all those self-care posts would be so much better if they didn’t include getting dolled up, putting on make-up etc. honestly in a society where women’s mental health already relies on their appearance this is such an unnecessary thing to advise people to do. like i get it, applying makeup can be comforting for some people (including myself) but why exactly? why do we never question why changing our natural faces makes us feel more confident, and instead just accept this as something that just is and can’t be changed? when i’m feeling sad or anxious the last thing i want to do is care about my appearance tbh. it’s so incredibly important and mentally healing to accept that your natural face without makeup is beautiful. and it’s possible to pamper yourself without putting on makeup. taking off your makeup however is the biggest liberation and empowerment.
I’m too tired to find sources and images and whatever, but this is literally how they used to assess women’s mental health and still is a lot of the time. If women wore baggy clothes, didn’t wear make up, didn’t have perfect hair or rejected femininity in any way it was used as a sign of their mental health, a sign that they were crazy and needed fixing. Women wouldn’t be able to free themselves from institutions until they began to conform to femininity. Associating self care with femininity is kinda really fucked up considering we used to get sectioned purely for not being feminine enough.
And this shit is still happening. I’ve been told that my eating disorder would be fixed if I just took more care of my appearance, I’ve repeatedly been told that my appearance is just a result of my mental health, that once I feel better I’ll be more feminine again and I should ‘fake it till I make it’.
The whole thing is fucked up and I highly reject any ‘self-care’ that is rooted in beauty standards and forced femininity.
“I’m troubled with using “beauty” as a synonym for feeling valuable and powerful and magnificent. It’s not far removed from nominally inspiring, but ultimately shallow, slogans like “Confidence is sexy” and “Nothing is more attractive than happiness” that treat emotional well-being as an accessory. I seek happiness because it feels good, not because it makes my hair shinier. Happiness, confidence, self-esteem—these things should be ends, not means.”
See also: friend of a friend who went to a&e because she was feeling suicidal, but was dismissed because she was wearing make up so she “couldn’t be that bad”.
suchasinistergame 