A serious woman

It suddenly occurred to me why that makeup "Room For Debate" hit such a nerve.What the makeup conversation is really about, if you dig a bit, is whether it's acceptable for a woman to want to look good to men. To men generally, to the men she finds attractive, or to only her boyfriend or husband - the number of men is not the issue here. And it's not so much that makeup itself attracts men (and it can, in subtle ways - the men who profess to liking a woman with a half-inch layer of foundation on are few and far between), as that wearing it - often if not always - announces the intention to do so. But this, I think, gets at why we're incapable of having a straightforward discussion about women's motivations for wearing the stuff. The various defenses of wearing it tend to involve a great deal of insisting that this is something women do for themselves, because it's like art, but god forbid because they want to appeal to the opposite sex. 'I do it for me,' as if 'me' couldn't possibly want a dude. Yet I think we realize, on some level, that most women are interested in attracting at the very least one man at any given time. Makeup use represents women desiring men, pursuing them, even. Which makes us uncomfortable.

As for why it makes us uncomfortable, it comes down to a three separate and somewhat contradictory issues. First is that it's taboo, in an outdated, misogynistic, "The Rules" sense, for women to want men. (The 'Ew, gross, this guy totally asked me out, who does he think he is?' line of thought.) It's seen as less feminine for a woman to pursue a man, and also as futile - either you do it for him or you don't, so why humiliate yourself by asking the question? Along the same lines, a woman who says, look, yes, I wear makeup because it makes me look more attractive to men, is saying that without it, she doesn't look so hot. This is the opposite of what men want to hear, because they unanimously demand 'natural' beauty. The effort can't be visible. Thus the very women wearing makeup to attract men could well be the ones most likely to make a fuss about how they barely wear any at all, just a teensy bit, nothing more. It's shameful to be seen trying. It ruins whichever archaic dance.

Next is the ostensibly feminist 'male gaze' argument - one that defines male-female relationships as about a woman's desire to appeal to men/some men/a particular man. This, I suppose, comes from second-wave feminism - this notion that just as a woman can never choose to wear makeup in a society that demands that self-presentation of them, a woman can never be attracted to men/a man except within the context of a society that demands that she find a dude. It's the idea that female heterosexuality is inherently submission to the patriarchy, and never just about, you know, most women being wired the same as we modern folks understand gay men to be. Indeed, as I've argued here before (links to the various posts assembled here), it is this understanding of female heterosexuality that leads some women to identify half-seriously as gay men trapped in women's bodies.

A third, something of a depoliticized version of the second, is that a woman who likes men, a girl who likes boys, is less serious of a person than one who doesn't get what all the fuss is. As a kid, were you the nerdy, bookish girl who felt alienated when your childhood girlfriends began swooning over male classmates or rock stars? Whereas we basically expect boys and men to desire someone, in most cases women, and don't think a boy is less serious, a man less intellectual or capable, if he sees Beauty and responds in one way or another. It doesn't detract from a man's respectability to love, lust, whatever, because the male perspective on romance is, you know, Art. But also because when a girl or woman desires, this is assumed to be the desire to get a boyfriend, get a husband, raise some kids. That, or - goes the thinking - she's effectively a prostitute. A serious woman with a life of her own won't get tied down by any man, neither a Wall Street tycoon nor a slacker. While adult women are sometimes able to reconcile this approach with, well, hormones, we-as-a-society continue to love the idea of the tomboy who just has more going on in the brain department than her boy-crazy peers. So this relates to the much-discussed slut-stud dichotomy, but that doesn't get at all of it.

Anyway, long and blathery story short, a woman who wears makeup to look good for men/a man disappoints traditional feminists as well as gender-role traditionalists. Progressives and reactionaries alike, albeit for different reasons, find female desire for men suspicious as well as basically incomprehensible. We-as-a-society on some level understand that desire for men is what's behind much if not most if not virtually all makeup usage. Thus, we must talk around the elephant in the room, and pretend that makeup is innocent self-expression or this dreadful chore one must do to look appropriate at the office.