Is Make Up Empowering?

Last week while watching my daily dose of The Wright Stuff, a topic came up that really got me thinking; is makeup empowering? This particular topic, which could have easily been based around both sexes experiences with makeup, only focused on women slapping the stuff on, which probably got my back up straight away. Now I love makeup. It's no secret that I spend a lot of time buying and applying it so I wanted to share my opinion on the whole thing...

One of the notions that came up a lot on the show and on twitter was that women feel they have to wear makeup. This is something that surprised me as I've never felt like I needed to cover up. I mean yeah if I had a couple of pesky spots I'd feel more comfortable with a bit of concealer, but I would never feel like I had to wear it. A few mentioned that they think makeup contributes to body images issues, but I've never felt ugly when I'm makeup-less compared to women who were wearing a lot. But if a women does have confidence issues, surely it's better for her to be able to make herself feel beautiful before leaving the house, than to brave the world worrying about how she looks?

One thing I did notice was the differing opinion between men and women. A lot of the men commenting believed that women were only wearing makeup for them. Now this is something I've heard time and time again and it always makes me laugh; how vain are you to think the women of the world are getting dressed up just for you?! Believe me we do not spend hundreds of pounds a year and hours of our lives trying to look nice for men in the street. We are also not, as another man suggested, trying to make ourselves look more sexually appealing; I just want ridiculously long lashes, is that too much to ask for?

Another thing (mostly) men tend to say is that women who wear makeup are living a lie. They are lying to themselves about how beautiful they are and they are fooling others into thinking they are more attractive than they really are. Now I'm sorry but anyone who believes I naturally have bronze eyelids doesn't deserve an opinion on this matter.

Generally women were on the side of makeup, although some did say it was fuelling a confidence issue, many talked about the art behind the slap. Makeup is an art, wether you use it to cover spots, enhance your lips, or contour the shape of your face. There is a lot of skill in correctly applying makeup. It's taken me a long time to confidently apply makeup, but now that I'm half decent at it I love creating new makeup looks/ trying out new things and I certainly applaud anyone who can create a perfectly blended smokey eye! 

One thing that wasn't covered surprisingly is that men wear makeup too and in my opinion that is empowering for them. Because men wearing makeup isn't the norm, men who do wear makeup, such as drag queens and some celebrities are praised for doing what they want! This seems like double standards to me, but then again the same men that judge women for wearing a little bit of face would probably be too ignorant to appreciate someone of their own gender wearing makeup.

Honestly the whole debate seemed unnecessary to me. Some women wear makeup and some don't but most of those women have been told at some point that they either 'shouldn't wear so much makeup' or that they 'should make more effort'. This seemed less of an issue for women than it did for men if you ask me. It would be nice for women to get to a stage where we are seen as equals so something as trivial as wearing makeup doesn't need to be debated on national TV. The bottom line is that whatever a women chooses to do herself is empowering to her, whether that be wearing makeup or not as long as she has made that choice her self. That is empowering.

I would really love to hear your opinions on this because I can't personally see why it's such a big issue! Let me know what you think in the comments or over on twitter!

Thanks for reading!

xx

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* All quotes are taken from Twitter