I'm 16 so I didn't really think about it from that perspective. I've always questioned these things, mostly from the age when all the girls around me started wearing make up and I just didn't want to. I couldn't be bothered with it and didn't want to have to think about not smudging it constantly, and anyway, boys don't have to wear it so why should I? But these arguments were met with "That's just how girls are," as if every girl is born with a powder brush in her hand. When I asked other girls my age why they started wearing it, they either shrugged awkwardly or said something along the lines of "I enjoy it, it's for me." Maybe it began as a way of seeking Maturity and wanting to grow up, but those same girls began to be almost terrified of going anywhere bare faced. They carried make up everywhere and if they didn't wear it one day they were met with the dreaded, "You look tired today!" The girls who didn't wear it were seen as otherly to the girls who wore a lot of it, and vice versa. The former category is basically not there anymore as time has gone on. And I know it's just make up, but I've never been given a concrete explanation regarding just why it's such a compulsive ritual for women that doesn't reek of sexism.

Long rant about that in particular, but yeah. Interesting point about it being ingrained. It would be a bit like pointing out how many people the British empire killed and their concentration camps to some of the British Empire lovers around here that claim it was Britain at their peak. So contradictory it's easiest to ignore it.