Who are we really looking good for?

One of the most basic feminist principles, I think, is about being able to choose our appearance and not having to look sexy for male standards or appropriate by prude standards. Now whether that means you are of the school of believing in the rejection all makeup because you see it as symbolism of wanting to please men, or whether you believe that you are entitled to wear things like miniskirts because you see it as empowerment is not what I’m blogging to discuss. Down that road lies a fight that even I am not sure which side I fall on. What got me thinking was when women and girls nowadays dress up, make up, heels, perfect fashion, who are we dressing up for?

Now there’s the easy answer: men. Magazines and their gut wrenching and manipulative propaganda have swerved our thinking from young ages (And I mean young – when they started giving out lip-gloss with things like LelliKelly shoes, my eyes nearly rolled out of my head) that we have to look perfect all the time in order to get a boyfriend, or a husband, depending on the age the propaganda is aimed at. [By the way, as a side note, notice how it’s never how to get a girlfriend for girls. Just sayin’.]

However, let me put this idea to you: we’re actually half ignoring this propaganda. Girls are dressing to look good…for other girls. Seems confusing but actually makes a lot of sense if I explain myself a little more.  The phrase “Men want her and women want to be her”? It seems that in this century we’ve focussed on the latter part of that statement. It shows that we’ve half liberated ourselves from the advertising lie, but progressed to now realising that as only girls really see these “perfect”, beautified images, they’re the ones we have to fulfil that image for.

Now that, at least to me, seems rather messed up. We’ve advanced to self-sustainable oppression (okay not entirely, but seriously it’s worrying!). We want to advertise our ability to represent “what men want”, even though we’re all pretty sure that stuff is bogus. That is distinctly unsettling. My prime example of this is the fact I go to an all-girls sixth form college (for any Americans it’s the equivalent to Junior and Senior year). Surely then, if there are no guys, according to propaganda, we have no need to look nice.

Bullshit. Perfectly messy but secretly brushed hair, uniform adjusted accordingly to look as generically “hot” as possible, and enough make up that I could spread it on bread and have a foundation sandwich. So who are we looking good for? We’re looking good for each other. And seriously, if people find out that, shock and horror, you’re not just looking like not wearing any eyeliner, but you actually aren’t? You better believe you’re gonna be singled out as instantly weird.

Maybe mine is an individual experience but I seriously don’t think so. It’s this weird and growing need to prove, through evidence that we’re pretty, that we’re superior in this way to other women. And that’s not a way to be fighting this. We shouldn’t be fighting each other to live up to stereotypes;  we should be joining together to knock them down. I will not say for a second that if looking dressed up is your thing, then it shouldn’t be. Some people just like the make up and the heels and the hair. But please, don’t allow yourself to be sucked in to this weird mess of a need to impress.