Cosmetics and Feminism: Who Wins?
With feminism comes a herd of conceptions and misconceptions about how one should act or what one should say in order to live up to the label and one of these misconceptions is that makeup decreases the credibility and power of a feminist.
Before jumping into conclusions, it is important to actually define what feminism is — an ideology advocating for equal rights between men and women in all sectors, be it social, political, economic, education or even employment.
Images of beautified women surface the web as well as present themselves in many of the movies, advertisements and TV shows we watch, and that most definitely includes those who are empowered and successful as well as those who aren’t.
Cosmetics are a mere personal choice and should never evolve to become an ingredient that goes against the ethics of a feminist.
Student and member of AUB’s Feminist Club, Dima Akl, shared that, “makeup doesn’t define you and the assumption that the only reason a woman wears makeup is to conform society or please men is in itself an issue. Another problem is that women and makeup is a topic that is always looked at in relation to men or societal expectations.”
The problem is that men also have the choice to groom themselves, which gives women and feminists the equal choice to wear makeup or fix their hair the way they would like to and not the way others do.
“You wear it for three reasons, pleasing society’s beauty standards, attracting others, and enjoying yourself. You can enjoy yourself with or without makeup just like men are preferably shaved and groomed. So, it’s a personal choice, if it can be understood as complying to society it doesn’t mean that that’s necessarily why you’re doing it. I like my cheeks pink because I have anemia, yellow doesn’t go on my face well when i see myself in the mirror,” student Sally Wazze commented on the topic.
Another student Ibrahim Fawaz thinks that makeup can actually aid women empowerment.
“The main argument some use is that wearing makeup is abiding by consumerist beauty standards but a lot of women, makeup and other standards are used as means of empowerment. And if that’s the case, more power to them and they have every right to do so while still being feminists. At the end of the day it’s a personal choice and I don’t think what a person wears affects them being a feminist or not,” he said.
On the other hand, Heather Jaber, a gender and sexuality researcher and team member in the KIP Project, discussed that the issue is problematic due to various aspects.
“I think it is problematic because you’re putting a very narrow window on the term feminist and I think it denies women of agency. I think women can be very powerful and that to me is being feminist, choosing what you want to wear, choosing how you want to portray yourselves,” Jaber shared.
She continued that the discourse should become about feminist acts rather than feminism in itself, in reference to a talk given by Arianne Shahvisi, PhD, assistant professor of philosophy at AUB.
“Rather than talking about who is a feminist and who is not a feminist, let’s talk about acts which are feminist, because if you want to define what a feminist is, you’re always going to be able to pick out one thing and say this is patriarchal, this is oppressive, and you’re always going to lose,” Jaber said.
Student Serra Boushebel sees makeup as a way to actually oppose the patriarchal binaries that exist in society.
“Women can crush the patriarchy while wearing whatever makeup they want. I feel a lot of the time it’s a tool of empowerment. What you put on your face doesn’t affect how much of a feminist you are. Plus, the movement has a base of women, so this shouldn’t be thought in a feminist community,” she said.
However, simply discussing this issue in an article will not change this conception very easily, which is why Jaber suggested a few ways to target the problem, one of them being changing the discourse.
“I feel like just changing the way we talk about feminism or the way we talk about confronting any sort of power imbalance. It is the everyday, it is about how you talk about it. On a day to day level, you’re talking to people, and having those questions apparent in the way you talk. We talk about these stuff all the time, feminism, gender and sexuality. And just through conversations and being very aware of the words you are using, because words are important and words carry weight, they can be very heavy,” Jaber said.
Another way of changing the notion is through seeing more images and examples in the media that support the cause.
“I already think these conceptions of feminist or gender or sexuality are becoming more blurred. But, I already think that there always these more plural representations coming up that are challenging the binaries that we are used to,” she added.
Education is also key to help solidify the argument within the minds of the next generation.
“Education is also one of the ways to confront any social issue or any kind of issues that are ingrained in us, because introducing these more fluid conceptions of what it means to be empowered or feminist, I think that needs to happen from a younger age,” Jaber said.
Women and feminists themselves should be able to show that being a feminist lies in how they act rather than in what they say, so the ball lies in their decision to make a statement or not.
“Feminism is not just about saying no, it’s about having the choice of saying yes or no,” Wazze said.
