Have you ever wondered why is that smart women shown in media don’t usually wear makeup while the vain ones are usually portrayed as dumb and futile? Well, that’s because at some point in time it was established that men are supposed to be the rational ones, meaning that intelligence became associated with masculine features. Consequently, femininity is completely subjugated and oppressed even as a form of expression.
Historically, hegemonic masculinity has been largely favored over femininity, which is why artistic expressions such as makeup, still mostly seen as a woman’s practice, are simply considered shallow. As an example, a study by the University of New South Wales in Australia recently showed that women who wore “too much makeup” were seen, by both men and women, as less intelligent and more likely to have casual sex. My first issue here is who gets to decide what’s “too much” or not but the person who’s wearing the makeup? Secondly, the fact that in 2021 people still think vanity has anything to do with how smart you are or even how sexually active you are is just awful. These results show how misogyny is still very much present in our society, which degrades any expression femininity unless it pleases men.
Female rivalry
As a woman, growing up in a misogynistic society means being taught from a very early age to despise traditional femininity, something we now know as internalized misogyny. Once again, media plays a big part in it by constantly showing female rivalry, pick-me girls, slut-shaming and other related practices as seemingly normal. Hating on femininity was also usually accompanied with a huge superiority complex that made us all proudly say “I’m not like other girls”, as if there was a problem with that.
Misogyny
But here’s the thing, at the same time we’re taught to hate on femininity, we’re also encouraged to embrace it. Confusing, right? Well, that’s the dilemma women and people who express femininity face every single day. If we choose to wear makeup and get all dressed up, we’re considered futile like we only care about our looks. On the other hand, if we choose to challenge beauty norms, we’re seen as careless, like we’re “not even trying”. So, it seems we just never have it easy.
As you can see, the reason why female vanity is always associated with futility is that we live in a misogynistic society in which we learn that femininity is not something to be valued, most of the time. With that said, despite all the advancements we made in the past few years, there’s still a long road ahead. Personally, I feel that there’s reason to be optimistic for the future as we teach younger generations to deconstruct sexist stereotypes. However, that’s not enough, right now we need to keep calling out these behaviors and hold people accountable for them.
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The article above was edited by Larissa Mariano.
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