Feminism Friday - beauty, gender, class, and race
June 15, 2007 by thinking girl
So, as I confessed a while back, I work in the beauty industry. More specifically, I am an aesthetician and makeup artist. I perform beauty services such as facials, microdermabrasion, chemical peels, waxing, pedicures, manicures, makeup, and body wraps. I’ve spent most of my 12 years in this career working in a spa environment.
SO, my job is pretty much all about reinforcing patriarchal conceptions of beauty and femininity. Sure, lots of people come to have pedicures because they work on their feet and it feels great to have someone rub your feet, or because they get ingrown toenails that need fixing up, or they have painful cracks in their heels, and lots of people come to have facials and chemical peels to treat acne and sun damage and learn how to care for their skin to avoid such problems. Some people just need to relax, and all these things certainly can feel great and help you de-stress. But for the most part, it’s all about consumerism and femininity - the two seem to go hand in hand, more so than masculinity, it seems.
So, I’ve written before about how feminine beauty practices are inherently meant to be markers of inferiority and submission. I’ve also written about women and ageing, and how the beauty industry (including cosmetic surgery) seems to be causing and playing to a fear in women about ageing. Today, however, I’d like to start a discussion about another facet of the beauty industry - the intersection of gender, class, and race in regards to beauty.
I would just like to say that there was a recent study done in Canada on the gender wage gap, and one of the reasons for the gap seems to be that women are choosing careers that are traditionally female jobs, and that those careers pay poorly in comparison with jobs that are traditionally male jobs. I can certainly tell you, this is a career that it is very difficult to make a decent living doing. It’s pathetic, actually, how little the job pays considering that it is physically very hard on the body (small repetitive movements in the upper body combined with hours of uncomfortable positions and difficulty finding an ergonomic setup = torn discs, limited range of motion and constant aching in the neck/shoulders/back/pectorial muscles, carpal tunnel syndrome, and declining eyesight, to name a few), which of course makes it difficult to work a lot of hours. It is so totally not worth it. AND, I’ve really only met a handful of male aestheticians, none of whom live in my city, and all of whom were treated like a great novelty and were extremely popular for performing services with a higher potential for sales commission earnings. Something about women clients, they seem to look for male approval of their appearance (surprise!), including from their beauty therapists. They’d rather have the opinion of a male than that of a female, in many cases - even a female spa therapist who practices femininity perfectly and has achieved exactly what the client is seeking to achieve. All of the male aestheticians I have met were gay. I don’t know what that means or might indicate, but there it is. Also, the vast majority of clients are women. Male clients comprise only about 15-20% of spa clients in general.
I’ve been doing this for 12 years, and I don’t personally know a single Black aesthetician. I did a quick poll of the women I work with, and only two knew of a Black aesthetician, and one doesn’t practice anymore. I know one aesthetician who is Asian. I know one who is Lebanese, and a couple who are Greek. That’s it. I’m sure that in larger cities, there are more aestheticians who are women of colour, but for this demographic, we actually have a fairly large black population. They’re just not going into the beauty industry as a career.
Also, the vast majority of women who come to have services done are white. I’ve had a handful of black clients over the years, and a small number of women from or with ethnic roots in India, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran. I’ve had maybe 2 clients who were Asian, and none who were First Nations.
Of course, spa services are expensive. (very expensive, considering how little those who are providing the service get paid, and how little the products cost to do the service. Believe me, it ain’t much.) So some women are going to be limited by their ability to afford to have spa services done. The beauty industry is very elitist.
So, what does this say? What do you think?
I read lots of blogs by women of colour, and sometimes I see a complaint that white feminist blogs are overly concerned with matters like beauty and femininity. Sorry to contibute more to that trend, but I’d like to know why that is - because it seems to me that that matches up with who is involved in the beauty industry both in terms of clients and in terms of providers of beauty services. Is it that women of colour have more pressing concerns? Is it that beauty is defined in terms of whiteness? Is it that class and race seem to go hand in hand in this culture?
What do you think?
As someone who knows next to nothing about this whole topic and who actually sees it as a waste of time, at least from the perspective of beauty standards - I think women look better without any makeup or special treatments - I just don’t like how makeup looks, and “treatments” I think can make natural skin start to look fake almost to the point where it looks like some older women are wearing plastic masks. I probably get this from my family, again, because my mother wears very little makeup and my sister wears it almost never.
Personally, also, I think the beauty “industry” is actually driven most by women, not men - most men are totally clueless about it, so that makes it hard to blame it on “patriarchy” - if anything, it is more a “matriarchy” where women enforce this on each other in a separate, parallel universe from anything men pay much attention to.
As far as WOC not participating - well, on the employment side, you already have your answer - if WOC hardly ever use the services, they are not likely to grow up and want to do it for a living simply because of lack of exposure. As for why they don’t use it, I wouldn’t have a clue.
The view from New York City, where race politics are different than elsewhere: beauty services are highly segregated here, on both the buying and selling sides. For instance, manicure salons are run nearly universally by East Asians–usually Koreans, sometimes Chinese. Even in more all-purpose salons, Chinese and Koreans are prominent.
On the buying side, various salons cater to various ethnic populations. I’m thinking of the abundance of hair brading salons that were in my old neighborhood, which was solidly Caribbean. My current neighborhood has relatively few places for a woman to even get a haircut, I think partially because much of the neighborhood is Bangaldeshi, and Bangladeshi women don’t get their hair done in salons. (There are a few nail places, full of us bourgie white people who are moving in to the neighborhood.)
Reading through your post again, I wonder if class isn’t a hidden variable here. The sort of services you talk about–the fun, über-girly stuff like facials and pedicures–are purchased by upper/middle class women, professional women. Perhaps your experience of the salon world (and that of those you’ve worked with, who have worked in the same sorts of salons) is that of the mainly-white, well-off salon goer. While the less-well-off black woman who wants a beauty treatment goes somewhere else, or perhaps get a different kind of treatment. And the well-off black woman may feel uncomfortable in a mostly-white salon, or may worry that her hair/skin may not be properly treated by products designed for white people, so goes to a black-0wned salon.
Unfortunately much of this is speculation. But that’s a lot of what blog comments are for, right?
DBB - funny how you admittedly know nothing about the subject yet still feel entitled enough to comment. *cough*male privilege*cough*
DBB, patriarchy isn’t a bunch of mean guys individually acting out on women. Patriarchy is a system of male domination - it isn’t equivalent to individual men. It may be the reason why individual men act in predictable ways, but it is not simply men as a group. Also, patriarchy can be internalized by all genders, not just men. So women can enforce patriarchy on themselves and one another, and it’s still patriarchy, not “matriarchy”
anyway, I think your analysis is a bit simplistic. I didn’t grow up having beauty treatments by any stretch. The first ANYTHING (manicure, waxing, facial, etc.) I had done was when I took my course. I think a far more interesting question is why WOC don’t get these kinds of services done in this type of setting - is the standard of beauty white? is the high cost of such services to blame, where race and class are tied so tightly? are WOC just more likely to do these services on their own and for each other? is there something about having these services done in a public setting/not at home inhibiting?
Emily - thanks for positing some of the same questions I’ve been thinking on. Actually, the nail salon phenomenon, as run by Asian immigrants, has spread here as well. I tend to think of that as something kind of separate from what I do, because I don’t do artificial nails in my job (standpoint theory strikes again!), but you’re right, it is still a beauty service. It seems to me, thinking on it, that this is a service more black women here in my city have done than other services.
I also thought of threading, which is normally done by women in their homes, along with hair braiding.
seems like just everything is racially segregated.
TG, I’m glad you pointed out that what is usually considered “womens’ work” frequently pays less, but I’d like to couple that with something I read in TIME just today: in some instances, women are just straight up paid less than male coworkers at the same level, same company.
Furthermore, laws at the federal level and social mores at the company level make it difficult to find out that information legally.
That doesn’t subtract from your discussion above by any means, but it’s important to calculate into the gender wage gap.
For once, I don’t completely disagree with DBB. I mean, you can’t completely subtract men from the equation of female beauty standards. If you ever doubt that, just poll a group of guys on what they think a woman should look like when she leaves the house; use photos, because most men think that women should be naturally beautiful in ways that sometimes aren’t possible without at least a little eyebrow plucking. For even more interesting and privilege-revealing results, ask them how they think a woman’s pubic hair should be groomed. : ) But I don’t think DBB is wrong in suggesting that women in part reinforce beauty ideals–and I think you, TG, are right in pointing out that this happens along race and class lines. It isn’t an accident that white women with an appearance of class are aestheticians for white women of a certain class, and that you haven’t encountered many aestheticians of color.
That doesn’t mean, though, that there aren’t aestheticians of color–like Emily said. The salons in my neighborhood growing up were mostly run by black women for black women. There were a number of at-home salons as well, for a good reason… I remember a big controversy in my teens when the local gov’t started to crack down on unlicensed salons while jacking up the licensing fees out of the reach of many practicioners. That’s completely an intersection of racism and classicism at work.
I do think it’s strange that women seem to prefer not to be treated by a woman of a different race, but the women in your salon enjoy being treated by men. It reminds me of something that came up in a class that was discussing the bizarre ending of M. Butterfly: maybe the conflict is not that we can’t say no to racism, but that we can’t stop saying yes to the patriarchy.
Hey, I admitted up front my lack of knowledge about beauty salons - why does my offering what little I could on the topic (from a male point of view, something you could not offer) an example of privilege? I happily accept all comments on my own blog from all genders - I’m always interested in a fresh point of view - sometimes, actually, it takes an outsider to see what is otherwise obvious but not apparent to insiders on a given topic. There is even a physical phenomenon in the brain associated with such things. Hey, if I’m wrong, I’m happy to admit it (well, not necessarily happy, but better to admit it then be a stubborn fool about it). But I don’t want to derail this so I’ll leave it at that.
And I’m sorry, not everything is about what men want. Beauty treatments and such are mostly an industry about women and enforced by women. Much like fashion. You don’t see a man making snide comments about a women wearing the wrong shoes with a particular outfit - but plenty of women will. Standards created by and enforced by women sure sounds like matriarchy to me. Not everything is all about teh menz.
One last comment on this topic - haircuts - mine cost 12 dollars. My wife would end up spending more than three times that. It always bothered me that it costs so much more. Finally, my wife found a local salon school that you can go to and get a flat-fee (no tip) haircut from students - so now she gets haircuts for the same cost as mine - 15 dollars (I pay 12 plus tip). But still, why should they cost so much more for women? Hair is hair.
I agree with you that these things are highly segregated according to race and class. The black women in my neighbourhood all go to black-owned and operated hair salons because most hairdressers do not know how to cut or style kinky/nappy hair and do not stock the right products.
The flip side, as you noted, is that many high end salons/spas don’t hire black women - women who might bring in black clientele.
Anyway, I really appreciated this post - I think the politics of beauty in terms of race and class (as opposed to just white middle class femininity as many white feminists conceptualize the issues of beauty culture) are fascinating. I don’t think you’ve added to the overwhelming number of posts (and the endless comment threads) of white feminists agonizing about wearing make up or high heels or shaving their legs.
I think that Class - is a factor in the beauty care industry. I also think that where Women feel disempowered there may be a greater likelihood of them using beauty care products in general.
I can’t find the figures now, but I recall reading that Black people in the U.S. buy something like 75% of the hair care products sold (while being close to 1/7th of this percentage of the population).
My partner (who is Black) certainly values beauty care products and her hair. I know that for her hair is not something one can “leave alone”. She speaks of how important hair and its maintenance is for Black women (and to a lesser degree perhaps Black men).
I suspect that far more White women feel that they can just “be themselves” and “do there own thing” in various ways. One’s identity as “White” doesn’t require anything in the U.S.
I also think that far more White Women try to “appear young” than Women of Color. I suspect more Women of Color try to “look normal” or “look the right way” - where beauty values may be similar or different.
The Black haircare industry has huge Korean ownership even in areas that are predominantly Black in the San Francisco Area as well as other urban areas I’ve been in (and where I live now).
Fitting in and “passing as normal” or “pretty” is important to many. I find it hard to relate to this, though I can understand how different it has been for me growing up White and Male and in a family where appearance was not highly valued.
Thanks!
I think the hair product thing also has a lot to do with an overwhelmingly white standard of beauty. I’ve also heard many stories of employers telling black people (particularly women) that dreadlocks are unprofessional. But I’m a white girl and I’m just going to STFU on this topic.
Beauty stuff is definitely segregated. Part of it is skill set (the spa people don’t do the same things that the nail people do, and the threaders don’t overlap with the waxers, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place that could do white people’s hair and people of color’s hair. Even stick-straight eastern asian hair seems perplexing…), which certainly intersects with both class and race (rich white women are more likely to want understated french tips than two-inch-long pierced acrylics, for instance, and women below a certain level of income, and in certain industries, are unlikely to
desirebe able to maintain any nail adornment for very long)… both of which are also channeled through geography. You know what kind of neighborhood you’re in by looking at what kind of shops are available. When I was in school in Portland, there was nowhere convenient for me to get my hair done. If I wanted it pressed, permed, or braided, I had to either do it myself or wait until I flew home to get it done, because I didn’t have a car.Granted, I can perm, press, and curl my hair just fine and everyone thought my natural style was the niftiest thing since sliced bread (*sighs* If I had a nickel for every “how do you get it to stand up like that?” “Is that really your hair?” or “Can you brush it?” comment, I wouldn’t have any student loans right now…), but I was still quite aware that the area wasn’t designed for people that looked like me.
Given that, and what I’ve seen of cosmetology school (not that I went to cosmetology school, but the community college nearby has one, and my grandmother is an administrator at the school, and my hairdresser graduated from there, etc.), it seems like there’s even more selection at work. When you learned your stuff, were you taught how to handle women of color’s hair and skin stuff? As it is, it seems that most luxury treatments are designed with the needs of white women in mind. As you pointed out, you yourself perform the femininity thing very well… you kind of have to, given your position. Why would a woman of color go into a profession where the very tools of the trade exclude her? If your presentation of beauty isn’t in the textbooks, the magazines, the lessons, or the formulas on the shelves, and you’re supposed to be a living advertisement for your services…wouldn’t working in such an environment be kind of counterproductive, at the least?
Heh. Driving home from work today, I actually thought of another thing. Braiding and pressing are things a lot of black girls learn as a part of growing up (much like many black and asian boys learn how to cut hair). My few Indian friends said that they learned threading the same way; it was something their mothers and sisters did for them, and something they did with and for each other in the same way that little white girls do each other’s makeup.
Salons and the like exist in part to give us access to things we can’t do for ourselves (or don’t want to do, or don’t have the resources for). So if you can do hair, or your neighbor does hair, then you’re probably not going to go to a stylist for much unless it’s something really special. (This, of course, leaves aside all of the issues about whether the salon you’d elect to go to would have things appropriate for your hair type or skin type… but clearly, that plays a part.) That’s how I got my hair braided the first couple times. I asked my little sister if she knew anyone at her High School, and she had one of her friends come over to our house and do my hair. It took eight hours and at least as many packs of hair, but the results were as good as anything I’ve gotten at a professional place since. And since, as I pointed out, I can press and curl (and perm, when I want) my own hair by myself… the only time I really go to a salon is when a) I need help (like after my hair has been braided for three months and I can’t run a comb through it), b) I have a special event or c) I want to be pampered. Which … given the fairly high level of discomfort associated with many black haircare things, is kind of an odd proposition.
Granted, all of this is kind of tangential to the spa thing… which doesn’t tend to have much to do with hair and nails at all… but it’s definitely tied into beauty culture and the relative distribution of its practitioners and participants.
Aside from what men want, or what they think they want, or what they think they think they want, I think another part of the beauty and also fashion industry is its impact on your career.
I have more career skills than many people older than me but I have the face of an 18 year old. In order to get any respect whatsoever I have to dress like a little elitist and wear “professional” makeup to appear older. That way people will at least think I’m in my twenties instead of my teens. Once in a while I start to get comfy and think to myself “well these people are equitable, fair workers and they wouldn’t judge me if I put less effort into my completely irrelevent appearance”…then all it takes is maybe one day of dressing down or not wearing makeup and I’m fielding concerned questions that I look “sick” or “stressed out” (not wearing blush) or that I have “tired eyes” (eyes without eyeshadow). When I dress like a little elitist people make eye contact with me on the street and move out of my way. When I wear my jogging pants I can be standing right in front of someone I know and they’ll walk past. Or right into me, because they didn’t see me.
Makeup and beauty industry is not just about what people say they want or how they consciously see themselves. And it’s not just about having fun and looking your best. It has become much more insidious than that.
I think there are more socio-economic overtones in this discussion than are currently being talked about. My impression of spas is that most are frequented by customers that are the white upper class, rich elite. Also, you rarely see spas and salons in urban areas, where typically the higher salaries exist. Spa services are the ‘extras’ in life, such as golfing at a prime course or luxury boating. Typically, these activities are beyond the reach of anyone but the rich elite. I’d hazard to guess that the majority of the clients that use gift certificates are of a lower socio-economic class than those who are regular rich clients.
Once reason you don’t see minorities at the spa is due to socio-economic reasons. There are no Aboriginals at the spa because, sadly, a significant amount are of a lower socio-economic status and struggle with other issues (poverty and addiction). In Halifax, I’d imagine that part of the black population would fit into that category as well.
I believe the beauty industry is highly influenced by the elite cultures in the rich areas of the world, such as LA, New York, Paris, London. Just with a wild guess, I’d imagine the majority of the elite ‘influential’ beauty people are white…
Patriarchy is a system of male domination - it isn’t equivalent to individual men. It may be the reason why individual men act in predictable ways, but it is not simply men as a group.
TG, the best way i’ve heard this crucially important distinction summarized is “patriarchy is a culture, not a conspiracy.”
and when you consider patriarchy as a culture in which everyone is steeped, then you realize that the fact that women may be the more vocal enforcers of beauty standards and the fact that beauty standards are patriarchal are not mutually exclusive.
Uh, I meant spas in rural areas..
okey-dokey.
tanglethis - thanks for pointing that out - you are absolutely right that there is more than one reason for the gender wage gap. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, so thanks for filling in my gaps there.
I don’t mean to take individual men out of beauty practices/standards, not at all, nor am I not suggesting that women are the primary enforcers of beauty standards. I am saying that patriarchy is the system under which we live, and therefore informs the attitudes both men and women take towards beauty.
Loved that line - “maybe the conflict is not that we can’t say no to racism, but that we can’t stop saying yes to the patriarchy.”
DBB - It is male privilege to not have to know about the practices of femininity - beauty practices included - and to scoff at them in the way that you have done here. Easy for you to say. do you still find women more attractice without makeup when they have a less-than-perfect complexion, say acne, circles under their eyes so dark they look tired and sad all the time, heavy inflammation due to rosacea, or discolouration 5-6 shades darker than their natural skin tone?
Not to mention that it is certainly male privilege that you would think that despite not knowing anything about this topic, you would still have something so valuable to offer that you can’t help yourself but to comment. Really, is “not everything about what men want”, even when men who know nothing about the subject of a post still feel the need to interject themselves into the thread? And, implying that I don’t welcome male commenters here is kind of ridiculous, and everyone here knows that it simply isn’t true. What I don’t care for, and will call out, is male commenters who continually display their privilege like a peacock showing his tail feathers.
anyway. I have seen PLENTY of men make fun of women for the way they are dressed, how they wear their hair (or women who don’t care to style their hair), how they wear their makeup (or don’t), what kind of shoes they wear, etc. And, I’ve known plenty of women who don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that - for themselves or others. Also, to say that men don’t participate in the beauty industry is also quite wrong - plenty of male fashion designers, shoe designers, hair stylists, makeup artists etc. out there. I made the comment that there aren’t many male aestheticians that I have personally met or who live in my city, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, or that men don’t participate in other arenas of the beauty industry. Finally, I just finished working for two plastic surgeons - both male. So men are certainly involved in creating and maintaining standards of beauty in our society.
debbie - thanks for your comments, glad you found this interesting. You and magniloquence are right - not all beauty practitioners are educated in treating all kinds of skin and hair. In my education, learning about “ethnic skin” was an extra, something that was considered “advanced,” which certainly goes to the idea that the standard of beauty defaults at white. I should also mention that the majority of education I have taken on “ethnic skin” has involved stubborn or difficult pigmentation - skin with more melanin tends to become inflamed more easily and this often results in post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation lesions around sites of inflammation (like a scar or a pimple). Many of the products on the market to treat these concerns involve ingredients that “normalize” melanin production, and lighten areas of uneven pigmentation, whether from inflammation or occurring naturally. This kind of grosses me out.
Geo - interesting stats you’re throwing out there. Again, white standard of beauty… all those hair products being snapped up by black women, gosh that’s really something. I look at black female celebrities, and most seem to have pretty “white” hair - straight and sleek, long and silky and flowing. Halle Berry, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Janet Jackson, for example. Not so many black female celebs have embraced their “natural” hair.
Interesting too about ageing - see, white skin tends to age faster, because low levels of melanin means more absorption of UV rays, which are the primary cause of ageing in the skin (more than 80%). White skin also tends to be drier, on average, than darker skins, and dry skin also ages faster. So, in a youth-obsessed culture, white folks are on the line for more anti-ageing treatments than POC, I guess. It’s too bad that we can’t just simply accept one another, no matter how we look. (I know, hypocritical of me, isn’t that?)
magniloquence -
yes, exactly what I was trying to suss out, I think. As well, your comments about growing up learning how to perform beauty for yourself or in the home is highly relevant. AND, I think, at least in some cases, tied closely to class, because of course, race and class are intimately connected in these countries of ours. Can’t afford it, but still subject to white patriarchal beauty constructs? better learn how to do it yourself. Hell, I do most of my own beauty services, because I simply can’t afford to have it done professionally - even though I work in the industry.
RG - great points there. No matter where I’m going, how I wear my makeup and hair and clothing is a huge factor in how I am perceived. Same me underneath it all.
This goes straight to the heart of one of my favourite frivolous TV shows, What Not To Wear - which is horrible for enforcing both patriarchy and capitalism in one fell swoop, yet has a certain mindless appeal. It’s not just about how you feel in your clothes and makeup and hair - it’s also about how others feel about you. Very insidious indeed.
talkingthebeat - welcome! oh hell yes, class is a major part of this discussion, and how tightly race and class are woven is very important to bear in mind.
kate d. - thanks for that. very succinct.
As a minority woman growing up in Halifax and learning about the beauty industry primarily through you TG, my best sister friend, I have to say I have mixed feelings about it.
I remember commenting on the advertising of one of the spas you worked at, one of the best in town, that there was no people of colour portrayed in any of the adds.
You have also shared with me after studying internationally how skin care treatments differ based on ethnicity. Yet, the norm for all specialized skin care products is white skin. Am I mistaken or were there products specific to ethnicity?
Some of the products I have bought from you improved my skin for short periods yet, none provided long term lasting results. Of course, this maybe due to my inability to afford regular spa services and products. I have tried to find affordable skin care products for South Asian skin and haven’t found anything. My search was by no means exhaustive and I would be interested in knowing if there are skin care lines for a variety of ethnicities.
I also would like to add that most spas and department stores in Hali don’t have much variety in make up for women of colour. All but one Shoppers Drug Mart growing up even carried make up for women of colour and as of last year, I counted only two stores that did. Although, none of that should be surprising considering Halifax isn’t known for supporting its people of colour…
Thanks for talking so openly about this and everything else!
XXOO
Hey TG i know that this is totally inappropriate, but i have a serious self image problem> well to put it frankly im an ugly bastard… so is there any chance i could email you a pic of my face and you could tell me what i can do to improve my apearance according to the prevailing standards of society….my main thing i freak out at the moment is the dark circles under my eyes….
…maybe the conflict is not that we can’t say no to racism, but that we can’t stop saying yes to the patriarchy…
This is wonderful, as is your explanation of partiarchy TG. Thank you. I might have to use a sentence or two to explain it to someone on a recent post!
I find it interesting that the professions that were once male dominated and are now female, such as teaching (in Australia anyway), are now very low paid and under-acknowledged.
Hello! Short-time reader, first-time commentor here. I had a few thoughts reading this post.
“Something about women clients, they seem to look for male approval of their appearance “
Well, FWIW, I for one (male) will ask a woman’s opinion on clothes, hair, etc., before asking a guy’s, because women are the people I want to be attractive to. Does this generalize?
To find out, the variables to control in this would be to look at:
-do other straight men besides myself look primarily for female approval of their appearance?
-do homosexual women look for male approval of their appearance?
-do homosexual men look for female approval of their appearance?
If the answers to those questions are ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘no’, respectively*, that would argue that this particular aspect is just generic human behavior and not patriarchal, although it may be complicated by the reasoning: a straight man might seek out a gay man’s opinion, reasoning that a gay man and a straight woman might find the same sorts of things attractive (and a mirror argument for women). But that seems like a corner case and probably not that impactful on the total analysis.
It’s an interesting question! Does anyone have any answers/data on this?
*Of course no group is going to be universal about these things, so I’m talking about the general trend of answers.
Also of note, on the ‘culture’ vs. ‘conspiracy’ definition of patriarchy:
I think this is a very important point to make. From personal experience, I can tell you that this distinction is immensely not obvious to someone who is not well-versed in feminism. Most guys who hear anything about feminism assume that feminists DO think the male-orderedness of the world is a conspiracy, and part of this is due, I think, to language. Let me explain.
I’ve started reading a little bit about feminism - I came here from Pandagon, which I read every day, but I’m still in the “feminism 101″ class, to be sure. And this quote from TG struck me: “Patriarchy is a system of male domination…” I had a kind of minor revelation reading that (and katie d.’s response). The difference here was very subtle: the word “the” wasn’t in front of “patriarchy.” And that made a shockingly large difference in the way I read that sentence!
Hearing “Patriarchy is ___” really falls on my eras in a far less grating way than “The patriarchy is ___.” It’s basically the reverse of the way some Republicans talk about “The Democrat party” - the lack of that small “-ic” suffix is meant to play up the “rat” syllable, which grates on the ears. Referring to male control as “the patriarchy” and not “patriarchy” has the same effect, or at least it did on me.
My hypothesis as to why this should be so is that when you say “THE patriarchy” it really does come off sounding like you’re talking about a conspiracy. Patriarchy may be a system where society is organized to the benefit of men, but no one ever refers to other societal systems that way - no one talks about ‘the democracy,’ or ‘the capitalism,’ or ‘the feudalism.’ (People do refer to ‘the monarchy’ but only when referring to a specific one in a specific country, not the general system of top-down power.)
Anyway, those are my thoughts on that matter. I think that minor language change would go a long way towards making feminism more palatable to a lot of the “I’m not a feminist, but…” crowds. At the very least it’s worth a field-test.
Thanks!
-MH
This is a very interesting topic — TG, you always push the boundaries and I love that about your blog.
TG said “Is it that women of colour have more pressing concerns? Is it that beauty is defined in terms of whiteness? Is it that class and race seem to go hand in hand in this culture?”
The question you asked in the middle is the one that intrigues me the most. All the major beauty brands know I am sure that they must sell Eurocentric beauty ideals to ethnic minority women because that is what we have invariably told to worship. French mixed race supermodel Noemie Lenoir was a spokeswoman for L’Oreal in Europe and I remember being happy as they had a woman of colour but it was also pointed out to me that many brands do not have dark-skinned black woman fronting ad campaigns. I think I would have a heart attack if Chanel had a black model fronting a campaign in the same way that Liya Kebede did for Estee Lauder.
Race is the most potent ingredient in selling beauty. Black women want to celebrate their blackness but with the countless bleaching creams and the lack of black women in positive advertising, can this truly be achieved?
Geo said “I suspect more Women of Color try to “look normal” or “look the right way” - where beauty values may be similar or different.” — Could you clarify what you mean by “normal” because in todays world, many people do think that word is a euphemism for Eurocentrism.
TalkingtheBeat said “I believe the beauty industry is highly influenced by the elite cultures in the rich areas of the world, such as LA, New York, Paris, London. Just with a wild guess, I’d imagine the majority of the elite ‘influential’ beauty people are white…” — I agree with you when you name those famous cities but as for the influential beauty people, I would disagree because there are many beauty professionals who have a big say and are not white (Pat McGrath). I think the beauty industry follows what society wants since its’ citizens have the money that the industry craves.
TG said “I look at black female celebrities, and most seem to have pretty “white” hair - straight and sleek, long and silky and flowing. Halle Berry, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Janet Jackson, for example. Not so many black female celebs have embraced their “natural” hair. ” — I would suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that Hollywood wants many black celebrities to look a certain way, ie, to look like or have the “tragic mulatto” look as seen by Dorothy Dandridge. So career opportunities may have a significant effect on how women in image industries like acting wear their hair.
I’m white, so there’s a huge selection of beauty products marketed to me, and I can afford beauty products and so forth, but I have never used anything except soap and deodorant and toothpaste and lotion. Because of allergies, all these products are unscented.
I have no idea if my co-workers are judging me as looking “unprofessional” or too young or too freckly or whatever, and I don’t really care. I’m not judging how well they do their job based on their blue eyelids or magenta lips.
The beauty industry creates a cycle of need. If you wear stuff on your face all the time, or if you straighten or perm or color your hair all the time, then your skin and hair become damaged, making you think you need more beauty products.
I was a makeup artist in several different cities for over 15 years. During that time I worked on just about every kind of face and background, at salons and makeup counters (and TV and runway too).
Sometimes people did come from working class backgrounds - but they’re moving up, aware of whatever might get them ahead. What I found is that a lot of women didn’t want to be “beautiful” - they wanted to look “not tired” (their words, not mine) and together. They were working their butts off but wanted to come to the meeting looking unphased. My best clients were doctors, lawyers, real estate agents. They realized that just as they were good at their job, someone else might be good at their face. But like I said, “beauty” wasn’t the only issue here. I think it was power actually - power meaning that had the uniform on, you might say, and since it was a uniform, they didn’t have to think about it. It was like their Chanel suit.
For several years at the start of my career I worked with people (both men and women) who were burn victims. Doing anything for their face was about some kind of empowerment. After this, I started looking at ways to make the the rest of my work about that.
It’s true that some makeup artists are always after the negative (your dark circles!) as way to draw a client in. I’ve always hated that aspect of it and never went that way. I came to it as an punk artist who loved color and there was something about that whole approach that was not about beauty either, but about empowerment and having some fun. Believe me, men back in the 70s did not find punky girls sexy, attrractive or any of it and we were not doing it for them anyway!
MH, of all the criticisms I have heard regarding how feminism ruins it for everyone, use of articles is probably the most bizarre.
You’ve got a point though. In radical feminist Andrea Dworkin’s Woman Hating, it is difficult to get through a single sentence without encountering an article like “the”, “a”, “an”, etc. This builds on earlier radical work by Kate Millet and the Redstockings Gals.
If you read my words as criticizing feminism, or as suggesting that it somehow “ruins it for everyone,” then you’ve totally misjudged me. What I suggested was an opinon, honestly given in a constructive manner, not an attack. It should be read not as a critique of feminism but as a critique of the marketing and branding of feminism. It is purely a comment on style, not of substance, and should not be read as such.
I have not heard of Kate Millet or Redstocking Gals. I will look into them.
I think what I was trying to say is that when I (and presumably, many other men) hear “THE patriarchy does this and that” it’s an easy reflex to think of Patriarchy as something that is only done by other people.
But when patriarchy is discussed in language which assumes it to be a culture, it’s much harder to disassociate yourself from it - it’s much harder to say “I don’t practice patriarchy” than to say “I’m not a patriarch.”
Thinking more about it, it reminds me of someone who thinks of themselves, “Sure, I play video games from time to time, but I’m not a gamer.” So when they read articles or books talking about ‘gamers’ they can exclude themselves from being the subject of the discussion, whereas if you simply replace “gamer” with “people who play video games” they can’t so easily excuse themselves.
That’s the kind of semantic difference I’m talking about, and I think it really does make a difference in how readily the message is absorbed.
Thanks for the clarification MH and I think you have a good point there. My objection with most advice regarding the “branding and packaging” of feminism is that it is not the primary goal of feminism to be palatable to a patriarchal majority.
It is not your comment alone that sparked my reaction. It is the years and years of being told completely useless “tips”. Tips like “Why don’t you call it Humanism, I’ve never head of the Renaissance”. Tips like “if you want to advance the agenda of impoverished teenage rural girls in Third World countries, you should start with the rich, elderly men”.
This kind of slimy, self-proclaimed pragmatism serves only to weaken and water down feminist theoretical contributions to my/our truthseeking agenda. Now you may be completely right about the sematic difference and I won’t argue you. But I will insist, as I have in the past, that feminists don’t make feminism hard to swallow. Patriarchy (or the patriarchy, I do not care) makes feminism hard to swallow.