A powerful tool in our fight to preserve women’s rights may be staring us right in the face.
The answer was inside me all along!
It’s easy to take the obvious for granted, and confronting this social norm is a flashpoint for many of us.
But why is makeup mandatory? It’s obviously a holdover from older, stricter ideas of what women should be. What a corset does for the waist, contouring does for the face. And we all know it’s at least as bad for us.
I’m not going to lecture anyone about harmful chemicals or animal testing. There are plenty of other people more qualified to take on these very important issues.
I want to talk about Womanface, and how we begin taking back our identity.
In one of her many excellent videos, Vanessa Vokey spotlights an episide of a Jubilee video series called Middle Ground. Her featured episode showcases a diverse panel discussing makeup, the pressures, practices and their personal feelings.
Vanessa points out the clear double standard: “Both of the males, even though one is presenting as a man and one has altered his body to appear more like a woman, they still have basically the same attitude toward wearing makeup.
“And it’s almost a childlike attitude, this idea that putting on makeup is sort of like dress-up, putting on a costume, putting on a cape like a superhero would.”
Vanessa cuts to a woman who says she felt sorry for people having to see her bare face. Her cognitive dissonance is clear: “Makeup makes me feel very empowered and beautiful, but then I resent myself more when I take it off.”
Radical feminists in South Korea have it right: “I realized that the makeup and outfits [were] not my decision and I do not actually like it, so I choose to take off the corset.”
Their Take Off The Corset movement rebels against a culture of unattainable goals so intense, it’s driven some to take their own lives. Western culture is trending in similar directions, but circumstances have given us a moment to step back and ask ourselves if this is what we really want.
Hey, this wasn’t part of our agreement!
2020 brought many lessons, like how lipstick is completely pointless behind a mask. Foundation is invisible over Zoom and contouring looks heavy in bad light.
Masks aside, no one should be ashamed to show her natural face. We are pushed to conform and given short-term rewards if we do, but it’s time to coordinate for the long game.
Everyone everywhere has been forced to reevaluate our priorities at the same time, and we should take advantage of the chaos.
Through the new tears in the social fabric, we can glimpse strange new possibilities that were unthinkable even a few years ago. Maybe we can bring back cloaks. Maybe we can be more self-sufficient. Maybe the consumerism we were raised with is toxic bullshit.
Makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry that supports child labor, which Vanessa also covers. If we all abandon it together, we can hit capitalism and the trans movement at the same time!
It would be so simple to demonstrate that women are whole individuals. Female impersonators of all shades rely on us perpetuating the impersonal stereotypes that they steal.
If enough of us stop adhering to the standard, it’s no longer standard. Normalize your real face. Peoples’ perceptions will adjust. Challenge them to see you as you are.
The Bareface Challenge is especially harrowing for those of us who like our War Paint, but you only feel naked until life distracts you. You don’t need the Painted Veil to be presentable.
Let your presence as a woman in the world speak for itself. It’s something no man can imitate or own.
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