Social perception of wearing lipstick

Lipstick as part of women's makeup has had a very turbulent history over the centuries. It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that lipstick started to lose its stigma. Advances in technology and more sophisticated marketing and advertising tactics have raised the profile of cosmetics. For the first time since ancient Egypt, makeup became widely accepted, both socially and morally [Read My Lips: A Cultural History of Lipstick, M. Cohen Ragas, K. Kozlowski, 1998]. But do you know how people with lipstick are perceived by others today?

Lips matters

Fuller lips, a feminine feature, are characterized by clearly developed and bigger vermilion zone. And the red color of the lips, as well as the pink color of the cheeks, is the result of blood circulation in the subcutaneous blood vessels. Therefore, maintaining these colors can be a symbol of health and attractiveness [1]. It would seem that if we artificially enhance this natural feature, the perception of attractiveness may increase even more. An experiment was conducted with women wearing red, pink, brown and no lipstick in bars. The results showed that red lipstick status was associated with more male solicitations and a shorter time between women's arrival at the bar and the man's first offer of advances! [2].

Lipstick affects our first impression

Social perception is the process of getting to know other people and assigning them specific characteristics, often based on a very limited amount of information. A type of such perception is the first impression, which is usually most influenced by a person's appearance. Then, specific mental characteristics of a given person are perceived, even based on the way they dress or make up. A study conducted at the University of Michigan showed that a girl with lipstick is rated by students as more self-aware, interested in men, less conscientious, more talkative and sociable than the same girl (behaving identically) assessed without lipstick [Social Perception: the Development of Interpersonal Impressions, H. Toch, H. Clay Smith, 1968].

Later experiments seem to confirm this and show that a woman with lipstick is perceived as sensual and sociable [The Perception of People, K. Skarzynska, 1981]. Interestingly, wearing lipstick also affects our self-perception. The reasons for using this product by women themselves are more related to self-esteem and status in society than to sexual allure. Moreover, lipstick serves as a transition from adolescence to womanhood in society [3].

So, knowing this research, should we wear lipstick more often? It depends on the effect we want to achieve. It is also worth taking into account the intensity and wide range of colors of lipsticks, the impact of which has not yet been tested.

The neurochemistry of social perception

-- allows individuals to make judgments and form impressions about other people

-- primarily based on observation

-- pre-existing knowledge also influences it

-- refers to the first stages in which people process information to determine another individual or group’s mind-set and intentions

-- can be used to predict behavior

-- can influence an individual’s behaviors and attitudes

That anon question I got, got me thinking.

I get that kind of response a lot.  From people who are sure they’re right about crazy people being violent and dangerous in a way sane people aren’t.  Sometimes they outright tell me that I’ve seen the same things they have, but that I refuse to acknowledge it for “political” reasons.

It’s not like that at all.

I look at crazy people and I see people who vary as much as sane people.

People have asked me -- incredulously -- “Have you ever known anyone with dementia?”

Because I didn’t think tricking people with dementia into believing they were leaving a place and escaping, while the entire place they “leave” to is utterly fake, is the wonderful humane thing everyone else seems to see it as.

Especially after an experience with delirium -- which can produce similar disorientation to dementia -- in which I developed the delusion that I never left the hospital, that I was the one patient who never left the hospital, that my memories of home were a hallucination or a trick, and that they had set up an entire fake town and kept alive one friend of mine so that I would believe I was leaving and staying with a friend when really I’d spend the rest of my life in a hospital in what seemed like the future because I’d been there so long I didn’t realize what year it was and how everything had changed.  Luckily the delirium began to subside before I was rushed back to the hospital or I’d

And like -- experiencing that, even as a delusion, was enough to convince me it’s completely horrible to trick people that way, especially if they have any trouble at all understanding reality.

But that’s not actually my main point.

Like.

I believe that institutions suck because I know disabled people and because I have been in and seen the inside of way too many institutions.  This includes crazy people, but also all kinds of disabled people.  (I fall or have at one time fallen into most of the major disability categories -- cognitive, physical, psychiatric, developmental, emotional, chronic illness, congenital, acquired, progressive, stable, cyclical, etc.  I know people from all the categories, whether I belong to them or not.)

I believe what I believe about people with dementia because I know people with dementia.

But when I look at people with dementia I don’t see whatever the fuck everyone else seems to be seeing.

I see people.  Not people missing some vital component of being human beings.   Just human beings.

And this isn’t something I force to happen because of my ideas about the world.  I get my ideas about the world from observing the world.  I just observe different things.

I see someone who is seen as unable to answer questions, when what it looks like to me is she processes and responds to information very slowly, and nobody wants to wait around, or even thinks of waiting around.  When she answers at all, the conversation has moved so far on that nobody notices she’s not speaking nonsense, she’s just responding much slower than them.

And the more I see people with dementia, stroke, autism, intellectual disability, etc., who are automatically written off, the more I just see people, who are always taking in and responding to their environment, just not always in the usual ways.

And so many other people, even other people with some of these labels, see the same people as unpersons or only partial persons.  And I know this is how many people see me unless I prove I’m a person, which I can’t always do.

I swear people look at us and see images in their head rather than people.

I see people.

This is an area where I have a strong conviction that what I see is accurate.  It seems to be backed up by the perceptions of some other people - just not most people.

And this doesn’t mean I’m "better than” anyone or silencing my real perception in favor of wha tI want to see. This is really what I see.

And that’s the main thing I want to say:  People tell me to look at certain people so I look at certain people (including myself, often) and see things they don’t and don’t see things they do.

I'm having a problem with my knitting. Right now, I want to be socially identified as male the vast majority of the time. But in my knitting, I like interesting colors and interesting patterns, and that almost never means that the product looks in any way masculine. I recently made myself a hat, which in solid black looks very masculine. I chose to make mine in variegated blues, because after making it in black twice (one for my husband, one for my son) I needed some interesting colors to look at. I literally can not wear it if I want people to address me in male terms. I mean, it looks good on me, it just... Highlights all of the feminine features in my face. I have a similar problem with pretty much everything. I love making and wearing (in cooler weather) shawls. But shawls are feminine. Knee-high socks? Feminine. Ankle socks? Feminine. Does it have have lace? Probably feminine. Cables? Same. Almost nothing I'm interested in making (even if the pattern says it's for men, or unisex) is perceived as masculine when I wear it. It's unreasonably frustrating.