When I was three, I was already in my mother’s makeup. As I expertly smeared lipstick on my eyelids, it didn’t occur to me to question why I felt the need to experiment with my mom’s makeup. If someone were to ask me what compelled me to put on my mother’s makeup, I probably would have replied with a straight-up answer such as, “To be pretty.” Makeup on women has created a sub-culture of a woman’s need to be perceived as beautiful. In Becker’s article he says that you have to learn to smoke in a way that produces enjoyable effects. I would argue that make up wearing women have learned to wear makeup in a way that produces others to create a positive effect, the effect being attention from others. I believe that by seeing my mother and other women, I learned a behavior and the standards of how to look and act were already set by the tender age of three. Susan Bordo’s argument holds true to what I’m saying here. She says that when women change their bodies it creates a whole culture of women’s attitudes about beauty and their self-perception. I think that by seeing others have this makeup on and the positive reinforcement that surrounds a culture where women wear makeup changes girls’ behaviors and feelings. This culture of makeup being considered “beautiful” influences girls to the point it becomes instinctual to experiment with makeup. This leads me to believe that any type of behavior, if it catches on can spark a certain subcultures mentality, and eventually causing a mentality to become an instinct. For example, a sub-culture of men, it’s against their instinct to wear feminine colors because their surroundings pressure them not to. It’s interesting to think about what behaviors are simply human nature and which behaviors are taught and then become human instinct.
I agree with what you said, I think it has very much become second nature for girls to want to be beautiful and be percieved in that way as well. Every where people look these days there is some sort of information being sent to us on how to be pretty or what is pretty. I also liked and agree with what you said about how any behavior can become a subculture, because the only reason we wear makeup today is probably because our mothers or aunts or older women we look up to wore makeup and they do/dide it for the same reason probably too. And so that behavior became a subculture
ReplyDeleteI like your example of the subculture of men not wearing "feminine colors." It got me thinking about the whole blue = boy, pink = girl labeling that our society seems to employ with regard to gender. Although, I think another subculture, with respect to clothing color, of men exists also. Those guys in the pink polos or other clothing that is colored in a feminine way. I guess you could also consider tighter fitting clothing as well: fitted tees, cigarette jeans etc. I've always heard the argument that men who wear this type of clothing are so confident in their maleness that it doesn't matter what they wear.
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun for me to listen to girls complain about taking their makeup off at the end of the day because we all know that as many gripes they have with it, it's going on tomorrow too. Many of these things become so popular when they become affordable. At one point, make-up was for royalty. Then it hit the shelves, and everybody wanted it. And now, it has become ingrained in culture.
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