A friend of mine recently raised some money for charity by
going a day without wearing make-up. As
she was a make-up ‘connoisseur’, if you will, this was pretty traumatic for
her, especially since the day she went without make up involved a fancy
ball. It’s been a while since this event
and it’s just occurred to me that I have no idea what went on. I hope she didn’t die.
Anyway, it got me thinking a little about why it is that
girls wear make up in the first place, and how BLOODY ANNOYING it is when men
think that girls only put it on because we are terrified of being seen as we
really are, or something. There was a
meme going around a while back that followed this kind of theme; I will
replicate it here (though it is obviously by no means original):
And it was met with various responses along these lines:
Almost all my past boyfriends have said to me that I
actually look BETTER without make-up on than with it. I don’t know if this is because I’m terrible
at applying make-up or if they are being genuine, but, while I know
they mean well, it can actually get a wee bit annoying, especially when I've made an extra effort to look nice on a special occasion.
The thing is, I like wearing make-up. It’s fun.
Just the same as I like wearing pretty clothes and doing my hair all
nice. A lot of men seem to believe that
when girls dress up and put their faces on, it is purely for their
benefit. They then, because of their utter benevolence, think it appropriate to assure us that we don’t need to make an
effort. “You’re beautiful as you are,”
they’ll say, as if we’re some crippled butterfly that needs 24 hour self-esteem
maintenance.
I have got into a few arguments about this with men; I
assure them that the reasons girls like to dress up and such are far more
numerous and complicated than simply getting a man; we may want to look smart,
for example, if we’re going to work and having a massive spot in the middle of my face just looks a bit messy.
When I’m on stage I need to accentuate my eyes. Often we want to show off in front of other
girls, or, most likely for me, it’s because I think there may be people taking
photos and I want to look good in them so I can look back at them in 40 years
and say- “CRUMBS I was a stunner in those days!” And laugh fondly at the
memories. Apparently, though, this is
all just in our heads, and really, subconsciously, unless we’re lesbians, it
all comes down to impressing the opposite sex.
“Duck…” I’ve had said to me several times, “that’s may be why you THINK
you’re doing it, but, subconsciously, it’s all about impressing men.”
This argument is especially frustrating because there’s no
possible counter to it. Perhaps they’re
right and it all is just subconscious, but if we’re saying that, it reduces
almost every human behaviour to being sexually, or, at least, romantically motivated.
A lot of cynics actually do believe this, and perhaps they are right;
again, there is no possible argument against it, but by GUM I hope they are
wrong. Humans are special and wonderful beings, regardless if you believe in a higher being or not; the amount of things we have created and understood in our relatively short stay on this earth, is utterly
staggering. Perhaps all this behaviour
can be reduced to sexual foreplay, but that is utterly depressing and I’d
rather not believe it. Surely we are more advanced than animals, as cute and as fluffy as they are? Surely?
Which gets me back to make-up again. We have a wonderful gift in this day and age
in that it is not necessary for us to go about dressed in dirty sheets and only
washing at weekends. We have the tools
that allow us to be creative; not only in things like art and music, but with
ourselves…we can make over our bodies and minds and we have the luxury of
having time to do this; at least, the luckiest of us do. Why throw all of that away for the sake of
appearing insecure? Of course, when people have about 26 separate operations in order
to make themselves look like a cat (which HAS been done) I am inclined to
believe there is a line somewhere, but I would not try to define this line
myself.
So when I walk past a group of men wearing a colourful
minidress with my hair in curls because I want to look FABULOUS for the sake of
looking fabulous, I don’t expect to be received with rudeness when I don’t
thank them profusely for the whistling and cat-calls I hear. Don’t get me wrong; compliments are great- it’s
always nice to know that any effort I have put in has been observed, not
necessarily because I want to impress anyone, but simply in virtue of me having
put in an effort. It’s very difficult, however, to
react when you’re whistled at; usually I just smile weakly and carry on
walking, but I have no idea what the men actually want me to say and do. Once, as an experiment, I did the following:
This was proof to me that, at least sometimes, when girls
are whistled at, it’s not for the benefit of the girl, but in order to look a
certain way to other males. It, surely, can't be about sex at all, because they must know it’s not particularly endearing to
girls and can sometimes make them feel very uncomfortable. One could argue that it all essentially boils
down to sex because the men want to assert dominance in their ‘pack’ in order
to attract the best women, but, again, this is a wee bit depressing. These men seem affronted when a girl doesn’t
accept the ‘compliment’ they have given, but if they DO accept the compliment,
the men are utterly bemused. It’s a
great tip for confusing people, and I’d advise everyone to have a go.
Just in case I get accused of being sexist, let me tell you
that I don’t enjoy women whistling or yelling at men, either, and would certain
not partake in that kind of activity myself.
As a girl, my experiences will be restricted to having experiences that
girls have, so my writing may seem a little biased at times. Whistling or
cat-calling is not something positive, but something pretty negative in my
opinion, and, rather than making me feel empowered, it generally makes me feel
insecure, as if because I’ve managed to dress in a certain way, do my hair and maintain my weight, the people qualified to judge whether or not I have achieved this to a certain standard are
congratulating me, assuring me of my worth as a human being, as if I didn’t
know I had worth already.
The issue of girls wearing ‘sexually provocative’ clothing
is a whole other kettle of fish; do girls ‘ask for it’ if they wear a low-cut
top? I don’t think so. Often, girls WILL
wear low cut tops and short skirts to show themselves off to the opposite sex,
as men might do with certain clothes as well to show off to women. I’m not denying that at all. What I object to is the notion that you can
tell EXACTLY what a girl is thinking and what she wants by the clothes she is
wearing. We are much more complicated
than that. Besides, even if we DO wear clothes purely to attract the opposite sex, we're not necessarily saying that EVERY MAN/WOMAN WILL SUFFICE, we could just be saying- "hey; I may be looking to get lucky tonight, but not necessarily with YOU." Or alternatively, "I am poor and the only top I own has shrunk in the wash, and someone spilt orange juice on my skirt which is why I turned it up to make it shorter." There could be a whole host of reasons. Today, for example, even
though the only person I talked to was somebody in McDonalds, I spent a large
proportion of my afternoon walking around my room and sitting on my bed with
the bottom of my jumper twisted and pulled through the neck (you know, like we
used to always do at Primary school…) so as to reveal a healthy dosage of tummy
to anyone looking. Nobody, apart from a
couple of my soft toys, noticed my fashion statement, and I couldn’t care
less. I did it for fun. Sometimes people do things because they are
fun, as unbelievable as that is.
The trouble with make-up and particularly extravagant clothes
is that they appear to be some kind of mask; in the case of make-up, that is
almost literal. I admit that if I were
to see a girl plastered in fake tan with massive false breasts I would be the
first to assume that she ‘must have some kind of insecurity in order to do that to
herself.’ The fact is, though, humans are ridiculous creatures and the reasons
why we do what we do are a total mystery.
Perhaps the girl is incredibly insecure about her looks, or perhaps she
wants to look that way because it’s fun.
Perhaps she fell into a vat of gravy and absorbed a pair of melons into her chest; we will never know. I will endeavour not to judge people for the
way they look, but this is a hard task when our minds naturally want to find
similarities between people and perhaps notice patterns of human behaviour when there aren't any. There doesn’t need to be a reason for me
choosing to wear neon pink make-up and a wedding dress to McDonalds; if I want
to do it, I jolly well will.
