Someone said "let's not just talk about TRA's all the time." Can we finally talk about this? Or are we still too afraid of this, too?

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[–]fuckupaddams 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

I'm a feminine feminist and I don't think high heels are oppressive. I also wear makeup. And have done burlesque. That's where choice comes in (because no one's ever pressured me into that stuff (yes really), it's just how I be.) Pushing high heels and femininity in general on woman is oppressive though, of course.

I've been friends with women who wear the hijab. I won't pretend that Islam is a woman-friendly religion because I know it isn't. I don't know if any woman would naturally want to wear one if they weren't told to by their family and religion all their lives. If a woman generally feels more comfortable wearing one, I have no issue with it but I would question why she feels that way. If men have such a hard time with viewing women as sex objects, the response being to cover up the women avoids the root problem. It's like a temporary fix rather than a real solution, then again patriarchy is never concerned with fixing itself.

[–]suzyquattrosshoes 24 insightful - 4 fun24 insightful - 3 fun25 insightful - 4 fun -  (9 children)

That’s amazing, you magically escaped the part of misogynist culture that objectifies women and says heels (which podiatrists universally agree are debilitating) are sexy and completely randomly chose to wear heels and do burlesque

That’s some special magic

Look we have to be willing to look critically at our own practices. You can wear heels and do burlesque but it’s denial and bad faith to pretend you somehow chose to do those things in a cultural vacuum absent of pressure.

Until COVID I wore makeup sometimes. However I was under no illusion that it was a free choice (free of pressure or consequences).

[–]fuckupaddams 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

Like I get your logic but feminine women do exist. I literally would have no consequences for not doing the things I mentioned. My mom isn't a feminine woman and didn't instill it in me, my friends are pretty gender non-conforming and I'm the only "feminine" one, and I don't think I need to forgo wearing a skirt just because of the chance that it might turn a man on. Your version of feminism seems pretty lame. I'm anti porn, critical of sex work, but I'm not anti fashion and femininity. It's literally about choice. Things aren't so black and white, and your version of feminism is gonna push away a lot of feminine women who don't want to be judged for being feminine.

[–]suzyquattrosshoes 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Wear a skirt, wear makeup if you want to - I’m not policing that. I am asking you to question the social context of those actions (more so the makeup tbh).

I’ve been a feminist for YEARS and wore at least some makeup all that time (with the awareness of what it does and is, I mean I didn’t lie to myself about it being a free choice). It took freaking COVID to get me to stop entirely. I might still wear it, if I feel like not wearing it would make life harder in a small but important way (Eg interview).

Collective action matters more than whether someone wears eyeliner, in my opinion, but not everything a woman does is feminist just because a woman does it.

[–]fuckupaddams 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

Can makeup just be neutral? Can men and women just use makeup as an art form, or as an optional beautifying tool, without it being drenched in horrible sexism and patriarchy and homophobia or whatever makeup becomes depending on whoever it's applied to? It's makeup - let whoever wants to wear it wear it, and whoever doesn't, doesn't have to. It's just pigment.

I see your point about feeling like you need it for things like an interview. It shouldn't be that way. But does it being that way automatically make makeup oppressive? The attitudes of men regarding women without makeup needs to change, for sure. But is wearing makeup always a defense against those attitudes of men?

I mean I didn’t lie to myself about it being a free choice

Do you think it could never be a free choice for women to wear makeup? What if she genuinely grew up not being forced to perform femininity (hippie parents for example) but ended up deciding she likes makeup anyway?

[–]suzyquattrosshoes 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Makeup could be neutral in an alternate universe where either a) men in whatever class of work we’re ALSO punished or even fired for not wearing makeup, b) men were actively encouraged to wear makeup at a rate equal to women, or c) no one was particularly targeted by a culture wrt makeup.

Since none of those is true and since actually what happens instead is that girls and women are inundated with images of women being objectified through makeup, in all media, from birth on, and since women are defined in our culture primarily as vehicles of access to sex, and since women are dehumanized on this basis, and since makeup mystifies similarity and justifies dehumanization, even if your mother (and mine fwiw) didn’t wear makeup, yeah no it’s not neutral.

[–]fuckupaddams 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Here's a question I often wonder. Do we act in terms of the universe we currently live in, or the universe we want to live in? Do we get to the universe we want to live in without doing the latter?

I'm not being rhetorical. In terms of feminism, do we emphasize women as victims (the sad reality thus far) or emphasize women as agents of their own autonomy (the reality we want to see?)

I think healthy feminism acknowledges both. We can't pretend women aren't oppressed and we need to tackle that oppression, but we also won't get out of oppression by only ever framing women as being victims with no agency.

For what it's worth, in my little town of nyc things are shifting just a bit. I am often the only girl at work wearing makeup. At my last job, I'd talk about makeup with my (gay) male coworker who also wore makeup. We need to shift our conversations to include the ways that things are shifting. Sexism is still out there (no shit, I'm a feminist) but the conversation has to be updated sometimes, too.

[–]Anna_Nym 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree with you. In my goth days, I wore makeup as a tool of self-expression. Goth makeup was not the culturally acceptable form of makeup for women and women and men both wore heavy makeup. That was back in the day when goths regularly did full face of elaborate design. No one pressured me into it. If there was any pressure, it was away from it because people considered this form of makeup weird and sometimes scary.

This is a completely different context and way of relating to makeup than my mother waking up early to put on a full face of makeup because her career would be penalized if she didn't. I have never worn a full face of makeup to work, although I do occasionally put on mascara to hide looking worn out or sick.

Context matters.

[–]VioletRemi 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I was wearing goth make up and cloths mostly as form of protest, especially in work spaces, as people were saying I was clothing not appropriatelly and not feminine enough, or that I am not appropriate by being lesbian (I even lost one job for being lesbian, and I was not even coming out, they just saw me kissing woman). So I went full opposite "I will show you how real not appropriate looks".

Plus I was heavily depressed, so depressive music was helping to overcome struggless.

This is a completely different context and way of relating to makeup than my mother waking up early to put on a full face of makeup because her career would be penalized if she didn't.

Reminded me this song for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw85IkkdNbw

[–]suzyquattrosshoes 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Wearing makeup = / = having agency.

[–]fuckupaddams 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay