Lipstick and Feminism

I am sick of being underestimated. People assume that because I love high heels and doing my make-up is my favourite part of the day, that I am somehow lesser than them. I am tired of having people think I’m stupid or ignorant to the world around me just because I enjoy classically feminine pastimes. Time and time again I have been told to “not talk about things I don’t understand” or to “stop pretending to be smart” all because I take genuine pleasure from shopping as well as having an interest in activism for equal rights. 

Worst of all, many of these comments come from other women. To an extent I can forgive a man who may subconsciously feel better informed or superior to me- that is down to the subliminal sexist messages and gender roles society has educated them in since birth. It’s not right but it is understandable. However, what I cannot understand is the messages I receive from women who are of equal age, if not older, telling me to not play ‘feminist’ just because Taylor Swift made it cool- they try to tell me that by conforming to certain elements of gender norms, that I am not worthy of the title ‘feminist’. 

Was it not Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who wrote a whole article on this very argument? That a woman can be interested in fashion and her appearance without it at all affecting her intelligence or of her part in the movement of gender equality? We no longer live in a work where the only way to take on the patriarchy is to defy it completely. We fight so that we can make our own choices based on our own interests and beliefs- how can we expect to be given the rights to this freedom by men when we are still refusing to give each other this right? 

Women did not die for you to tell me that I am oppressed my MAC palette. They died for me to have the choice to vote, to get an education and to have my own job. Because of them I am going to university and travelling the world instead of starting a family and running a household. Because of the suffragettes I am able to write a novel without needing a pseudonym, because of them another woman can be a stay at home mother and because of them a woman can be prime-minister and still love her red lipstick.

Slut. Whore. Vain. Self-absorbed. Narcissistic. Bitchy. We give each other these labels then expect men to stop labelling us in the same way- the only way we can win this fight against the patriarchy is if we stop enforcing it ourselves. Until women- hating is dead in the water, the patriarchy will continue as it always has. 

So for future notice- I will carry on winging my eyeliner and wearing dresses while I continue to fight for equality of the genders. And I will crush the patriarchy under every step of my Louboutin heels.