. Yes, makeup is a feminist issue, but maybe not for the reasons you initially thought. About a year ago, Buzzfeed made a video that explored the question, "Can It Be Feminist to Wear Makeup?" In response to the video, Bustle writer Carlo Chauvet wrote that "being feminist means ultimately asking the why behind actions that could be perceived as ways women objectify themselves and submit to patriarchal culture. Judging a woman for wearing makeup because it makes her feel good is just [as bad] as criticizing her habit of putting on makeup solely based on her lack of self-esteem or desire to please men." The video in question emphasizes the choice that women make for themselves when they decide either to wear makeup or not to. And with all of the grief that women get for both wearing makeup and not wearing makeup, how could their decision have anything to do with anything but their own opinion?
