Beauty & the (getting there, in-a-heart)-Beat.
This is hardly “usual” in my lineup of cultural commentary.
But, as i was viewing this on YouTube, and realised a few things in history -a pleasant rote-memory of family - i decided to write this barely something of an article that i would use for a college or post-grad application - unless you were taking up Chemistry or Coding genomes for behavioural research - because, that probably would be interesting*.
This articles a preview or a slice of a cultural hashtag (that is now a Billion dollar makeup industry) which is #Beauty per se, and in its effects on illustrating the generational gaps we have as women. Brooke, in the video — was about a generation in between me and my mother, and that meant that her routine was a by-product of the socio-economic milieu at that point (globally, we are pretty much interconnected and America largely was a global influence since about the Cold War ended in the 90s, or the second world war, after the invention of TV and mass media reached the continents).
Culturally, we think of #Vanity, #Beauty, #Commercial applications, #Luxury, #Lifestyle, #Modelling, #Pageantry, overall #Shallow pursuits, and all the preconditions that associated this with not being #Pure, or inability to be #Kept proper. And these become the pundits of shock today -having modernity come upon us, and sneak up when we least expect it to. And the adjust to it, makes us all feel a little unworthy in our ways. (And even to my opinion, existing in my most extreme advanced state of modernity, i came up a little “wanting”.) I mean, we are Not the royals. But we probably reflect these in our upbringing, and lately, need for being “up to date” as we take off our usual habits (allergies to disorder, attempts to excessiveness, breaking 60mph neighbourhood limits, dis-taste for innuendo, likening crassness as a level beneath us to express our feelings with - however extreme they may be at ºpoint, and “letting people in” our thoughts) - despite ourselves, for aiming to instead, understanding the other shoe.
So, growing up mostly among women, my childhood was spent half-watching animé dubbed in english, and half-seeing (mesmerically) our mothers “put on their faces” - golden compact powder on their cheeks, golden lipsticks and Oil of Olay on their skin, which made them and cousins put on makeup in the 70s-80s didn’t make me want to put any, but certainly got intrigued when the palettes were piled on dressers, and i just thought they were art supplies in fancier packaging, until much much later.
I didn’t fancy these things until late in my forties -to my husband’s chagrin- who must’ve hoped he married a man instead of someone who put on tonnes of makeup, without a real party to go to. Earlier, it was “work makeup” or suncream, as a function to a place headed to, and friends at dinner slide of lip balm, and pump of cologne. Now, there is the grandeur of every bit of my dresser being half-filled with globs of makeup you put on (like the thespians we watch on stage, or at concerts), to half-filled with things to take them off, and patting down your glowing red skin after having rubbed them off. The agitation correctly suffice the profile of women to denudedly allay themselves the time and effort to keep this on a daily routine, now with an excuse to “make YouTube videos”, without real occupation to except to “test it out for the masses” before you buy the products, as self-appointed brand specialists - but also, because they simply fancy buying (and wearing) it.
It is on the one hand, out of hand - and on the other quite mesmeric in the continuous delusion that we are entertained. (Not a dig at the women, and their rights to occupy their privilege of time, in any way at all — or a backhanded commentary by a woman who got outwitted by women who have endless “me-time”, at my expense at caring for their offspring who happen to be friends of mine.) Illigitemately, we are equivocally permitted to hustle the heck out of our lives the (very privileged in the phenomena of the overly entitled) outcomes that we pervaded as neanderthal and yet somehow dig at ourselves for succumbing to it, from time to time -the cyclic masochistical quality of how we suffer, and expect people to come to our aid, knowing it was an unjustified time expense, simply had to come from a denied era of mel-gibsonic proportions on “what women want” (and probably, still haven’t really gotten).
On this, there’s what they “actually” want (and set out to achieve but fail or succeed to), and what they “gameface” want (when they haven’t figured it out, and seriously feel oppressed by the time it takes for them to conjure thoughts about it.) Maybe, it ought to be a book, not a college-grade thesis paper.
(You can put that in a video.)
We weren’t pre-conditioned to be women. We grew up knowing and thinking that “anything was allowed” - on clothes, on books, on how we spend our time mostly (but not where, and with whom) - and things that our dad had “shared” with us, that was considered proper - time with us, mostly around errands and social visits (which i must say, shaped how i was as a mother, as well as a person).
But mothers, generally -were in charge of our education: piano at 6, gold flats at 8, tutus & dancing ballet and jazz 12, and none of the sports training bras until i needed them for varsity representation - the horror in their faces when i asked for shin guards, or soccer boots! (Priceless.) And we had mostly, the brilliant suncream for all-year-summer, and then moisturiser for planes, or trips that required us to supplement the oncoming dryness or abrupt moisture-decrease due to altitude — like in mountain climbing, or heading out to colder or arrid climates.
But, it wasn’t a lesson *for women*. Or to *be women*. Or to have a certain way, *as women*.
That seemed more an “other asian” training -after meeting up japanese, burmese and thai exchange students in organisations at school, we certainly were made aware that they wore skirts, because they were women, not as an option for school. (Which men never had unless they were Scottish, obviously.)
The real glory of women, is that we have a commonality over time - not in the sniping of our cycles at waning stages of hormonal stages, or of our inability to arrest our cortisol-collisions that all appear later in life. After being in such control, and later losing to it - and having our emotions depended upon these chemical balances to a tee, all our lives, we are surrendered to it at the summits of our lives, having no real “natural gear” to the substances that oxidate us. External factors, or internal struggles for tipping over the balance with antioxidants, or cortisol crushing diets, would stil just supplement, and not be “our natural running levels”.
We have embargoed empathy, in our own terms. Both, as part of a gender-functioning half of the planet, but also - as a campaign to be more understanding (as a maslow) to human beings, without necessarily needing to action on it (as a warning to doing something on a wrong assumption), which balances out all the social mediating, in the past 20 years.
It could be thanks to either a learned medium (information formally learned), or primarily interactive (socials): Media, immediate Socials, Circles of friends, Family, Movies, characters in books (Austen and Brontë had en masse written and published for people who read), and then, there are mostly the ways in which cultural datum (infinitessemally) indelibly appear in our brains, years later have impressed upon us over time. Science and frameworks for work (How to make Social Networks or eCommerce content uploading for an every-user, on a 2D stageing CI), and are formally learned (not as fun), and Socials left us with the rest of what we could call Off-Book for the Booksmart— the fun stuff, including (how to drink, responsibly) with a healthy response to all the work done cyclically.
If this, doesn’t apply, it will be a ruling guide, and not necessarily an aim to target as a punctuation for liberalism, and feminism, that has only recently been a marker for all races, and pivoting that balance towards asking us to be understood in all these facets, not how we were treated by the men who raised us, necessarily.
That said, here comes the weekend (not a pun to the sun).
And i put out an #FTW (as a nod to years ago, when a weekend FT-peach-papered reading, makes me W), hashtag to commemorate my obsession with plans for the weekend.
And, for the first time, i actually do have plans.
