CLAUD

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

a fashionable crisis, making up the trouble

These days, I've been having a personal crisis of sorts...

I think feminine literature has screwed my mind too much that I lost track of what is 'really out there'.

By feminine literature, I don't mean magazines like Vogue, or Cleo. I mean literature written about the contraptions of women, or just about women in general.

Is makeup a form of female subordination, or a source of female individualism. We choose to cover our flaws with concealors that come in 108310283 forms and colours, shave our eyebrows so we can draw them back again, and try to make our eyes larger through faux lashes and eyeliners.

Are women 'made' to do this so they can be attractive to males? Is this all a mating game?

In the animal kingdom, strangely, it's the males who do the attracting and females who are being attracted (i.e. male peacocks, lions, plants). In the human kingdom, it's the males who are attracted and the females who do the attracting.

Suppose there is something wrong with this picture? Then again, some people might argue that humans are different. How different we are begs another arena of discourse entirely.

I think on one hand we want to be different, and on the other hand we embrace being part of the norm. It's really like a entrapment of sorts. Say no woman on this planet wants to put makeup, then it would be the norm right? Then women would have to assert their individualistic qualities more in perhaps their work, their status etc.

However today, the use of cosmetic products is the norm. We see people with make up, we are constantly told to put some before meeting a client and make up is a must during special occasions like weddings and photo shoots.

As more people are caught in the norm of things, then people also want to assert their individuality yet not be entirely different. That's why I think we have 229319212 shades of eyeshadow (which I'm an addict of) and 989428 types of foundation. I want to be the same, but different.

I think fashion follows the same line of arguement...we want to be seen with the crowd, yet also be different. That's why there's jeans, and there's DESIGNER jeans.

It can be a case for distinguishing social classes, or it can be another way to tell someone about who you are as a person - which is why magazines constantly dub make up looks as 'Flirty', 'Naturale', 'Punk'....

A handful of bold people I know do not embrace it and will not. I envy their courage and feel that their resistance is perhaps what the feminist scholars are fighting for. And then if I look on the other bank, there's this overwhelming pull towards the 'norm'.

Sometimes we ask ourselves why we put make up? It's because we want to look prettier, more presentable. For who and for what purpose?

I still am not giving up because life is much more complex than that. Make up can be a way a woman tells her beloved that she wants to look prettier for him, even if he does not care. It's the same way a man wants to be taller for his girlfriend/wife because he thinks he can be more 'comforting' - although both cases, the opposite party might not even give a damn.

It's more than just powders and palettes, and that's kinda like a rhetorical question right?

Somehow I tend to test the waters first, if everyone doesn't care whether I powdered up today or not, then for this group of people, it won't be necessary =)

But there's another world, another sphere of existence that mandates one to cover up pimples and freckles.

I guess the solution is to find a middle ground, to dress and react accordingly to the sphere you are walking in. We can't exactly change the world at once, but I think once people start to lose their guard, one day we'll find that we no longer need those products.

Although frankly, I don't think I'll live to see that day. HAHAHA!

YES, I still blame the cosmetic advertisements. Everytime I walk by one, I admire it's aesthetic of the photography, and then feel like pasting a very big sticker saying 'THIS IS PHOTOSHOPPED'.

Just writing something to ease my troubled mind...

17:05