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 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
36. To the Morons Who Wear Make-up
1.
There's the ageism you're perpetuating: make-up is intended, to
a large degree, to make one look younger. In many respects, younger
is better, but in many respects, it isn't (and anyway, make-up merely
gives you the appearance of being younger). True, at some point
in time, being old is completely the pits, but hey, that's life,
deal with it - without delusion or deception (or implied insult).
2.
(a) If make-up were merely intended to (attempt to) make one beautiful,
well, I suppose there's no harm in that - the world can always use
a little more beauty. However, I despair at the pathetically low
aesthetic standards in use if a blue eyelid is considered beautiful
- let's at least see a glittering rainbow under the eyebrow arch!
Further, I despair at the attention to beauty of skin if at the
expense of beauty of character.
(b)
However, make-up is intended as much, if not more, to (attempt to)
make one sexually attractive. (To some extent, I suppose physical
beauty is sexually attractive, but that suggests a very narrow definition
of beauty: a dog running full-out is beautiful to behold but not,
at least to me, in any way sexually attractive.) (It also suggests
a very narrow definition of sexual attractiveness.) I'm thinking,
for example, of reddened lips - what is that but an invitation to
fellatio? Consider too the perfume (especially if musk rather than
floral), and the earrings (earlobes as erogenous zones), and the
bras that push up and pad - all are part of the woman's morning
grooming routine, her 'getting ready' (that phrase itself begs the
question 'Ready for what?') ('Sex!').
Now
there's nothing wrong with being sexually attractive per se. But
there is something wrong - something sick - about wanting to be
bait (sexually attract-ive) all day long. Especially when those
same women complain about the attention they receive for their sexual
attractiveness - the looks, the comments, the invitations (can you
say 'sexual harassment'?) Not only is there a serious self-esteem
problem here, there's a serious consistency of thought problem here.
3.
(a) Combine 1 with 2(a) and we see another problem: make-up endorses
the '(only) young is beautiful' attitude.
(b)
Combine 1 with 2(b): make-up endorses the '(only) young is sexually
attractive' attitude.
(c)
Add the shaved legs and armpits (and eyeliner, for that big baby
doe-eyed look?) (how does mascara fit in here?), and we see we're
not just talking 'young' as in 'twenty years old' but as in pre-pubescent
(only pre-pubescents are hairless, have such smooth skin). And that's
really disturbing - to establish/reinforce the sexual attractiveness
of pre-pubescents.
Why
is it (we think) men find young women, girls, sexually attractive?
I doubt it's just the 'healthy for childbearing' thing. Because
actually, it's not healthy for girls to bear children, and it's
not even possible for pre-pubescents to do so. (And it's not like
the men follow up in nine months to claim their progeny.) (But then
I'm assuming rational behaviour here.)
I
suspect it's the power thing. Men can have power over, feel superior
to, children more easily than adults. So in addition to encouraging
child sexual abuse, women who shave their legs and otherwise appear/act
prepubescent are reinforcing the 'sex as power' instead of 'sex
as pleasure' attitude (though of course I guess for many men power
is pleasure).
4.
Compounding all of this is the custom that only women wear make-up.
Which reinforces the whole patriarchy thing: the women are sexual
objects while the men are sexual subjects ('course, without make-up,
and losing 20 pounds, and, well, major surgery, most men couldn't
cut it as sexual objects anyway); the women are infantilized while
the men are (apparently) adult; etc.
.
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated mid March 2004
Previous
polemics
35.
34.
33.
32.
31.
30.
29.
28.
27.
26.
25.
24.
23.
22.
21.
20.
19.
18.
17.
16.
15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
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