Why do we need to stop makeup shaming?

Makeup shaming is a term used in the English language. It refers to a situation where a person is shamed or humiliated for using make-up. The process of ‘makeup shaming’ starts from home and goes through school or college and is found in every corner of the world. According to the patriarchal society, women’s make-up or adornment is a way of seducing, attracting men. The act of seduction is due to the nature of those women whose character has been given different types of tags by this understanding. For this reason, society believes that girls should be kept away from doing makeup and fashion, otherwise they will drown the ‘respect’ of the house along with their character.

Why does society blame women who use makeup?

More reactions are given to her applying lipstick than the violence against women in the country, and her character is questioned. Society has succeeded in dividing women into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ by using this method of patriarchal thinking. The adjective ‘good’ is used for women who care about their dress according to the rules of the patriarchy and ‘bad’ is used for girls who wear dark lipstick or make-up and choose their own clothes. This patriarchal society says that ordinary girls who do not wear make-up are only for ‘love’. Conversations with makeup-laden girls should be limited to flirting. From internet meme accounts to comedians, they often succeed in promoting makeup shaming. This mentality has to be faced by women and all those who use make-up regularly. By rejecting them, society imposes its patriarchal norms on them. Like women make up for men or men will lose their masculinity if they use makeup.

Patriarchal society has a role in makeup up shaming

In today’s world, celebrities from film, art, and social media usually promote the preaching of ‘Self Love’ by posting their makeup-free faces. They may not have bad intentions. According to popular belief, applying makeup means that the wearer is hiding their ugliness. YouTube’s makeup artists are regularly made the part of intimidating, absurd pranks because it’s wrong for a patriarchal society to use all that stuff. However, patriarchy does not leave its duplicity here either. According to this society, it is necessary to have fair skin, pink lips, black eyes, long eyelashes, hair, beautiful nose, ears, white teeth in a woman. It is not that such standards are found only in India. Where there are women, it is normal to have these parameters. The capitalist and patriarchal society provided makeup to women to buy the confidence lost due to these so-called parameters of beauty, and now it is punishing women by shaming them.

Makeup products are made keeping in mind the fair complexion

For a long time, make-up companies were only run by people who never used makeup or who made makeup only for their needs, i.e. men and white women. That is why even today there are many flaws in makeup. Makeup products like foundation are available in the market in only a few colors. Most of the products are made keeping in mind the fair complexion. Efforts have been made to make makeup inclusive for some time now, but the results of these efforts are being seen only in some countries. As such, there has been an increase in the number of African, Latin, Asian, trans women’s rights not only in the American cosmetic industry but also for women.

In India even today, apartheid, hatred towards homosexuals, casteism dominate in the field of makeup. This entire industry has been confined to a few sections. We need to stop makeup shaming. One way to stop makeup shaming is to get rid of the hatred of the queer community and toxic masculinity. Through makeup, women are given a suitable opportunity to experiment on their femininity, sexuality. This was the point of lipstick feminism in Third Wave Feminism. This feminism believes in reclaiming aspects of femininity that were previously viewed as powerless and despised. However, there have also been many criticisms of it. Feminism is about giving women full autonomy over their bodies, not about discriminating against women using make-up. There is a need to shame the capitalist patriarchal thinking.

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