Femininity, Femme, and Femmesexism

*This essay is part of my series on feminism. To understand it, you must have read my “Feminism Basics” intro.*

First we must start with a few definitions and go over what femme and femmesexism mean. I am not using terms that include [x]phobia/[x]phobic because systems of oppressions are not phobias, and using such language perpetuates ableism. However, some of the articles I quote and link to do use those terms. I am not disagreeing with the content of any of the articles, merely the terminology.

Femme: Is “a descriptor for a queer person who presents and acts in a traditionally feminine manner” (source).

Femmesexism: Is “the fear or hatred of all people and things which are perceived as femme, feminine, effeminate, and/or twink, regardless of their gender” (source).

Queer: “One definition of queer is abnormal or strange. Historically, queer has been used as an epithet/slur against people whose gender, gender expression and/or sexuality do not conform to dominant expectations. Some people have reclaimed the word queer and self identify as such. For some, this reclamation is a celebration of not fitting into norms/being “abnormal.” Manifestations of oppression within gay and lesbian movements such as racism, sizeism, ableism, cissexism, transmisogyny as well as assimilation politics, resulted in many people being marginalized, thus, for some, queer is a radical and anti-assimilationist stance that captures multiple aspects of identities.” (source; see more on this here).

Femme is just a queer feminine person. That's it. Queer and feminine are the only requirements. However, 99% of the articles on the web are about femme lesbians. There is nothing wrong with being a femme lesbian, but a large number of femme's aren't lesbians.

It is crucial to understand the nuances of femmesexism, because it is one of the biggest roadblocks on our way to equality.

Femme invisibility is a real thing. It happens all the time. Queer women who are feminine get seen as straight—by straight folks, other queer folks, and sometimes even queer femmes themselves—because this culture expects dykes to reject gender roles automatically when rejecting a heterosexual orientation. As if those two things go together inseparably. 

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Masculinity, femininity, genderqueerness, or any sort of gender presentation is not inherent to a sexual identity. Femininity is not just for straight women. We’ve accepted that masculinity is for dykes and femininity is for fags because, well, this culture is homophobic and sexist, and we assume that a rejection of heterosexuality is also a rejection of gender roles. But many combinations of gender and sexuality exist—probably more than I could even name, probably more than I comprehend. (This is one of the reasons why, when people look at a guy who is even slightly feminine and declare him a closet fag, I think: that’s sexist. He certainly mightbe a closet fag, but there are also many straight men who have feminine gender performances, and that does not mean he’s gay. Ditto for slightly masculine women—I mean, how many of us have said, how many dozens of times, that Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica must be gay? But why is that? Well, it’s because she has some swagger, never because she has displayed any sexual or romantic interest toward other women.) 

This culture tells us all these things, and this culture is wrong. It is not correct that feminine dykes are really straight girls. It just isn’t. In fact, it’s rooted in sexism and homophobia, and a little bit ignorant. (source)

* This author uses the words “dykes” and “fags”. As a queer person, she has the right to decide she will reclaim the words and use them positively. That does not mean they can be used by someone outside of the community! Do not use them!

Another:

My face was painted club-kid chic, and, despite my broad shoulders, I moved around with a certain sassy elegance: All-in-all, I was definitely serving some femme realness. Alone, I blended in quite nicely with the queer mosaic of the crowd. However, I was with my ex- girlfriend, and as we passionately made our bodies and lips into one on the dancefloor, it wasn’t my look that was turning people’s heads. It was the juxtaposition of my femme presentation with the clear fact that I was getting hot and heavy with a woman. 

I’m bisexual, and though I’ve never once identified as gay (not even when I came out as a teenager 10 years ago), that label is an assumption I face regularly—especially from those who’ve known me when I’ve been dating men. That I don’t mind playing up my femme side from time to time doesn’t help either. Suffice it to say, the looks of confusion my ex and I were greeted with that night were not the first I’ve received. 

Here’s the trouble: While femininity can be dangerous for gay men, it is somewhat expected of them—a form of behavior or mode of self-presentation they are “allowed.” For bi guys like me, even a little femininity threatens to erase our entire identity. 

Just being bi is already hard enough. Both the straight and LGBTQ community regularly speculate on the veracity of my sexuality. I am told I don’t exist or that I’m going through a phase. Or I just get placed in the gay or straight box against my will. Dating can be especially difficult. I once had a gay guy tell me, during a night out, that I had “vagina cooties”—there wasn’t a second date. This sort of creepy scrutiny is one of the most annoying parts of being bi. But the invalidation of our sexualities only grows when bisexual individuals don’t express their gender identities in conventional ways. 

There are spaces for gay men, lesbian women, bisexual women, and trans women to express femininity. There are few, if any, arenas in which bisexual men, queer in our own right, have the space to express femininity without fear of our sexuality being nullified. There is a deeply ingrained misconception that a man can’t be romantically involved with another man and still be interested in women as well. That is because masculinity, or at least the most basic stereotype of it, is meant to be dominant and to attract femininity. Femininity, on the other hand, is weak and attracts masculinity. Male bisexuality, even when it is embodied in a traditionally masculine person, already blurs the lines between those outdated and severely limiting misconceptions. Add femme behavior, and you’ve really got a problem. 

To be clear, these gender misconceptions hurt gays and lesbians, too. Many people automatically assume butch women are lesbians because of their masculinity, and those same people show surprise when feminine women identify as lesbian. For gay men, any expression of femininity can lead to regressive associations with sexual preferences (a more masculine guy is presumed to be a “top,” while a more feminine guy gets cast as the “bottom”). In these ways and many others, gender stereotypes hamper everyone in the queer community—but there are some distinct ways in which they hurt bisexual men. 

While part of me wants to identify proudly as femme, I’m wary of doing so, because I know it will only cause me grief. To be sure, I am generally more feminine than stereotypical masculinity allows—but my gender expression varies. Sometimes I present more masculine— working outside in a fitted cap and basketball shorts. Other times I’m more feminine: I’ve been known to go out in crop tops and metallic eye shadow. I always present and identify as a man; it’s just that, sometimes I’m a man who acts more feminine. Still, I don’t often self-describe as “femme,” because it hasn’t worked out well in the past. Aside from confusing people with regard to my sexuality, it also hurts my chances with straight women. 

In my freshmen year of college, a girl I was seeing for a few months ended the relationship because of my femininity. “Do you doubt my attraction to you?” I asked her when she broke the news of our breakup. “No. Not at all,” she responded. (If anything, our relationship was far more physical than anything else.) “Then what’s the deal?” I asked, knowing her answer before she even said it. “My friends tease me for having a ‘gay boyfriend.’” 

Despite my very clear attraction to my ex-girlfriend, she, like many straight women, allowed gender stereotypes to end our relationship. I guess I could butch it up to keep the speculations at bay and land more straight women. But that would be denying parts of myself instead of celebrating all of my identity. Clearly, these gender ideas are an impediment to the diversity of the rainbow community. They say that a man has to act and present a certain way in order to date another man or another woman. But we know better than that: We should all be validated and allowed to live the truth of our own experiences. (source)

And:

These double standards signify a wider, general aversion to the feminine. The intrinsic prejudice that runs deeply through society, that Owen Jones touched on in his article about the widespread ridicule of Alan Carr’s campness by gay men: the ‘alleged self-loathing’ that many gay males feel, the ‘anti-camp bashing’ of feminine men that ensues. (source)

And:

While femininity is not necessarily rare in the gay community, it is beginning to be seen as a negative trait; men are plastering their profiles with phrases like “no fems” and “masc 4 masc”, and calling themselves “straight-acting” as if being heterosexual is the same as being manly, and therefore being gay is to be feminine. This kind of thinking is very dangerous in a community always pushing for unity and respect while breaking down binaries and stereotypes alongside the rest of the LGBT population. The growing divide between the masculine and feminine parts of the gay community, and the concept of “straight-passing privilege” (being seen as masculine enough to not be immediately assumed gay) have done nothing more than create a sort of improvised hierarchy within the community placing the manliest of the bunch at the top, the feminine members at the butt of every joke, and leaving those in the androgynous middle pressured to choose a side. 

But the sissy stereotype and the masculine-feminine divide also affect the way the outside world sees our community. 

I remember a day, about a year ago, in one of my junior year classes when we somehow stumbled onto the subject of homosexuality and gay students at our school and in our community. I remember how almost every student who would try to crack a joke would put on a limp wrist, a high voice, and a “sassy” tone to imitate what they perceived “gayness” to be, and, of course, everyone else would laugh and try their hand at the mockery. However when certain names would slip into the conversation, people wouldn’t think twice to shout out; “But they don’t act gay.” Now by this point I can’t help asking myself “what did they mean by that? He doesn’t like shopping? He doesn’t have a high voice? He doesn’t like glam pop? What on earth is acting gay?” Now, these months and months later, I know that the straight-person’s perceptions behind “acting gay” are as simple as “acting feminine”, and that while the traits I mentioned are neither good nor bad traits, the assumptions behind them, and the historical context of men acting feminine being hilarious on the basis of being embarrassing, have driven many gay men to a point of adopting a hyper-masculine façade in order to escape the “sissy” image. 

I can also recall a queer friend of mine watching another openly gay boy bounce from person to person through a room socializing in his normal manner, and my friend then remarking; “Gays like him are why we get made fun of.” This remark took me a hot minute to process. I just couldn’t understand how anyone in a community that faces enough hate already could attack one of his own. Just seeing this effeminate boy be himself ‒ something we all want to be able to do comfortably ‒ was enough to make this then-friend of mine upset enough to remark that the boys femininity was embarrassing to the whole community. 

The growing distaste for the effeminate in our community is plaguing us and serves only to further divide and distress every member. If we truly wish to achieve the familial unity we crave, we have to rise above the misconceptions our heteronormative upbringings have instilled in us and realize that all portrayals of masculinity, femininity and any blend of the two are all perfectly valid manners of self-expression for a gay man to channel, and that denying another man’s expression of himself for the sake of easier coexistence with the straight world is not the way to go about reaching equality. Every gay man (and woman) deserves the right to express him or herself however he or she feels comfortable without any hate, especially none from within their own community. (source)

And:

However, this experience is not unique to trans-feminine youth, it’s also common in gay youth. Many young gay men were also mercilessly shamed for exhibiting femininity at a young age. That shame gets internalized. Before I came out as trans, I came out as gay. It was the only way I knew how to describe what I was feeling at the time. I was a continual target of bullies, especially the jocks, and as I got older, I was ostracized from the girls I got along with better than the boys because of the fact that I ‘was a boy.’ That shifted as I got into high school and the boys vs. girls mentality relaxed a little bit. But by then I had learned to straighten my walk, gesture from my upper arms rather than from my hands, speak in a more monotone voice etc. For all of middle school, I carefully monitored my behavior for any signs of the dreaded ‘femininity.’ Masculinity became a commodity that I traded in. Even after I was out as gay, I had so styled myself as the ‘straight acting’ gay guy by high school that suddenly I was accepted by the very guys who used to bully me mercilessly because I assimilated into their hetero and cisnormative notions of masculinity and femininity. Because of this, I became non- threatening. 

These lessons, that many trans-feminine youth and gay youth learn, for some (dare I say most), result in severe self-loathing and internalized homophobia and transphobia. It’s the same kind of internalized shame that for some gay men leads to the proud proclamations of ‘no femmes’ on grindr profiles across the United States, or causes some gay men to run for the hills when they see a Barbra Streisand album in a potential hookup’s apartment. 

Because of the strictures of the social hierarchy of ‘masc’ over ‘femme’ that’s pervasive in many corners of gay life, as well as in heteronormative circles, the shamed become the shamers. So much time and energy is spent trying to prove manhood to heterosexual and cis people who deem themselves the gate keepers in climates like high school, that when a trans-feminine person, or feminine gay man for that matter, chooses to fully embrace that aspect of themselves, some gay men find it threatening. Suddenly all the effort to prove their manhood to some unseen force comes crashing down. ‘Remember that guy in middle school who was so effeminate? Well now he’s a she!’ Suddenly the other guy who was also effeminate in middle school who went to great lengths to prove he’s still a man ‘despite being attracted to men,’ feels like that grasp on it is more tenuous. I believe this is one of the subconscious factors which creates distance between some gay men and the trans movement, and in turn, leads some gay men to start petitions to ‘divorce the T from the LGBT,’ or for the Empire State Pride Agenda declaring mission accomplished with the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality, leaving many trans and gender variant people behind. 

Now this is of course not to say that all gay men feel this way, nor is it to say that abject masculinity is inherently unnatural to gay men, it’s only to say that femininity shaming is a common experience in those sexually or gender variant who were assigned male at birth. I’m also not arguing that this is the only factor that causes the LGB and T schism. Only that it is one of them. And because it’s the subconscious result of many years of hetero and cisnormative programming, it’s one of the more prickly and nefarious ones. I believe that this femininity shaming gets carried over to a generic discomfort with those who claim that femininity. (source)

And:

Ironically, when transgender men transition, their salaries increase by 7%. When transgender women transition, it drops on average by 32%.  

Neurobiologist (and transgender man) Ben Barres has seen this effect first hand. He noted that people regarded his work far more highly if they didn’t know he was transgender. After giving a presentation of his work, he heard on audience member remark, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister’s.” 

While this might seem like a good thing for transgender men, it doesn’t work out that way. It provides a perverse incentive to stay in the closet and remain isolated. 

Transgender men often are able to “blend” more than transgender women, and thus have the option of going “stealth” more frequently. I know of some transgender men (some of whom are who are teachers) who have remained deep in the closet because the stigma of being transgender, and the fear of being seen as anything less than a “real” man.
Maintaining this façade requires strict discipline, like severely limiting the number of people who know. This can often include other members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

It may not be coincidental, then, that transgender men attempt suicide at a rate higher than transgender women. Social isolation has repeatedly to be shown as a risk factor for suicidality, and femmephobia creates a perverse incentive for transgender men to isolate themselves. 

Perhaps no segment of the LGBTQIA+ community suffers from femmephobia more than transgender women. Transgender women are the subject of almost all of the hate and vitriol directed at transgender people. 

Of the 23 transgender people murdered in the US in 2015, all of them were transgender women. 

Queer feminist pioneer Judith Butler observed in a recent interview that: 

“Killing is an act of power, a way of re-asserting domination, even a way of saying, ‘I am the one who decides who lives and dies.’ So killing establishes the killer as sovereign in the moment that he kills, and that is the most toxic form that masculinity can take. Trans women have relinquished masculinity, showing that it can be, and that is, very threatening to a man who wants to see his power as an intrinsic feature of who he is.” 

Also, the rejection of anything feminine by many gay men may have led to vituperative attacks by gay leaders in the movement made against transgender women. 

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Two of the most prominent proponents of an unfalsifiable, pseudo-science theory meant to vilify transgender women are a pair of gay psychologists. Their theory is used by the religious right to argue that transgender people (particularly women) should be legislated out of existence. 

One of them regularly trolls the transgender community, and seems to get on very well with Second Wave feminists who also often want the transgender community exterminated. 

One can only postulate that something he sees in himself leads him to heap such opprobrium on transgender women, that he will only treat them with dignity if they cop to being disgusting perverts. 

He promotes the narrative that transgender women aren’t women, supports reparative therapy on transgender youth, and promotes stories about transition regrets. And yet, he has the chutzpah to claim he’s on our side, as long as transgender people agree their identities are just a sexualized delusion. 

Similarly, during the debate on whether to include gender identity in the language of the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 2007, bill sponsor and gay Democratic Representative Barney Frank was asked about whether he would support inclusion. 

He reportedly screamed, “Never!” at the interviewer in a crowded restaurant, and went on a rant about “penises in showers,” despite ENDA specifically excluding bathrooms. In 2007, Executive Director Joe Solmonese broke his promise to only support ENDA if it included gender identity, and followed Rep. Frank’s lead in dropping gender identity from ENDA. 

In 2015, a HRC internal report was leaked which found the organization’s culture was “rooted in a white, masculine orientation which is judgmental of all those who don’t fit that mold.” One staff member interviewed was even more blunt: “I see femophobia – feminine men and women are not considered as important.” 

This institutional lateral violence against transgender women hasn’t just come from gay men. Former Executive Director of HRC Elizabeth Birch once remarked that inclusion of gender identity in ENDA would happen “over my dead body.” 

Finding safety in queer women’s spaces has also been difficult for transgender women, though not nearly as much for trans masculine individuals. 

Transgender men, many of whom initially identified as lesbians, are often still accepted (or revered) in queer women’s spaces. One queer woman recently described the spectacle of a trans man holding court to an adoring crowd at a lesbian bar. 

Transgender women are often not welcome at all in such spaces, regardless of passability or surgical status. 

Transgender women are frequently accused of caricaturizing women if they present as too femme, but have their identities questioned if they present in a less femme way, with considerable overlap between the two. 

As a result, transgender women often have no way of safely expressing their gender without it serving as a basis to reject them either way. (source)

Just like cisgender men, passing transgender men have higher wages and suicide rates; thanks to gaining male privilege and toxic masculinity. Transgender women face much higher levels of prejudice and violence, both because they have rejected toxic masculinity and because they are now subject to sexism and Rape Culture (there is the truly horrific belief that trans women keep male privilege, which is the opposite of the truth, see here). The level of violence also depends heavily on intersections within the Kyriarchy: 

The Gay and Lesbian Student Education Network also reported in 2009 that 33 percent of African-American students surveyed experienced physical violence at school due to their gender expression. That number rose to 45 percent for Latino students and more than 50 percent for Native Americans. (source)

Another, written by a heterosexual cisgender woman:

So why am I telling you this? If it’s kind of arbitrary, and just a personal preference, why should you care whether I’m into femme men? To express my astonishment at how threatened people are by me. To draw attention to that fact and ask you to question why.
Because so many women have romantic expectations of the opposite, and so many men react to male displays of femininity with social and physical violence. Because even gay men snark that they are “masc, and you should be, too,” and claim “straight-acting” as though it were a gay boy-scout badge. 

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And for some reason, when men resist making these transactions by being femme, the reaction is extreme. In my opinion, the problem is that so much is made of male instincts being a particular testosterone-fueled kind of madness. That’s one of the reasons that people use to justify the whole system. 

So when you’re a living example that not all men are the same? You’re quite the threat.I’ve seen it in the way people react to the men I want, and I’ve seen it in the way people react to the other men in my life, brothers and friends, who are basically gender-conforming but must display any even remotely feminine trait with extreme care. Even in my socially progressive, fuck-the-gender-binary circles, circles where drag balls are a common spectacle, the men I know often agonize over how they appear, even the straight ones, even if they’d cooed over the magic a dress performed on their legs the previous Friday. 

It’s telling that when I assert this fact about myself, people basically take it upon themselves to inform me in so many words that feminine men are subhuman. They explain by claiming I’m out of touch with my instincts, I’m fooling myself, or that I’m a total evolutionary anomaly. 

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That’s a strange hypocrisy, and one I’ve seen to be a kind of agony to the men who don’t fit. 

So why else I’m saying this: there are always men, and male-bodied people who identify as androgynous, who come forward. Without any agenda, they tell me thank you for speaking up. Thank you for affirming me. Or, tragically: if there were more women like you, I’d feel freer to be femme. 

Which brings me to the last thing I love about feminine men: the fucking character it takes to be one in the face of relentless social hostility. In the face of assertions of your inferiority. In the face of threats. There’s nothing lovelier than that kind of strength. (source)

Femmesexism is also taken to ridiculously superficial extremes:

Femmephobia, beautifully articulated in this article, is a particular subset of sexism that suggests that femininity and things regarded as feminine are inherently inferior, bad, weak, stupid, non-preferable, valueless, disempowering, etc. It comes in a lot of different forms… such as the way that boys, men and AMAB (“assigned-male-at-birth”) individuals are scorned (and often assaulted or killed) for expressing themselves in a feminine manner, possessing feminine characteristics, or enjoying feminine things, occurs to a far more severe extent than the scorn directed towards girls, women or AFAB individuals who express or enjoy conventionally masculine things. Given the assumed preferability of masculinity, the latter is seen as natural and understandable while the former is seen is as abhorrent, crazy and pathological. For a stark example, the psychological diagnosis “transvestic fetishism” is only applied to men and this requirement is written directly into the DSM. The explanations for this (“women have broader clothing choices”, for example) only emphasize the point. 

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For every pink science kit for girls, there is a body wash or moisturizer for men. For every pink razorphone or “Miss Army Knife” there are “macho mattresses” with “muscle recovery technology” and a bunch of cookbooks geared around opening cans and adding bacon. For every set of tools with smaller, pink handles, there is a special girliness-free brand of ultra, super-duper manly conditioner. For men. I guess with the special ingredients that keep you from growing boobs. 

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I also believe there’s a subtle but meaningful difference in the way that products are marketed “for girls” and the way that products are marketed “for men”. The “for girls” marketing seems to have as its goal making women find the product more appealing. The “for men” marketing, and the silly neologisms (neo-bro-gisms?), seem designed to somehow protect or insulate men from the girliness of whatever you’re selling. As though it’s addressing an actualfearof “girl stuff”. That touching it or using it will contaminate them with… I don’t know… cooties or something. Maybe turn them gay. Or trans. Gasp! (source)

Yes, “transvestic fetishism” is still in the DSM.

Another one says,

“Guyliner,” “meggings,” “mandle” even “mantyhose” are some of the ridiculous names that have been thrown around to describe traditionally feminine products when they are being marketed towards men. Apparently even hangers are too feminine for the modern man. Seriously, how ever would you hang your MAN shirt on one of those dainty regular hangers? You need a MAN HANGER! Sarcasm aside, there is nothing wrong with men using products that are more common among women. What is a problem, however, is the ridiculous marketing schemes that surround the masculine equivalents of conventionally feminine products. 

Unnecessary product masculinization is not limited to clothing. Pretty much anything that could potentially be deemed feminine or is typically marketed towards women has been given an obnoxiously manly counterpart. Kleenex put out a line of man-sized tissues because normal tissues are just too dainty. Broga isa company that sells yoga apparel and creates yoga classes…for men…because everyone knows yoga is for girls, duh. It’s not like yoga is a practice that’s been exercised by people of all genders for centuries or anything. If you’ve ever wanted a yoga mat that resembles a burrito or a log of wood, now you know where to get one! Don’t worry though, they mention in the slogan, “Yoga for dudes. And women too,” that women can use these macho macho mats as well. The mandle (an oh-so creative combination of man and candle) comes in scents like bacon and leather, not those girly scents like lavender and jasmine…everyone knows men hate flowers and anything else that smells good. 

They forgot murse and mun (ie, purse and bun). Google these terms, and you will be finding mainstream media using them all the time.

This constant masculizing of anything that could be remotely feminine shows just how much toxic masculinity is imbedded into our culture.

And another one,

In the 1980s and onward, designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier and most recently, the designer for Givenchy, experimented with kilts and kilt-like skirts of the kind Smith wore to the prom. 

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The kilt is ambiguous from a gender perspective - it's a masculine, even macho garment in Scotland, Steele says, but it resembles a skirt. It's a garment a man could wear without fear of being assaulted in public for wearing women's clothes. "It’s the ambiguity of the kilt which makes it so versatile," said Steele. 

In an interesting irony, rock and roll acts like 1970s punk band The New York Dolls, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, when going full-on glamazon -- with makeup, dresses, and jewelry -- seemed even tougher and more masculine. Steele suggests it's as if they're saying, "No this isn’t feminine, it’s masculine. Or at least, masculine when I’m doing it." It could also be seen as an expression of straight male privilege: "I’m so masculine I get to do this."

This brings up a crucial distinction. In the first week of January 2016, Jaden Smith was featured in a Louis Vuitton womenswear ad, and was announced to be the new face of their womenswear department (see here). This is a great step for the mainstream world, and I have been ecstatic at the progress Hollywood and mainstream media has been making in the last few years.

However.

The ad, and Jaden's clothing, are strictly edgy; just like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Johnny Depp, and Adam Lambert's use of make-up and 'feminine' things. There's leather and studs, and sharp, angular lines. The female models in the ad with Jaden (see link above) are dressed similarly, and are in warrior poses, showing off their arms and fists.

There is a pattern here. Masculinity is still being prized above femininity. We have no celebrated male celebrity who loves flowing dresses and pastels. Hollywood has made a good first step, but even it's masculization of skirts hasn't hit mainstream society. The article about Jaden closes with: “For a lasting shift in dressing to really register, the man-skirt needs to leave the anything-goes bubble of the runway and safe shores of celebrity peacock-ery and high fashion advertising, and hit the populist stores of the local mall.”

Even when making this crucial observation, the author still falls in the trap of 'man-skirt'. Use that term, or mun, or murse, or any of them, and you are enforcing toxic masculinity and sexism.

I said in my Intro that 'femininity' and 'masculinity' are social constructs because they take traits and assign them to a certain gender. These social constructs change frequently with different cultures and time periods, so we are now going to take a trip through history.

Specifically, I want to talk about the 'feminine' coded items of high heels and make-up.

High heels were designed for men, worn by men, and actually had to be wrested away from men by women. 

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But then, I'm biased. I love high heels. They're fascinating historical symbols of power and wealth—and one thing that I don't think of them as being is particularly feminine.
This is because they aren't. Or, at least, they certainly weren't intended to be. Depictions of high heels date back to Ancient Egypt. However, heels really became popular in 15th century Persia, where they were worn by male equestrians. According to Elizabeth Semmelhack, a curator from the Bata Shoe Museum, “When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more easily.” Heels were intended to be an instrument of war, rather than one of seduction. 

Messengers from Persia began traveling to Europe, and they brought their heels with them. European male aristocrats may not have been shooting a bow and arrow while riding a horse, but they did realize that if you wore high heels, your feet would not be covered in horse shit, or, indeed, any of the muck you might find on the grounds of a Renaissance city. 

Heels also made people taller. This was especially impressive because height has always been considered a sign of dominance. People who reference Henry VIII often talk about how godly he seemed, as he stood 6'2” in the 1500s. Men wanted to look taller and therefore more intimidating; high heels weren't supposed to be pretty, they were supposed to be kind of scary. If you believe Dita von Teese, who said, “Heels and red lipstick will put the fear of god into people,” they're still scary. 

Sixteenth-century Italian courtesans soon began adopting high heels as a kind of sexy androgynous symbol. That made sense. Courtesans, the highest class of prostitutes at the time, had access to a lot of things "respectable" women didn't. They were the only women allowed to enter libraries. Since courtesans were supposed to please men, and pretty much interacted almost exclusively with them, they were often also supposed to like male things. This included reading, smoking, drinking, and wearing heels so they towered above everyone else. 

Access to traditionally male spheres of life was kind of the whole upside to being a courtesan. The downside was that you'd have to use a lemon half as a barrier to prevent pregnancy, you'd likely contract syphilis and be publicly shamed for it, and you might be burnt as a witch. (Though if you time travel back to the 16th century as a woman and don't want to be a virtual prisoner inside your own house, it's still not a terrible option, all things considered.) 

And courtesans wore crazy high heels. Their chopines were sometimes ten inches tall. Courtesans usually liked to accessorize these shoes with a man. His job would be to support her as she walked through the street. It was generally one or two of her male servants who helped, but sometimes a courtesan would enlist a host of four or five powerful noblemen to use as human crutches. 

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All this did not mean that high heels stopped being worn by powerful men, any more than powerful men stopped reading or smoking when courtesans started doing the same. 

In the 18th century, high heels were a bigger power symbol than ever before. Louis XIV who was a mere 5'4", loved high heels. It was he, rather than Christian Louboutin, who was the first to feature a red sole on the bottom of his shoes. He allowed the members of his court that he was closest with to wear similarly red soles. This, almost immediately, lead to problems with impostors painting the soles of their heels red to suggest they were closer to the Sun King than they actually were. These people were thrown out of court—it was an offense that was taken very seriously. 

Charles II liked the red sole look so much that you can see him wearing a pair of French-style heels in his 1661 coronation. Non-courtesan women also started wearing them around this period because, again, gender-bending clothing is cool. Certain people during the 17th century had an erotic fascination with women wearing trousers, as actresses might if they were performing one of Shakespeare's dual gender roles. More commonly, women began adding traditionally masculine elements like tricorne hats, epaulettes, military-style gold braid, and, yes, high heels to their outfits. Those women, like their male counterparts, were generally aristocrats. 

Then the French revolution came. Democracy became fashionable and it started to seem unfashionable for anyone to tower over anyone else due to their social station. Flatter shoes were adopted universally and heels didn't make a comeback until the 19th century, when photographers of pornographic postcards realized that they made women's butts look great. It's because of those French postcards that high heels have become associated with women rather than men in the 20th century. 

It's kind of bizarre when you think about it. Height is still considered a sign of desirability and dominance in men in a way it never is in women. It seems like men would stand to benefit more from wearing high heels, or at least looking taller (in one survey, 9 out of 10 women said they wanted to date someone taller than they were). But then, high heels have been in common use for over 600 years. In another century or so, we'll probably see them back on male feet again. (source)

And:

The answer, usually, has to do with a mix of power, status, beauty, and sex. We didn't get into heels as a species because somebody wanted to feel more comfortable. We wore them (and continue to wear them) to look taller, more elegant, more sexual, tower over our rivals, be the most prominent person onstage, and generally dominate the room. When you stride into a bar in your 5-inch heels you're part of a very long tradition, with some admittedly very peculiar elements. 

The rise of the platform heel from the '70s in today's fashion may seem to signal that we're tired of bending our feet out of shape, but all it shows is that we're temporarily tired of leaning all our weight on our toes. Many of us still want that height, that boost, that sashay. And why wouldn't we? After all, everybody from the Persian Emperor to Louis XIV of France had something to say on the topic of heels. 

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The idea of a high heel or platform shoe is actually a seriously ancient one. One of the first traced high-level pieces of footwear in history belonged to actors in ancient Greece, and were known as kothorni. They were flat shoes with wooden or cork bases up to four inches thick. However, these weren't necessarily worn offstage; they were actually meant as a kind of shorthand about the social class of various characters in Greek drama and comedy. The higher the heel, the more “elevated” the character. 

There's also evidence that ancient Egyptians used heels, though not for everyday use. Like the Greeks, they used their heels (which, again, were significantly high, flat platforms) for a definite purpose: murals dating to around 3500 BC show them wearing the shoes for religious ceremonies. We don't know why, though. The higher the heel, the closer to the Egyptian gods? 

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One of the most convincing theories about how the high heel took over the world comes from shoe expert and academic Elizabeth Semmelhack, a curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Canada. Her thinking? Persian riding shoes were the real source of the first trend. 

Persian art shows that many noblemen of the medieval Persian empire wore heels as riding shoes, often in decadent materials and bright colors, to enable them to get a better grip on their stirrups. According to Semmelhack, the European royals really perked up and took notice when a Persian monarch, Shah Abbas, came to tour European courts and make noble friends in the 1500s. The diplomatic gesture turned into a fashionable one, too: people saw the beautiful heeled shoes worn by the Shah and his entourage, and decided to make them their own. And rightly so. Those things were gorgeous. 

The idea of the heel actually being a “female” notion took a very long time to develop. One of the places where it took hold, however, was in Venice in the 1400s. But these weren't heels that you'd like to wear clubbing these days. Chopines, as they're called, were staggeringly high, slightly-tilted shoes with as many as 24 inches of narrowed platform underneath. They were originally designed to keep the mud off the more delicate "real" shoes of ladies walking in the street, often made of easily-stained material like animal skin or satin, but they developed into decorative symbols all of their own, and a Europe-wide trend. 

Chopines are actually not just a European idea. The Japanese have had them for centuries, under different names, but for the same essential idea: keeping an expensive kimono from touching the dirty ground, and looking as distinctive as possible. Apprentice geisha, known as maiko, will wear footwear called okobo, which are made of solid wooden blocks and tower above the ground. And the concept of the “elevated” foot has been present in Japanese fashion for ages; the geta, a shoe made of a plank of wood with two others underneath to hold the wearer off the ground, can be up to 18cm high. 

The chopine was eventually outlawed in France, for various reasons. One was that they were most often worn by prostitutes, who used them to get attention. Another was that they were blamed for a whole heap of problems, from traffic accidents and frequent falls (likely) to miscarriages (a bit less likely). They were also ridiculed widely by everybody from Shakespeare to religious commentators, who thought they were outrageous. 

The idea of the low sole and high heel as an option for women seems to have made its debut on a fairly spectacular public occasion: a royal wedding. When Catherine de Medici married the Duke of Orleans in 1533, the 14-year-old bride apparently wore towering heels to look slightly more like an adult, instead of chopines or flats. The then gender-bending move made a splash, and the door opened to women wearing more typical “riding heels”. 

It also seems to have been part of a general trend of more androgynous fashion. Being "masculine" took hold as a real fashion trend in the 1630s, with European women smoking pipes and generally behaving like young dudes. And the male heel was part of that movement. 

The Persian shoes presented by the Shah were definitely only for men. And it was European royal men who really took them and ran with them. (So to speak.) 

The real fashion maven, and patron saint of the heel, was Louis XIV of France, otherwise known as The Sun King. He loved all things ornate; he was the one who made the seriously decadent Palace of Versailles his center of power. And the heel was just the thing he wanted to look even more elaborate. Standing at just 5'4", he adopted it enthusiastically, often with up to four inches of heel on his court shoes. He even developed a trademark of red-painted heels and ordered all male members of his court dye their heels the same color. Fun fact: that's the tradition of luxury that Christian Louboutin's crimson soles are referencing. 

The high heel went through a serious fall in fortunes after the French Revolution, when people wanted nothing to do with looking like aristocrats (who were pretty unpopular). And the New World wasn't fond of them either; Massachusetts Puritans banned high heels outright, thinking they were seductive and possible instruments of witchcraft. But they would bounce back. 

The Victorians were actually the ones who really rediscovered the heel. New sewing technology allowed for gentle heels with a few inches, but that was considered quite enough. The focus was on the instep; a curved instep was supposed to show a woman's femininity and refinement, and tiny heeled feet were the height of sophistication. It was the beginning of erotic photography, too, and heels played a strong role in its first years. The BBC reports that some of the first nude photographs of women featured high heels, and it was a feature of most of the “French postcards,” as sexy photos of ladies were called at the time. The male hold on the heel had thoroughly broken. 

Once it had been around for a while, the heel on women started to accumulate its own erotic, feminine significance. In his book Fashion And Fetishism, David Kunzle points out that some French authors in the 18th century began to talk about the “finely arched foot and delicately curved heel” as sexual attributes, and to make the heel a key part of a desirable noblewoman's body. It was at this point that men stopped wearing the heel; it had become a woman's shoe, associated with "irrationality" and impracticality. Typical. 

Pornography (and its more innocent cousin, pin-up photography) is commonly credited with making the high heel a popular, fetishised object, particularly during World War II, when men had photographs of girls in heels pinned up all over the battle-grounds of Europe. Helen Fisher, a famous sex anthropologist, has pointed out that this was the bit of history where we really discovered the sexual pose heels created. “High heels thrust out the buttocks and arch the back into a natural mammalian courting — actually, copulatory — pose called ‘lordosis,'” she told Today in 2009. The seriously high heel had arrived. 

In 1954, the first stiletto heel was invented by Roger Vivier for Christian Dior's fashion collections. Named after the Italian word for a thin dagger, the shoes (one of which is pictured) were immediately taken as a serious sex symbol by Hollywood. There's a long-standing rumor, probably untrue, that Marilyn Monroe had one heel on her shoes made slightly shorter than the other, to produce her exaggerated sexual gait. She was certainly a footwear pioneer: she was given custom-made shoes by the shoe designer Ferragamo, now one of the most famous in the world. (source)

Now, for the history of make-up.

Make-up History Timeline 

164,000 BC: Archaeologists found 164,000-year old makeup in a South African cave. The makeup, consisting of 57 pieces of ground-up rock that would have been reddish- or pinkish- brown, is called one of three hallmarks of modern life found at the site, and is one of the earliest hints of “modern” living. Previously, scientists believed that humankind of this time period weren’t advanced enough for this type of behavior, believing that modern living began approximately 40,000 to 70,000 years ago. 

70,000 BC: Humans are painting their bodies using plant and earthen materials. Sometimes the decorations were to imitate nature [e.g. animals], and other times the patterns were from natural formations. 

10,000 BC: Men and women in Egypt use scented oils and ointments to clean and soften their skin and mask body odour. Cosmetics are an integral part of Egyptian hygiene and health. Oils and creams are used for protection against the hot Egyptian sun and dry winds. Myrrh, thyme, marjoram, chamomile, lavender, lily, peppermint, rosemary, cedar, rose, aloe, olive oil, sesame oil, and almond oil provide the basic ingredients of most perfumes that Egyptians use in religious ritual. 

4000 BC: Egyptian women apply galena mesdermet [copper and lead ore mix] and malachite [green paste of copper minerals] to their faces for colour and definition. They employ a combination of burnt almonds, oxidized copper, different-coloured coppers ores, lead, ash, and ochre [the mix is called kohl] to adorn the eyes in an almond shape. Women carry cosmetics to parties in makeup boxes and keep them under their chairs. 

3000 BC: Records of makeup and cosmetics are found in tombs dating from this period. Jars with unguent have been found. Unguent was a substance extensively used by men and women to keep their skin hydrated and supple and to avoid wrinkles from the dry and hot atmosphere. 

Chinese people begin to stain their fingernails with gum Arabic, gelatin, beeswax, and egg. The colours used represent social class: Chou dynasty royals wear gold and silver, with subsequent royals wearing black or red. Lower classes are forbidden to wear bright colours on their nails. 

Grecians whiten their complexion with chalk or lead face powder and fashion crude lipstick out of ochre clays laced with red iron. 

Many of the nut and seed and essential oils being used today were used during these times to prevent dryness against the hot Egyptian sun and winds. Almond, olive and sesame oils along with essential oils like lavender, peppermint, chamomile, rose, myrrh and thyme were commonly used. 

Makeup was believed to protect one from evil. Kohl, a dark colored powder made by grinding burnt almonds, lead and copper ores, ash and ochre was applied to the eyes with a stick to give the eye an almond look which was considered very desirable. 

Egyptians decorated their eyes by applying dark green colour to the lower eyelid and by blackening the lashes and upper eyelids with kohl, which was made from antimony or soot. References to this type of makeup being worn are recorded in the New Testament section of the Bible. 

Red clay and water was used for lips and cheeks. Henna, a plant material, dyed the nails and hair. 

1 AD: Romans used cosmetics extensively. Kohl was used for darkening eyelashes and eyelids, chalk was used for whitening the complexion, and rouge was worn on the cheek. 

Depilatories were utilized during this time. The Roman men also used to remove excess hair from their bodies, even if it seemed to be a feminine habit. This practice was so common, that a slave was assigned to the baths exclusively for to assist in male depilating. 

Teeth were viewed as objects of vanity, and searches were conducted for materials to make them more beautiful. Toothpastes were made by blending pumice powder (variety of light spongy volcanic rock used as an abrasive), “Chio putty” (a metallic powder), baking soda and sodium bicarbonate (salt in the form of powder used as a key component in baking powder and self-rising flour). Bad breath was relieved with miraculous pills that Romans sold in the markets by perfume makers. 

Beauty cases were crafted using cherished woods and containers made of hand-blown glass. Glass pastes or fragrant amber was used to mold them together. The final product would be a beautifully encased cosmetic case lined with an array of lipsticks, and several varieties of eye makeup. Each individual case had a special purpose. Some shapely perfume vials were safely kept in the case. The vials were melted by fire to seal them shut, having to be broken at one end, in order to be opened. 

2 AD: “Curls, makeup, cosmetics, greasepaint, and teeth you could buy, and with the same money you could have even purchased a new face.” quoted Lucilio in his book “Satire” (Book XVI) 2 AD. 

30 AD: Black hair was enhanced by using minerals derived from Black Antimony (a metallic element) that was mixed with animal fat, absinthe’s ash (wormwood herb) mixed in rose oil or cypress leaves brewed that were then saturated in vinegar. Red hair was managed by pulverizing leaves in the “Lawsonia Inermis” (or true henna) family. Blond hair was maintained by a potion arriving from Gallic origin. It was made of goat’s fat and Beeches Ash. It was also possible to obtain the hair color of a carrot orange- red or a deep blue perhaps obtained by the indigo plant. These colors were very becoming on the prostitutes or Rufae (meaning red). 

100 AD: In Rome, people put barley flour and butter on their pimples and sheep fat and blood on their fingernails for polish. In addition, mud baths come into vogue, and some Roman men dye their hair blond. 

180 AD: Males were not left behind when hair-dying broke into fashion. At one point it was blond everyone wanted; it was the fashion, and referred to as “Alla Gernana” or “German Style” and this was big during Roman Emperor Commodo’s times (even the Emperor used to sprinkle his head with gold powder). 

500 AD: During the European middle ages, pale skin was a sign of wealthy lifestyle. Sixth century women sought drastic measures to achieve that look by bleeding themselves. Spanish prostitutes wore pink makeup. 

1200 AD: Thirteenth century affluent women donned pink lipstick as proof they could afford synthetic makeup. 

1400 AD: In China and Japan, rice powder was applied to the face, eyebrows were shaved and teeth were painted gold or black. 

1560 AD: During the Elizabethan period in England, women wore egg whites over their faces for a glazed look. 

1600 AD: During the Italian Renaissance, lead powder and paint was used to lighten the face, which was very damaging to the wearer. Aqua Toffana was a popular face powder made from arsenic, belladonna and lead and named for its creator, Signora Toffana. Signora Toffana instructed her rich clientele to apply the makeup only when their husbands were around. Signora Toffana was finally accused of over 600 deaths [mostly husbands of clients] linked to her powder and liquid poisonous “beauty” concoctions. 

1768 AD: English Dandies painted cheeks and lips, blackened eyebrows, and perfumed themselves. 

1820 AD: During the English Regency era, the most important item was rouge, which was used by most everyone. Eyebrows were blackened and hair was dyed. To prevent a low hairline, a forehead bandage dipped in vinegar in which cats dung had been steeped was worn. Most of the country dwellers’ makeup recipes made use of herbs, flowers, fat, brandy, vegetables, spring water and, of course, crushed strawberries. During this era, white skin signified a life of leisure while skin exposed to the sun indicated a life of outdoor labor. In order to maintain a pale complexion, women wore bonnets, carried parasols, and covered all visible parts of their bodies with whiteners and blemish removers, and most formulas were eventually lethal. 

1850 AD: Up to this date, both men and women wearing makeup was completely socially acceptable. George IV spent a fortune on cold cream, powders, pastes, and scents. But some men began to see the wearing of makeup as a sign of social indifference to the working classes, and many looked upon a man with rouged cheeks as a dandy. 

Victorians abhorred makeup and associated its use with prostitutes and actresses (many considered them one and the same). Any visible hint of tampering with one’s natural color would be looked upon with disdain. At that time, a respectable woman would use home- prepared face masks, most of which were based on foods such as oatmeal, honey, and egg yolk. 

1900 AD: Colourful makeup begins to resurface, full makeup was still seen as sinful, although natural tones were accepted to give a healthy, pink-cheek look. 

Zinc oxide was found to be a safer alternative to lead. This is one of the natural cosmetic ingredients that is commonly used today. 

1910 AD: Women made their own form of mascara by adding hot beads of black wax to the tips of their eyelashes. Some women would use petroleum jelly for this purpose. 

1914 AD: The first modern commercial mascara formulated was named after Mabel, the sister of its creator, T. L. Williams, who mixed petroleum jelly and carbon soot together. This mascara is known today as Maybelline. 

Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden and Max Factor opened cosmetic salons in the early 1900’s. Some of the looks that inspired these early cosmetic giants was makeup seen in the theatre and ballet of the times. Commercial makeup really starts to come of age. 

Vogue featured Turkish women using henna to outline their eyes, and the movie industry immediately took interest. This technique made the eyes look larger, and the word “vamp” became associated with these women, vamp being short for vampire. 

1920s AD: The first pressed powders were introduced and included a mirror and puff for touchups. Pressed powder blush followed soon after. 

The first liquid nail polish, several forms of modern base, powdery blushes and the powder compacts are introduced. 

The lipstick metal case, invented by Maurice Levy, became popular. 

Lipstick was tattooed onto the lips by George Burchett, who was also known as the “Beauty Doctor”. This method did not always work, and you can imagine the terrible consequences. 

1922 AD: The vamp look wasn’t just for women. Rudolf Valentino [The Sheik] and other male movie stars of the time made the dark, outlined eyes a sexy expression. 

1928 AD: Pan-cake makeup, originally developed to look natural on color film, was created by Max Factor. 

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1930s AD: Lip gloss was introduced by Max Factor. New shades of red lipstick were developed, although were soap-based and very drying. 

The first commercial eyelash curler came on the scene, called Kurlash. Even though it was expensive and difficult to use, this did not detract from its popularity. 

1932 AD: Charles and Joseph Revson, nail polish distributors, and Charles Lackman, a nail polish supplier, founded Revlon, which sells nail polish in a wide variety of colors. 

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1940 AD: Leg makeup is developed in response to shortages of stockings, caused by the war. 

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1958 AD: Mascara wands in tubes debut, eliminating the need for applying mascara with a brush. 

1961 AD: Cover Girl make-up, one of the first brands sold in grocery stores and targeted to teens, is introduced by Noxzema. 

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1970s AD: In the United States the first products for Afro-Americans are launched on the market. 

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2005 AD: The first Men’s VOGUE is published in the US. 

2008 AD: Make-up products for men become more available – Guyliner and manscara. In a newspaper survey in the UK (2010) 21% of British men stated that they used eyeliner. (source) 

 And:

For generations, makeup has been seen as a “girls-only” enterprise, so we forget that it wasn't always that way. For millennia, stretching from 4000 BC through the 18th century, men traditionally used makeup in myriad ways. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that makeup was relegated to one end of the gender spectrum. At that time, the influential Queen Victoria I of Great Britain deemed cosmetics vulgar, a view corroborated by the Church of England. During the Victorian era, makeup was considered "an abomination" by both the crown and the church, creating strong, widespread associations between makeup, vanity, femininity, and “the Devil's work.” As religious values continued to permeate cultures around the world, mainstream definitions of masculinity narrowed. By the 20th century, makeup was seen as a girls-only pursuit. 

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Ancient Egypt: Masculinity was important in ancient Egyptian culture, and makeup actually played a role in that. As early as 4000 BC, men used black pigment to create elaborate cat-eye designs. A few millennia later, kohl eyeliner, green malachite eye shadow, and lip and cheek stains made from red ochre were also popular. The purpose was not simply to look more attractive—green eye shadow was believed to evoke the gods Horus and Ra to ward off harmful illnesses. Dramatic eyeliner was customarily worn to communicate wealth and status. 

Ancient Rome: Fast-forward to the 1st century AD, when Roman men were known to apply red pigment to their cheeks, lighten their skin with powder, and paint their nails using a stomach turning elixir of pig fat and blood. Roman men also painted their heads to camouflage bald spots. 

Elizabethan England: During the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, makeup was wildly popular among men, who valued ghost-white powdered skin. (This was also the era when face makeup was dangerously cakey and made with lead, which often caused serious health problems, including premature death.) 

18th-Century France: It's no secret that King Louis XVI partook in the extravagance of makeup and hair products. (Louis went bald at the age of 23 and subsequently forced the aristocracy of France into an obsession with wigs.) Men of the royal court also painted on beauty marks, which paired nicely with their high heels and fur muffs. 

1930s Hollywood: A long period of time elapsed before male vanity was spoken of again. (Thanks, Queen Victoria I.) But with the arrival of modern movie-making in the United States, hair and makeup for men reemerged. Clark Gable's polished look was perhaps the first example of "metrosexual" beauty. 

1970s & 1980s: Through the later 20th century, makeup for men was hardly mainstream. Instead, it was reserved for the fringe: artists and rock 'n' rollers like Steven Tyler, David Bowie, and Prince. 

Early 2000s: As American pop culture figures began to diversify in the early to mid-2000s, we were introduced to the concept of "guyliner." (Think Pete Wentz, Jared Leto, and Adam Lambert.) This look was most popular among punk rockers and their followers. 

The concept of “metrosexuality” also entered the cultural consciousness at this time, and beauty brands began to release targeted “makeup for men.” Consider Yves Saint Laurent, who released the “male” version of its Touche Éclat ($42) in 2008. 

Present Day: Though makeup for men is by no means the standard today, social media has allowed male beauty gurus to share their artistic expression on a large scale, helping to break down centuries-old stereotypes. Major beauty companies like Covergirl and Maybelline have taken notice, and in recent months, they have announced the first male faces of their brands. Since the Victorian era, makeup has been seen as vain, frivolous, and "just for girls." Perhaps in 50 years, things will be different. (source)

And these articles do not even touch on the thousands (if not millions) of indigenous cultures that used make-up long before colonial contact.

But today's Kyriarchy and toxic masculinity code fashion and make-up as feminine and then damn them.

One article says,

The underlying assumption that goes on when saying that feminism and fashion don't mix is that fashion is stereotypically feminine and all feminists should avoid this massive cultural belief. 

While it is true that women shouldn't be pressured into being “fashionable” or loving fashion if they don't, fashion itself is not just a “girl thing.” Guys can be fashion lovers, too! And assuming that fashion is only something women have an interest in further reinforces gender norms, which are cultural beliefs associated with how someone should act or behave according to their gender. Gender norms keep us all in boxes when the goal of feminism is to break free of these limitations. 

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Feminism has only expanded the options and choices that women have, and this goal is at the heart of the movement. Thus, having the choice to wear the clothing you want and determine your own aesthetic without being shamed or ridiculed is a very feminist philosophy. So, encouraging women to wear what they want and embrace the fashion of their choosing without judgement is in line with feminism. 

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Just like I said that femininity is not anti-feminist, embracing the feminine in your appearance can actually be a political act. Since our society devalues femininity, showing that you yourself embrace and value the feminine can be a powerful way of talking back to this oppression. Wearing dresses, makeup, high heels, and donning manicures are all considered to be feminine ways of presenting, so embracing them is a way of saying that you love womanhood and how it looks on you. 

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When you think of someone who loves fashion, what qualities do you think that person may have? Do you think of them as vain, prissy, shallow, or superficial? If you live in this society, you probably do, since “fashion” often comes with several negative connotations. 

Fashion is sometimes still seen as unnecessary, a waste of time, and something best left to those who have nothing better to do. Going a little deeper, think about the qualities of vanity: Are those usually associated with men or women? If you said “women,” you'd be right, and if you didn't, what planet are living on? But in all seriousness, vanity is something heavily attributed to women, so this vilification of fashion that is also connected to those qualities is directly tied to its femininity. 

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We can use fashion as a tool to explore what it means to be a woman and encapsulate what womanhood looks like to us as individuals. Fashion itself is about personal expression and using complex symbols and status pieces in order to do this. Thus, we can use fashion and feminism together in order to explore these narratives of identity and gender.

Another article says,

And I didn’t look back, but I did learn how to blend. After being so dissatisfied with my teenage-boy skin, foundation became my miracle-in-a-bottle cure for insecurity and self- consciousness. And I’m not alone: 1 in 10 British men now admit to using makeup regularly. Of course, they only admit to it ‘secretly’. Indeed, it was a secret that sixteen-year-old me guarded fiercely. ‘Ashley… are you wearing foundation?’ would be the oft-asked question that hit me like a wet-wipe to the cheek. ‘No, of course not!’ I would lie, rubbing my lips together to make sure my lip tint wasn’t too obvious. 

Really, I don’t know why I ever bothered denying it. I was, and am, about as masculine as a Barbie’s tea party, and a little cover-up was hardly going to affect my reputation. But it was a lie I stuck to ferociously, even though the egg in question was, quite literally, all over my face. 

The reactions from those who noticed were amused or bemused, and I continued to feel ashamed for a long time for using something that simply wasn’t intended for me. I stopped wearing it altogether when a girlfriend told me she wouldn’t continue our relationship if I insisted on wearing makeup because it ‘just wasn’t attractive for boys to do that’. And when it didn’t work out between us (surprise), I was straight back to the foundation bottle, and added a bit of mascara for good measure. If I was feeling extra ‘fuck the system’, I might reach for the lipstick. Scandalous. 

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In school, if you were a girl and didn’t wear makeup by the time you reached Year 11, you were pegged as a freak. Leandra Medine, author of successful blog The Man Repeller, doesn’t wear makeup, and has been dubbed both ‘brave’ and ‘ugly as fuck’. 

Makeup can be a difficult one when it comes to the gender gap. Because our good friend the media believes it is news when women go to the shops makeup-free or if a man wears lipstick. This differential treatment supports the idea that men don’t need to bother with their appearance, because ‘being a man is about brains, brawn, and work, not about looking cute,’ and being a woman is all about the pressure to be cute getting in the way of everyday life activities like going to the gym. 

The concept that a woman going ‘makeup-free’ is unusually brave, is at best an upsetting reality of the heavily gendered world we live in. At worst, it’s an attempt at making women feel insecure about themselves: women are to be kept absolutely sure that their naked face isn’t acceptable to show to the world. Men, on the other hand, will be sneered at if they cover up their face. It’s okay, even encouraged, for women to be insecure, but not for men. For men to be insecure goes against everything the patriarchy means. 

These double standards signify a wider, general aversion to the feminine. The intrinsic prejudice that runs deeply through society, that Owen Jones touched on in his article about the widespread ridicule of Alan Carr’s campness by gay men: the ‘alleged self-loathing’ that many gay males feel, the ‘anti-camp bashing’ of feminine men that ensues. RuPaul’s mantra ‘you’re born naked and the rest is drag’ never seemed so apt. It’s a take on the old Shakespearian ‘all the world’s a stage’ maxim. Except for the majority of us, our scripts are already written, and defaulting from the rules carries consequences. The prancing self-conscious fairy isn’t a role anybody respects. 

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To put it into perspective of how far things have progressed, that was sampled from The Cement Garden, a film made over twenty years ago, and the book it was based on by Ian McEwan was written in 1978. And I’ve still overheard ‘why the fuck is that boy wearing nail varnish?’ as I sat on the train minding my own business this year, my nicely painted nails clasped over my book, glinting in the sunlight. A smile might have flickered across my face, but all that prescribed gender bullshit had grown stifling over the years. Resisting it had stopped feeling rebellious, and had just become normal.

And another one,

I always kind of smelled a fox in that proverbial hen house of thought. I didn't like the idea of restricting my self-expression. And as I grew, I remember actively thinking that rejecting the things associated with my gender expression wouldn't make me more equal to boys - or later, to men. In fact, it seemed backwards to write off style, beauty and fashion as automatically conformist and limiting, instead of as a means of asserting artistic expression. For me, it is a way to appropriate and subvert traditional beauty standards. 

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But you can't convince me that I'm immediately complicit in a sexist system for loving makeup and wearing booty shorts or itty-bitty crop tops. 

There's a unique kind of freedom that comes with manipulating fashion, and I think it can be done in the name of feminism. As Janet says, your body is your canvas that you show to the world. It can be strictly for your benefit and no one else's. Furthermore, you can tell people things about yourself without speaking. 

I actively use fashion to articulate and demonstrate how I feel. For example, if I'm particularly annoyed with insistent cat-callers, maybe I'll don my combat boots and black lipstick. There was a while there last fall where I dyed my eyebrows green. My hair has been every color of the rainbow, and multiple colors at once - I feel like I resembled some sort of poisonous sea creature. I don't shy away from tattoos. Sometimes I wear my dad's gruff flannel shirts as skirts, all tied up and bulky around my legs. 

Fashion has become my voice, my way of rejecting the obvious sexism in our society that is still putting limits on what women can and can't do and what we should or shouldn't wear.

One more,

In a certain sense, I get it. There's no denying that the conventional standards of beauty imposed on women are culturally-biased, completely whitewashed, ageist, ethnocentric, totally heteronormative, almost impossible to achieve, and basically, well, terrible. When I say, “I love makeup,” in one breath, but “I want to destroy misogyny,” in another, some people immediately see that as self-contradictory. After all, the beauty industry overall can be seen as a direct result of the pressure placed on women to look (and be)a certain way. 

However, the way I see it, makeup is not something I love because it makes me look good for men, it is something I love because I genuinely enjoy it. I enjoy the ability makeup gives me to try on different identities (including GoT characters), and express myself visually, and I like the fact that makeup is an accessible form of self-expression for all different types of women (and men!). And, in my opinion, that doesn't make me a bad feminist. 

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To me, feminism means believing that women should have the same rights and same opportunities as men. It also means defending anyone's right to express themselves—their gender identity, their sexuality, and their personal taste—in any way they please.

Last one (it's a comic),

Feminist Voice: It’s not about wearing or not wearing. It’s not wrong to wear make up just to give yourself a better shot at making a living. It’s just important to acknowledge when the choice was made in part because of the influence of patriarchy, not feminism. 

Most of what goes into the choice to wear make up is a result of systemic and cultural pressures and marginalization, not individual choice. By claiming that individual choices are feminist, rather than understanding how oppression plays into the choices we make, we silence basically any experiences of oppression that aren’t “obvious” to us. With that silence, we validate the continuation of that oppression. And who would want to make that choice? 

Character: So, I can keep wearing lipstick, but I should examine why I like it, and make sure to support people who don’t want to! 

Feminist Voice: Now you’re getting somewhere!

The people in these articles use fashion and make-up to challenge the Kyriarchy, and they get a lot of crap for it. But just because that's their reality doesn't mean it's yours. As the last article says, there is a lot of issues with things, like the intersection of beauty standards and racism. The act itself doesn't determine if it's sexist, but why you're doing the act. 

It's impossible to talk about femininity and fashion without talking about vanity. Narcissistic, vain, lazy, superficial, desperate, shallow – these are all words still commonly used today.

I said in my Intro that:

It's psychologically proven that your clothing affects your mood (here, here, here, and here), and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look your best. Make-up makes some people feel better and more confident (here and here). Self-love and self-care is crucial for your mental health (here and here).

I also went over in my Intro how the Kyriarchy systematically labels what makes us healthy as 'feminine', and then condemns it. That is what the Kyriarchy is doing here.

However, it’s not a coincidence that many of the unsavory personality traits associated with a selfie obsession – being superficial, vain, lazy, or desperate – are also commonly used as misogynistic insults against young girls. 

You may think selfies are silly, but they actually reveal a lot about society’s continued tempestuous relationship with feminism. 

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The great thing about selfies is that they can be just what the name implies: all about you. 

I love taking selfies because there’s no pressure. You’re by yourself or with friends and you can take as few or as many as you like. 

They are an instant confidence boost in almost any situation. Headed to work? Selfie. 

Did your makeup perfectly? Selfie. Procrastinating something? Selfie. 

Selfies challenge the idea that you need a justification to be seen. You’re announcing that you exist in the world and are going about your day. 

Strategic selfies can also change the way you perceive yourself, both literally and metaphorically. Various effects like lighting, angles, and filters can turn your selfie into a work of art. 

To me, taking a selfie is like playing dress-up. 

I might put on nicer clothes or do my hair, but it’s also about the psychological benefits of working through your insecurities. I look good and I know it. Your telling me I look good is going to make me feel even better. 

On that note, selfies provide a sort of vehicle for raising the self-esteem of your friends as well. Instead of feeding my friends’ negativity by constantly having to reassure them about all the things that they’re not, I can like their new profile picture and compliment their appearance. 

It’s simple, fast, and a subtle way of promoting positive self talk. 

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We’re conditioned to believe that external validation is a necessary substitute for self- confidence. Furthermore, having any positivity toward yourself is deeply stigmatized, policed by accusations of narcissism and superficiality. 

The real anxiety with girls and selfies is that selfies might provide girls with the means to create their own positive image of themselves, thereby severely diluting the impact of outside opinion. 

If your confidence comes from within, you can’t be controlled as easily. 

While there are people who claim that the selfie is little more than a desperate cry for attention, the alternative of girls using selfies as an expression of independence is far more threatening. 

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Selfies can be radical. Whether you’re documenting your strong hair game or just trying to pass the time, it’s your acknowledgement that you’re here and you’re pretty damn awesome. 

It takes a lot of bravery to post a selfie, so you should be congratulated regardless. 

Remember that it’s always okay to love yourself and feel proud of yourself. I don’t care if you stare at your reflection in the mirror for an hour, as long as you’re confident. 

We need to start teaching girls that confidence is not a sign of vanity, but rather a marker of healthy self-perception and positive thinking. 

Break out your camera and start snapping. Embrace yourself with your selfie. (source)

Look at those lines: “having any positivity toward yourself is deeply stigmatized, policed by accusations of narcissism and superficiality.” and “We need to start teaching girls that confidence is not a sign of vanity, but rather a marker of healthy self-perception and positive thinking.” It is not bad to love yourself and be proud of how you look, and it doesn't matter what your style is, self-love and self-care is universal. 

When self-love and self-care are labeled feminine and then damned, even the simplest things you do to genuinely take care of yourself become radical acts challenging femmesexism and the Kyriarchy.