Tom Matlack asked 12 women about their understanding of women’s relationship with beauty. Why did he hear almost nothing in response?
I like to believe I am a student of popular culture. Unlike most of my straight guy friends, I watch pretty much all the award shows (Amy Poehler stole the Emmys Sunday night, as far as I am concerned, with that spontaneous pageant routine during the best actress in a comedy award). I also have grudgingly become knowledgeable about beauty and fashion. As a columnist focused on manhood, I have certainly written and thought a lot about how men mistreat women and the ways in which we all need to rethink what it means to be good.
But my thinking has hit a bit of a stumbling block when it comes to women and beauty. My observation from talking to women of a wide variety of backgrounds and interests is that much of what happens in the general category of women and beauty is completely divorced from men. Sure there are bathing suits that require women to shave parts of their body not meant to be shaved and shoes with heels that only a member of Cirque du Soleil could handle without breaking an ankle. No doubt there are still magazines filled with women in compromising positions pushing beauty product.
My question, though, is who is the real audience here? Most guys I know would prefer to see their wife or girlfriend in jeans and a t-shirt. Red carpet dresses, the ones on which many women are fixated, look like space suits to the male eye. We are trained to say the right thing about all kinds of things that are “girl cute” but really have no bearing on whether or not, from a male perspective, a woman is attractive.
Don’t get me wrong. I am perfectly willing to accept that male oppression is alive and well when it comes to pornography, sex trafficking, and all kinds of bad shit that I and others at GMP have written about extensively. But when it comes down to female beauty itself and the massive fashion industry from magazines, to television shows, to store after store after store, I just don’t see it. Men don’t care about the stuff over which women obsess. There’s a disconnect. And while the connection between sexual exploitation and obsession with beauty is obvious, I can’t really raise a hand on behalf of men for all that has become a female addiction to beauty. I think there is certainly some part that women are doing to themselves in which we really have no involvement.
At least, I think it is worth asking whether or not that is true.
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Rather than speculate in my own little brain about this issue, I figured I would ask a dozen women who work in fashion or are media people related to the fashion industry in some way. They are all folks who comment frequently on GMP and with whom I generally have an open dialogue about pretty much anything. So I sent them this summary of my question:
I have written a lot about the acceleration of pornography and the sex trade in our country and its impact on both boys and girls. I am currently researching and just trying to get my arms around a related but different question: what is the relationship between the fashion industry and our concepts of gender? Specifically, how does fashion relate to the more obvious ways in which female sexuality is objectified?
The thing I am beginning to try to unpack is just how much of fashion occurs in an orbit that is unrelated to men. I am thinking of things like handbags, shoes, and the red carpet. Men truly don’t care or see it as a form of female sexuality. Many women care a lot.
I asked some specific questions about Alexander McQueen, handbags, the red carpet, fashion magazines, the potential innate differences between men and women, and the demise of female models as superstars.
What did I heard back? Crickets. No one wanted to take me on. Perhaps it was summer. Perhaps my outgoing email is overwhelming. Perhaps my supposed friends are sick of me. Or perhaps I hit a chord. Not sure.
The only response I got right away read:
As I’m sure you know, there are plenty of women who couldn’t care less about any of this shit.
The women you describe are alien creatures to me. Perhaps you’re not looking at “women” but at a particular demographic that involves a certain age and a certain level of money and leisure that does not include most of us?
A week later I got an answer that really puzzled me, given my preamble about having written about sexual exploitation and pornography a lot (which I have):
I would love to have you talk about the fact that in many cities in this country there is a massive sex slavery trade of immigrant women. The FBI estimates that thousands of women every year are smuggled into the US and held in sex slave operations. Only men, good men can change this. Does a guy really know, when he gets super horny or wants to do something that his wife won’t do (that he probably saw on a porn video) that the woman he is paying, really chose this for herself?
Wow, so the answer to a question about the fashion industry is sex trafficking even when I explicitly point out I am asking about something different? “Only men, good men can change this.” That line leaves me speechless. It implies that all men are guilty by association and women are completely powerless.
I have met a lot of women working damn hard to end sex trafficking who are very effective. I believe sex trafficking is despicable. That’s why I have written about it as often as I have. (Here, here, and here.) But to lay the whole issue at men’s feet is gender war talk, and it is disturbing when I am trying to understand what, if any, role women themselves play in the beauty obsession and trap. Maybe I don’t know, but talking more about sex slaves doesn’t illuminate much.
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I did finally get one response that made some sense to me (I have yet to hear from the other nine women):
It’s a way for a woman to feel both sexy AND protected. Women are in this peculiar “dance” with their sexuality. High-end fashion says, “Hey, you can look but you can’t touch.” It is telling people (mostly men, but sometimes other women) she’s a member of a club they can only get into with exclusive permission.
This writer went on:
For women, beauty (and fashion) have their own “tipping point.” A certain amount of things have to be taken care of for a woman to look “beautiful.” That’s why when someone says “she let herself go” — it means she hasn’t “tipped” into the beauty category. Or stopped tipping. So a handbag may not seem important AT ALL. But to a women who is obsessed with beauty, she can’t take the risk that it’s not right.
I have been drop-dead gorgeous twice in my life. Once from 17-24, once from 42-44. And it was all the same cycle. Beauty is an addiction. That’s why I’m not anymore.
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I am not a women. I can’t really say if beauty is an addiction. Where I come from, addiction is a self-diagnosed disease. But from the outside it makes a certain amount of sense. I see women spending endless time on things that to most men seem insane (another trademark of addiction).
I do think it perfectly appropriate to ask what originally caused this potential addiction. Is it male objectification of the female form that forces women to contort themselves in ways that even men see as odd at best and annoying at worst?
I don’t know the answer, but I think it is worth asking the question, even if no one seems to want to respond to it.
—Photo Art Comments/Flickr
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More on Women’s Obsession with Beauty
Chasing Beauty: An Addict’s Memoir
Her Looks, Your Status: Why His Claims Not to Care About Beauty Ring Hollow
The Ugly Duckling as a Gender-Neutral Beauty Ideal
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About Tom Matlack
Seems to me that women’s fashion and women’s clothing choices are sometimes about male desire and sometimes not. I find it hard to believe no one considers hetero male desire when marketing mini-skirts, thongs, thigh-high stockings, spaghetti straps, high heels, low-waisted jeans, etc. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s a hetero man alive who is turned on by the expensive designer handbag or the giant bug-eyed sunglasses. (Maybe turned on by wearing them himself, but on women? I doubt it.) If you’re sinking half your paycheck on a boutique handbag or high-end Italian heels, do not blame men for that.
Also, I don’t think male attraction explains the rapid changes in fashion or the reasons that fads rise and fall so quickly. Sure, supposedly men seek constant novelty, but on the other hand our visual fantasies are fairly well-conserved over time. Old pin-up posters have lost none of their potency. Making pink the new black and black the new pink make no difference to ones gawking. And, male attention doesn’t really explain why the hems of skirts fluctuate up and down over time.
Men have a sense of humor about womens’ clothes,and patience w/ fads.
Men react physiologically to their environment, including women. The intent behind less fabric is what is in question w/ sexism.
Women need to live w/ social reality. Fad fashions don’t work everywhere, as teen years of past.
There’s an implied purpose for adult women in society lost in silly clothes. I’m sure this is confusing to men, as well as the rest of the population.
Male attraction has nothing to do with it. Its status among women. It displays the wealth resources and incredible amount of free time and energy is needed each day to look this way. Just ask the new mother why she’s so disheveled.
I think you provide a really great insight on beauty. I as a woman personally define the term beautiful (as applied to women) as the quality that appeals to the opposite sex. Quality is a vague word, so it doesn’t necessarily mean everything from outside, neither does it mean absolutely everything from the inside. So I also think going overboard for the outward appearance is ridiculous, much worse is setting a default definition of physical beauty.
Back in my country there are plenty of women living in poverty (Indonesia), and sex trafficking is not uncommon, but there are plenty of raping incidents in the small islands surrounding Java. There was this recent case about a man getting his 12-year-old daughter pregnant. When imprisoned, he pleaded guilty and gave a reason because he had marital problems with his wife, simply said he seldom gets horny anymore with his wife and he couldn’t help it.
There was also a recent news about a graduate student doing a research on beauty and went without facing the mirror for a whole year before her wedding, studying how she feels and how different her life became without the insecurities about her appearance (http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/31/restrictive-reflection-woman-vows-to-go-one-year-without-mirrors/).
Truthfully speaking, with the media’s hype about the importance of outward appearance, everyday I face a big challenge when prepping up before I get out of the door. It’s always good to remember that I have a good man as a boyfriend, loves me at first sight but also loves me for who I am.
Great stuff. That study sounds very interesting. Will have to check it out.
You say that men don’t care, but, at least in my experience, it makes a huge difference as far as male attention goes. Until the age of 23, I lived “beauty-free” — without expensive clothes, accessories, or cosmetics. I didn’t style my hair or engage in facial depillation. My body also was a lot “closer” to the straight-sized norm: I wore small sizes and had a thin, modelesque figure. And men never paid any attention to me.
So, I “made over” my image. (Having ah igher paying job helped.) I now wear expensive, designer clothes, use high-end cosmetics, engage in all of the relevant beauty practices (mani/pedi, facials, facial hair removal). I wear make-up daily, I do my hair all the time. I wear heels, carry high-end accessories. And despite significant weight gain, I get more male attention now that I am “beautified” than I ever did before.
So, I mean. Men might consciously profess that they don’t care, or that it doesn’t matter. Usually, that’s what men tell me. But I do notice that on the days I slip out of the house in jeans and flip flops, with no make up on, etc. the same men I see around my neighborhood every day basically don’t even notice I exist.
Sabrina I wasn’t saying men don’t care, I was really asking what role men play. Your story and experience are obviously very helpful in answering that.
I think more likely the case is that women use fashion to *feel* sexy and beautiful. A confident woman is usually a more attractive woman, and so engaging in practices that make you feel more beautiful, will make you seem more beautiful, without the clothes and the makeup and the accessories being the object of that acquired beauty. It’s external change to prompt an internal change.
I recently overheard a female friend’s male fuckbuddy tell her that she was “letting herself go” when he discovered she hadn’t shaved her legs in a few days. How could that comment possibly have been about anything other than him telling her that unless she engaged in socially-mandated beauty rituals she was going to become unattractive to him? I’m not saying this guy is a stand-in for all men, but I would never claim that men don’t care about or have no influence on women’s beauty maintenance.
My experience is pretty much the same as Sabrina’s, except that I was very late to the party in finding out just how much looks matter to men. I work in several “male dominated” fields and so most of my close associates and friends are men. I heard a lot of bitching from men about how they didn’t understand why women spend 2 hours in the bathroom getting ready to go out, “she looks fine just wearing jeans,” etc. etc. and I believed them, because 1) they were intelligent perceptive guys whom I liked a great deal as human beings, and 2) I felt the same way, personally, about fashion – never cared about it. Felt more comfortable in jeans and T shirts and little or no makeup. So I would agree with them: “Yeah, that’s really stupid. They must be really insecure.”
But then I started noticing that that these same guys, as much as they enjoyed hanging around with me as a “friend,” never asked me out. They always asked girls out who spent half their life in the bathroom and half their money on makeup and wardrobe. And when I went out in the company of a (more typical) female friend, she was always the one that guys noticed – not me, even though in many cases I had much more in common with these guys, and I’m not shy or socially awkward.
For a long time, I never let this bother me. I figured “Well, that guy just isn’t the right one for me.” But once I got into my late 30s, it became obvious that I’d been deluding myself. By that time it was really too late for me to suddenly become a beauty queen, and I don’t have any desire to do that anyway. So mostly I’ve just been profoundly saddened by it all and have no idea what to do. It’s not that I think I’m ugly or anything – I just don’t want to spend all my time thinking about it one way or the other, and that is what most women feel compelled to do, and I now understand why.
I really think that asking women in the fashion industry what they think about all this was exactly the wrong crowd to ask. The fashion industry makes its very living exploiting women’s fears, and on some level they know it. It’s no wonder they wouldn’t talk to you about it. I think that most women aren’t even consciously aware of how much their sense of self worth is tied to their appearance, whether it’s how they look to men or how they look to each other in terms of their social status.
And most men aren’t aware of it either. It’s something that is deeply ingrained from early childhood (both in boys and girls) and most people never think about it or take any steps to overcome it, and we all lose.
Well fashion and beauty are two different things. It’s beauty that men are interested in and fashion that women (and gay men to some extent) are interested in. To be sure, a relatively plain looking woman can become beautiful given the right application of fashion (which I will include makeup in this), but the type of beauty that men desire is something a woman has or does not have and fashion cannot help her attain. When it’s all said and done, men don’t care about shoes and bags and false eyelashes and the feminine accoutrements of fashion.
They care about your hair, your eyes, your smile and most importantly how hot your body is. That type of woman is evident independent of whatever paint or costume she is wearing. Fashion helps women believe they can achieve beauty a natural endowment by wearing the right things. Many women often only feel feminine and attractive IF they are wearing the right things.
Real girls participate in fashion. Adornment is part of the feminine role and it’s done to separate us from the guys. Just like a lot of men believe football, spittin’, NASCAR and beer = masculinity. Femininity = striving to look pretty with makeup clothes accessories and beauty treatments. It’s part of our identity as a woman. We grow up with it. If you deviate from it you are a butch, dyke, nerd, and just pathetic non-woman type creature.
Fashion and beauty are 5000 yr old traditions separating social classes of women.
Blue collar women don’t have to spend time, and money on makeup and clothes for work. They are efficiency experts w/ performance based on merit.
White collar women have to spend money, and time appropriate to a formal career environment. These women are required to work w/ style, and specific social standards of dress, based on big box retail designer image. There is no choice. All identity has its price.
Fashion is an art form of tremendous global growth, volume and profit, with emerging working middle class in thriving economies of China,Russia,India,Brazil,Australia,et al., creating more demand.
There are more clothes available today than ever before, due to internet merchandising. Many dresses look like space suits to women too, and expose too much of a good thing.
Men enjoy a simpler life. Women and men have different social roles, and dress appropriately.
This is a complicated 5000 year old topic. Hope this brief breakdown helps,as a start.
And the changing hem lines are both indicative and predictive of economic boom or bust. Hem lines frequently get shorter just before or during economic downturns. In terms of history, the more fabric you wore the wealthy you were.think of the nine or ten petticoats women wore under their dresses to create the bell shaped skirts. Or that very wealthy women wore dresses made from enough fabric to make three dresses for the serving women. Laces and luxury fabrics were tied to specific aristocratic strata. Called it the sumptuary laws I believe
point 1. in nature, males are the well-dressed ones so they can impress the females and therefore be more successful in propagating the species.
point 2. now that females participate in the modern-day hunting – the necessary occupation of making money so we can feed ourselves – women take on the roles previously reserved for males
point 3. fashion doesn’t have to be about sexual attractiveness- it’s also a way to compete with or impress other women and gay men, a necessary part of the race for resources
point 4. when fashion IS about sex, it’s about how wearing something “beautiful” makes a women feel. A good, beautiful handbag, dress, accessory, or whatever thing a man wouldn’t even think to look at, is a pleasure to touch and wear and look at. Touching and wearing something beautiful makes a women FEEL beautiful and puts her in good humor.
point 5. women (men too) are more sexually attractive when they’re smiling. so when a woman feels beautiful and smiles because of it, she appears more beautiful.
point 6. there’s a ton of money to be made in fashion and it would be naive to think the Marketing Team hasn’t manufactured demand using manipulation tactics that work well on women.
point 7: there are so many things in the world that make women feel ugly (including the fashion ind. itself) that now women engage in and obsess over the quest for beauty to preserve their self-image, and therefore the way she appears to others, especially men they might want to attract.
Hi there.
My sympathies for the remarkably poor answers to your questions.
I’ve had conversations with my female friends many times about this. Yes, it happens, heterosexual women do dress for other women. And, themselves. This is does not exclude dressing for men. I will take equal care of my physical appearance if I am going for dinner with my women friends or a man I am interested in. Fashion and beauty are (sadly) a very large part of (some) women’ s interactions.
Why? Well, I am sure the massive advertising industry dedicated to selling women all kinds of beauty products might just be related to this issue. But its also societal. From when we are very young we here “what a pretty dress you have on” “what a cute girl you have”, and this doesn’t end. People rarely go around telling me how nice, thoughtful, generous, intelligent, humble (or any other important character trait). They do tell me I look fabulous though. And this is women and men. Friends, family, and strangers.
Is it an addiction? Well shopping is! So I don’t see why not.
On a side note, if I may, one thing that has always confused me is make up. Some women wear make up ALL the time. They can’t leave their house without it. Others ( minority like myself) never wear it. I don’t even own any of the stuff. I don’t think I am less beautiful because I don’t wear it. I’ve asked people about it, and well, it can be awkward. I don’t want to insult my female friends who do wear it, nor place men in the uncomfortable position of telling me, yes, I would look better with makeup. So I can’t get to the bottom of it. Why the face paint?
But also, men and women can’t be shoved into such simple categories. I know men who like ‘dolled-up ladies’, I know ladies who love to get dressed up and made up and who consider it very important, I know men who much prefer a girl wakes up and can leave the house quickly and doesn’t buy into the fashion industry. I also know men who are as obsessed with beauty and fashion as the most obsessed girl I know. Why are they hooked?
I think one of your respondents got it right. In certain circles fashion and beauty are of utmost importance. But not in all circles.
I get what you’re saying.
Though I’d love if some people examined how much they do it out of a genuine “I like doing this” instead of a “All women do this, I don’t want to stand out!” thing.
I also hardly ever wear make-up. But own lolita fashion dresses for my own interest.
With due respect, I think your initial email — at least the excerpt — wasn’t very clear in the questions it wanted to explore. I also think there’s some unintentional sexism in wondering why (some) women are obsessed with fashion/beauty if men aren’t pressuring them into it; women have interests, both healthy and unhealthy, that have nothing to do with men. The most fashion-obsessed women I know could not care less about what men think about their style choices. But I also think fashion and beauty are two distinct things.
Beauty, though… Of course men play a role in the pressure to look beautiful. Like others have said, I receive much more male attention when I look traditionally pretty than when I don’t. Long hair, for instance, garners me far more glances than a gamine short cut ever has. Covering my under-eye circles, having the appearance of clear skin and rosy cheeks, looking younger than my age — all of these things signal “pretty,” and on some lizard-brain level, fertility. Men may not feel that they contribute to the beauty obsession of some women, but they do, because many men pay more attention to traditionally pretty women than to homely women. Women notice this. Some don’t care; others do.
And it just gets harder for women as we age. We live in a culture that, if it’s not ignoring aging women, is mocking them for not being 22 anymore — so no wonder some women feel the need to look “perfect” as much as possible. When things like securing a mate and advancing in one’s career are tied to the way a woman looks (and they most certainly are) you can surely understand why some women spend copious amounts of money and time trying to compete.
I have heard all kinds of men profess to prefer their women in jeans and t-shirts… and I have heard few of those men say a word about the looks of a woman who is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with flat shoes and no makeup, and most of them praise the appearance of a woman who has gone to some trouble to look beautiful. I’m sure it’s not intentional hypocrisy, but it’s not something any woman with two brain cells to rub together fails to notice. And it’s not just men: women treat you differently when you take some care with your appearance. Should we be self-assured enough not to need validation from others? Of course. Is being treated with greater courtesy and kindliness and even as if you are more intelligent addictive? You bet. Are other women the target audience of certain specific items like designer purses? Absolutely.
I guess my thoughts on all of this are summed up pretty well by a quote from a recent Pervocracy blog posting: Femininity and masculinity are things to be practiced as consensual kinks.
I also regularly see how women who ‘do themselves up’ get more outward attention and gestures from both men and women and get approached more often and the like. However, I don’t think it is just that women are rewarded when they partake in this. I’m a guy, and I have been scolded numerous times by women for NOT commenting or drawing attention or making a fuss when a women dresses ‘up’ in some way. So I tend to think of this ‘doing up’ as a signal, a signal that can mean a lot of different things at different times or the same time, but still a signal. And women are active participants in whether or not they are giving a signal.
So if a guy is considering approaching two women, one made-up and the other not, I can easily see how the guy tends toward the women who is made-up, in part because that signal of being made-up can be reasonably read (whether true or not) as a signal of their openness to approach because 1) in their own choices they have already acknowledged and established a connection to the public and 2) being made-up is more in line with (old) gender roles and dating is still very strongly connected to gender roles (and also helps suggests how to interact).
I am a guy who prefers dating women who are capable and ready to interact with the world at hand and that (to me, visually) often means jeans, flat shoes, no makeup, etc. yet I don’t praise the appearance of women when they do this, but neither do I praise women who are dressed ‘up’ in some way. I make a concerted effort to stay out of the business of praising a women’s appearance. And I think it’s off base to suggest that men should start praising women in jeans, etc. because it still makes it about their appearance. In the very rare instances I have said anything about a women’s appearance it has been to a women made up in some way but the context and the signal suggested I had to say something and I hated doing it. But I don’t mean to suggest that this speaks for other men.
This article is great. It really opens up the many facets of answers to the questions revolving around male/female beauty and appreciation. I actually wrote an article myself which touches on (kind of) the same question, read it in the link i’ve posted below- it is titled “What Does it Mean to be a Woman (outside the context of man)?”
as a woman who strives to see the beauty in myself and other woman from an inner/soul position, i have to admit that i LOVE spending money on expensive, pretty, shit.
It must be said, though, that pretty, fashionable expensive shit on a rude, bitchy and judgmental woman only looks like shit. put the two gaudy and flashy gemstone rings i recently bought off the home shopping network on a woman with a sincere smile on her face to go with her sweet personality, and anything she touches is beautiful.
anyway, anyone who loved this article, feel free to read mine at
http://breathemovebewell.com/blog
ks
I wonder if there aren’t just different forces a play that can explain the contradictions? Women’s appearance, beauty, and sexuality have been made into a big deal throughout history. Even if there is more equality and women are seen as equal and complete human beings a women’s appearance still carries a great deal of cache. And that cache, I believe, was largely created by oppression, patriarchy, and sexism. And so now we have different parties who want to affect and control that cache. Perhaps women want to take back ownership of their own appearance/cache and so adorn themselves in ways that don’t make sense to men and that’s the point. But this cache is not completely free from the influence of men and their preferences and so you can still see that. And then you have the fashion industry that makes money by praying on the insecurities underlying that cache to keep women buying and tied to their version of what’s in and hot and fashionable.
I can only speak for myelf but i have to admit that i am absolutely obsessed with my beauty, though i`d say that i dont consciously think about it all day long. i do only feel convident leaving the house when i feel pretty which doesnt require a lot of makeup. it is some kind of hard to explain but i want to smell good, have glowing skin, shiny hair, my nails done my makeup done my clothing (which i am also obsessed about) thought-out….but at the same time it is supposed to look effortless. i spen so much time with skin care but it makes me feel good, like ive done the most of myself and my beauty. OK whatever haha
Dude, listen to yourself:
Yes. Exactly. It is men who are purchasing and raping trafficked women.
What it takes to stop trafficking is for men to stop buying it. Women are basically powerless to stop rapists. There is nothing you can do, nothing you can wear, no place you can go that will prevent you from being raped. Rapists have to stop raping, for rape to stop. 99% of rapists are men. I ask you, what percent of men are rapists?
So, yes: If you are a man and not telling your buddies to stop raping already, then you are guilty by association.
Yes. If you need more information, google ‘patriarchy’.
That is all.
Also, the question you mailed out to those very busy women? There’s this thing? Called Google? That like, you can use to search out the oh, several hundred at least articles written by internet feminists on all aspects of this very topic where you could have found oodles of tidbits for your ‘research’.
If you actually took the trouble to read what feminists have been writing about and discussing for years, then you could have written an actual article, instead of whining how those nasty feminists were ignoring you and sending you nonsensical* replies.
*And by ‘nonsensical’ I actually mean ‘totally appropriate in light of your self-imposed obliviousness’.