silky

This is not art

This is makeup and facetune.

Disclaimer: I am in no way trying to put down the women in the second photo set. They look great, they’re doing as they please, but I wanted to use their public photos in order to make a point.

Often times I hear the argument, “but makeup is an art form! How can women be harmed by the makeup industry if it’s a CHOICE and an art form?”

There is a gigantic difference between the two photo sets. The first are women who have applied makeup, face paint and other materials in order to create something on their faces that does not enhance their appearance or follow beauty standards. They are literally creating a painting/piece of art on their faces. The second photo set shows women who are using makeup in order to enhance their looks and quite honestly change the appearance of their natural facial features.

The makeup looks that are shown are what the beauty industry distributes their products for. These looks are what is deemed “beautiful” and “acceptable” in our society. It is what 10 year old girls are trying to achieve in order to feel pretty and gain attention and acceptance.

It isn’t an art form to put on eyeliner, eyebrows, matte lipstick, contour your entire face to the point in which you are unrecognizable from your bare face. It may be aesthetically pleasing, but it isn’t art. Women and girls are pushed to wear foundation, eye makeup, and whatever else every day. No one is pushed to look like a Rorschach test (see third photo in first photo set, lol). No one is pressured to wear makeup in the form in which we see at the top, but girls are pressured beyond belief to make their noses look smaller. Their eyes look bigger. Their eyebrows more shaped. Their eyelashes longer. Their cheeks higher. Their neck slimmer. Their eyes lighter. Their lips bigger… more seductive. And it goes on.

Know the difference between conventional makeup and artistic makeup. They are not the same, they are not to be conflated. We are not smashing the patriarchy with our winged eyeliner. We are not going against what men want by over lining our lips. Choice or not, we aren’t doing it for anything other than because we feel we have to.

Bonnie Lee doesn’t care about finding a boyfriend or a fairytale wedding, and will decide her own happily-ever-after.

 "I’m a straight woman who is no longer interested in having relationships with men.“  

And she is not alone.

A growing number of South Korean women are banding together to reject rigid patriarchal norms and vowing never to wed, have children or even date and have sex.

“I’ve always felt that as a woman there are more disadvantages than advantages to being married,” says Lee, a 40-something professional who lives with her dog near Seoul.

I found this very interesting article about it (it’s for subscribers but it’s possible to read it in reader view).

I feel like this mindset is sort of a remnant from the “body posi” movement of liberal feminism a lot of us internalized, which instructed us to find the beauty in our features in order to be positive about them. (Ex. Your stretch marks are beautiful! Your cellulite is beautiful! Etc) Similarly I feel that in “learning to love” out natural bodies, some of us are still subconsciously getting stuck on “finding the beauty” in order to love. It might be that the word “love” carries with it too many complicated associations with beauty.

So instead of trying to love your face/body, start trying to accept it. And once you’ve accepted it, learn to appreciate it. And once you appreciate it, love for it will come naturally from that appreciation. “Learning to love” and “body posi” both tend to lead you down beauty street, whereas this alternate line of thinking takes a detour and avoids that street entirely— which is the key to landing at your ultimate destination of true self-love. Basically, stop trying to find the physical beauty altogether.

Example of this thought process:

Accept— These are my legs. These are my lips. This is my belly.

Appreciate— My legs allow me to walk, run, and swim. My lips allow me to speak properly and grasp food. My belly protects my internal organs, which keep me alive and healthy.

Value — I love to swim, thanks legs for letting me do that. I’m glad I have lips so I can sing my favorite songs and drink a milkshake. I like to eat my favorite foods, thanks belly for protecting my digestive organs. Couldn’t do it without ya, guys.

Lets forget the sexed connotation of woman being unable to exist in any context where men are present without them trying to fuck her, thinking of fucking her, wanting to fuck her, or just fucking her. Let us ignore that small, tedious fact.

We need the strength of a hundred arms, the sound of a thousand voices; we all need a hug sometimes, a word of encouragement, the assurance that we are not alone; we don’t all know the same thing or work the same way. We are such a gathering of talent, who could resist us?

This white woman’s shocking account of police brutality reveals the importance of the #BlackLivesMatter movement

your mom teaching you makeup and how to do your hair

wearing cute dresses

learning how to be fashionable

learn how talk with a high-pitched voice

moving your hands a lot

laugh graciously

learning how to be cute

liking dolls, pink and glitter

what female socialization is:

getting worse breastfeeding

your father telling you to never trust a boy because they are all the same and they will hurt you and you do trust the boy and he does hurt you

being raped and struggling for years to convince yourself it wasn’t your fault because you’ve been told women who are too sexy/women who party/women who have fun deserve to get raped and when it happens to you there’s no amount of affirming quotes that will ever make that little “it was your fault” voice shut up

being physically unable to get out of your house without makeup or not shaving because you feel repulsive if you don’t

getting shit by everyone if you’re not feminine enough

adults telling you the boy who snaps your bra or pulls your hair or in mean to you does that because he likes you

being socialized into believing that abuse is love through what adults tell you, movies, fairy tales, books and a ton of other things

being pulled out of any sport that isn’t classical dancing because if you get too big you won’t be feminine

your mother telling you to dress in a different way because there are male relatives around the house and no one sees a problem with that

not getting taught life skills so you are dependent on the men who were taught those life skills (like fixing common car problems or how to solve little issues around the house etc etc)

precious time of your childhood being stolen to help your mother with chores that you are too small to do (while your brother/father does absolutely fucking nothing and couldn’t cook a meal for himself if his life depended on it)

being taught how to objectify yourself

not being taught about female writers and scientists so you unconsciously start to believe women haven’t contributed to humanity’s progress

being convinced you aren’t good at maths and science because you’re a girl