My whole problem with the “I do makeup for ME! I’m EMPOWERED when I put on makeup!” discourse is that it completely erases the fact that women aren’t actually given the ability to MAKE that choice. It’s impossible to say that you’re doing it for self empowerment, or that “if it wasn’t so much fun I wouldn’t do it” because that’s just not true. Women who enjoy doing their makeup and women who don’t enjoy doing it both have equal pressure to wear makeup. Whether you enjoy the process or not, you will be taken less seriously as a woman, valued less, respected less, considered ‘unprofessional’ at work, etc. if you choose not to wear makeup. Men aren’t faced with the decision to get an extra hour of sleep or to be taken seriously. By writing it off as a cool empowering fun thing women do as an exciting entertaining hobby we’re just…. erasing the entire institution of makeup and of beauty standards that seriously harm women. If you enjoy doing makeup that’s great, that’s fine, and you should keep it up! But wearing makeup in the first place wasn’t ever your choice. We don’t GET a choice. I hate people saying “oh you don’t have to wear it! If you don’t like makeup don’t put it on!” As if I’m expected to just be cool with the way the world will treat me if I don’t conform to modern beauty standards! If you’re worrying about your eyebrows or lip plumpness or skin tone evenness that’s not you making a free willed cool decision to feel insecure and concerned about facial features that men never have to think twice about. That’s you thinking in a way you’ve been trained to think! And people wanna pretend that putting on makeup is Empowering… what the hell is empowering about making a choice that’s been forced on us since we were old enough to be seen as sexual objects lmfao… that’s bullshit that doesn’t empower me and having to give up valuable time and money and energy that men are never asked to give up makes me feel like shit!! It makes me miserable! It makes me dread every single morning because I know I’m gonna be putting forward all this bullshit labor just to exist and be taken seriously in my stupid body

A+ post. I would like to add, as well, that this sudden emergence of make up being cool and empowering for women comes directly from make up companies and Sephora, in particular. When I worked at Sephora they told us, in a hundred different and equally veiled ways, that the trick to getting people to buy something is to make them want it. When you need something you become restricted by the thing, but when you want something you’re exercising your free will. We were told we were “celebrating beauty” and making people comfortable in their own skin but in reality we were slinging $30 concealers at 15 year old girls who don’t understand that the skin around their eyes is thinner and therefore always darker. We were pushing eyeliner and mascara in “fun” colors to get young girls into make up under the guise of self expression. And the women who worked with me would go on and on about how their make up ritual was for them and how it was their “war paint” but then they would confess they felt uncomfortable leaving the house without a full face on. Most annoying to me was the short lived emergence of the naturally flawless skin trend. When I started at Sephora the trend was matte everything, full coverage foundation and strong controuring. It was a lot of make up to wear everyday and when summer came there was the biggest swing I’ve ever seen in trends where girls wanted BB creams and sheer foundations, no contouring, just the bare bones. From that we noticed a lot of people coming in for skincare. There were girls walking through the store with huge water bottles asking for sunscreen and face washes and Sephora was having NONE of that. It felt like a step in the right direction, taking care of your skin, protecting it from the sun, drinking water, and most importantly, it felt like the trends we’re moving away from “cover your flaws” to more of a self-care aspect (I’m very aware that the same motivations were behind the skincare trend but it wasn’t as sinister feeling). Sephora soon came out with the Celebrating Beauty focus where we were supposed to push the empowering effects of make up to people who weren’t in the store for make up. “Oh I see you’re buying a face wash for dry skin; let me show you this foundation that hydrates and gives a natural glow.” The goal was to get people buy make up in large quantities, not skin care. Sephora actively quashed teen girls’ attempts to take a step in the right direction by telling them make up is empowering. They are financially invested in the belief that make up is empowering.

Simone Segouin was a French resistance fighter during WWII. She managed to capture 25 Nazis in the Chartres area and killed several others, all before her 20th birthday.

Yoshiko Fukushima - That Day

Home alone, Jordyn McGeachin

Portraits of Women with Vegetable Weapons by Tsuyoshi Ozawa