‘Cosmetriarcado’: Is the beautiful side of the patriarchy?

La belleza puede ser subjetiva, pero las matemáticas no.According to the study of the Finance and Welfare Finance app 2019, Spanish women invest in their physical appearance an average of 89 euros per month.If we multiply by 12, we will discover that the annual expense on beauty products and treatments and sports activities exceeds 1.000 euros a year, a non -negligible figure, framed at 400.000 million euros in which the industry is valued worldwide.Beauty (or rather, aesthetic regulations) is a cult whose most numerous and devout faithful are women.This is the point where someone will react with the rhetorical question, "And we are not asked to be handsome?", Claiming "neither machismo nor feminism", as an introduction.Yes, Paco, yes.But there is a subtle difference: "Male cosmetics (and advertising that promises that corrected beauty) is not focused from suffering but from hedonism," says Nerea Pérez de las Heras, author of feminism for clumsy (Martínez Roca).

"When I worked in male magazines after spending years in the writings of women's magazines," the journalist continues, "I was surprised by the great difference between the beauty pages of these publications. Las de ellas están asociadas al esfuerzo y al sacrificio; las de los hombres a la elección, al capricho, al placer… Al igual que recuerdo también que en la prensa femenina se hablaba de nutrición, mientras que en las revistas masculinas se inclinaban por la gastronomía”, prosigue la autora del viral monólogo homónimo.

Beauty, the golden cage

En 1990, la biblia de la tercera ola del feminismo ya vaticinaba que en el siglo XXI la industria cosmética empezaría a orientar su radar (también) hacia los compradores masculinos, pero que lo haría desde una invitación al disfrute.And this was not the only uncomfortable truth contained in the myth of beauty, by Naomi Wolf, who has just reissue.In this library fund work, the researcher discovers some interesting chronological coincidences: just when the industrial revolution revealed that females could be a productive force comparable to that of a man, it is when beauty becomes a way of assessing its value(Before, only a beautiful face was more desirable among the nobility than strong arms for work in the field).Interestingly, this gold standard is established at the same time as the first conatatures of claims for equality awaken.And yes, it is also just since the cantinela that still resonates today is started."The women who complained about the myth of beauty was because they had some defect on a personal level: they were fat, ugly, unable to satisfy a lesbian man," Wolf writes.

There are other amazing historical synchronies placed in perspective for his famous book: “It is also from 1830 when other myths become unanimous social intonations: childhood that must be supervised by women;Hysteria as an explanation to any emotional alteration of a being - the woman - whose natural state is serenity and understanding;The raising of domestic women as a bulwark of society ... ".World War II and the postwar.Being (exclusively) mother and housewife loses her ability to attract, especially since the sixties and seventies.And that is when the cosmetic industry in particular and the patriarchy in general realize that it is the search for beauty the best way to distract and close female ambitions in short. “El trabajo inagotable, aunque efímero, en torno a la belleza reemplazó al también inagotable y efímero trabajo doméstico”, prosigue Wolf, para quien la clave de todo este culto estético tiene un objetivo: “La identidad de las mujeres debe apoyarse en la premisa de nuestra belleza, de modo que nos mantendremos siempre vulnerables a la aprobación ajena, dejando expuesto a la intemperie ese órgano vital tan sensible que es el amor propio”.

In advertising and in the collective imaginary, the happy housewife as a definition of successful woman was replaced by "a squalid and youthful woman, skinny, with a lot of chest and little in common with nature," continues Wolf.The reason?"Mainly, divert energy and undermine female progress". Las encuestas le dan la razón: según una realizada recientemente por investigadores de la Universidad del Oeste de Inglaterra, en Bristol, el 16% de las féminas sacrificarían un año de su vida por estar delgadas (un 2% incluso llegaría a ceder 10).In this search that will last a lifetime, women will try to become "someone who is not them for one reason or another".

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But what normative beauty prescribes for us is not only an appearance but, in turn, a behavior: submissive, insecure and eager to please.And that means money.The visual artist Raquel stained, who has written the prologue to this edition of Wolf's book, explains it: “The struggle to achieve aesthetic regulations, entering those increasingly impossible standards - that's what it is about - feeds large industriesand keeps us obedient and fearful to get out of the norm.That fear and obedience produces a lot of money, and also generates unsatisfied and submissive women, something that is equally profitable.Damn our self -esteem is a good business, because we continue to leave cheaper in the labor market, in which we will ask for less improvements ”.

The beauty machinery catches girls since they are born: “It is very significant that it is normalized to pierce their ears, for example.It is a purely aesthetic decision that serves to differentiate them, to mark them as soon.Personally it happens to me that this custom remains in force, ”adds the writer Pérez de las Heras.The cult of beauty in the young begins within a few months of life and will last until death: "The most sinister imperative is that of eternal youth," he explains now stained.“Terror to mature, live and age affects everyone.But the worst part is that women, from very small, are aware that they devalue each day that passes.This makes it years to become an affront, one more step towards invisibility.It looks like the argument of a psychological horror movie, but it is the reality of millions of women.It constantly happens that when a famous age of advanced age dies, in the press, in the obituary, they put the photo of when he was 20 years old, ”adds the illustrator.

The contradictions of ‘cosmetriarcado’

The apparently empowering anti -cellulite and reaffirming creams for those who feel good about themselves are the proof that the growing body positive movement is not changing things much.“The incorporation into the advertising of more diverse bodies and supposedly feminist values responds mainly to the fact that these sales arguments are attractive and therefore profitable.Capitalism is a machine to absorb what is on the margins, ”explains Pérez de las Heras.

Uno de los aspectos más siniestros del cosmetriarcado (el aprovechamiento de la cosmética para afianzar el patriarcado) es que el bombardeo de imágenes de la “mujer ideal” no solo es constante, sino de mensajes contradictorios.There is no higher goal than to be beautiful, but be careful with its way of reaching that top.And there are thousands of examples in the press: the teasing to which Ana Rosa Quintana, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, Letizia Ortiz and others have been subjected and others after undergoing aesthetic touch -ups are quite eloquent.And beware of not trying to fit: the physical appearance of Margaret Thatcher, Anna Gabriel or Michelle Obama has been equally a reason for escarnio.If you want to disqualify a powerful woman, there is no better way to do it than criticizing her physique, whether she has tried to adapt it to regulations as if not.

Of these nonsense also account for the results of several investigations.Only in recent years a study has been made public that ensures that a make -up woman gives impression of being more professional;Another that reflects that carrying an eyeliner ("eye pencil", in English) too marked makes us look little competent;Another in which most respondents said that if a female has hair (in armpits, face, pubic ...) is because she pays little attention to their hygiene;In another, it is discovered that 92% of women acknowledge having felt uncomfortable or ashamed with their body at some point in their life.

Thus things are done well

Does all the above mean that to be feminist the cosmetic industry should be rejected?Not necessarily. Ya escribió Wolf que de lo que se trata es de defender el derecho de la mujer a tener el aspecto que desee, en lugar de obedecer a los dictados del mercado y de una industria publicitaria multimillonaria, que, a menudo, recurre a mensajes emancipadores para vender un champú.“I celebrate that other things have been left behind, such as the Gordibuena word, that frightful term that implied the existence of Gordimalas.I would love a campaign that changed the narrative condescending of ‘We are all beautiful’ for ‘I am ugly and what!It's me!'.But surely it would inaugurate a new regulations of ugly: the Feibuena and the Feimalas.What needs to be done is to stop talking about the aspect of women in general.Neither wound nor for good ”, reflects stained.

For its part, Pérez de las Heras reminds us that there are more honest options: “A website of multi -brand beauty products comes to mind, a very small company called Laconicum in which I buy many things.They arrive in a fabric bag in which it puts ‘cellulite is not removed’. Básicamente, su estrategia consiste en no tratarte como si fueras idiota, no te venden la cosmética como algo transformador, empoderante e importantísimo, con valores feministas, sino como un autocuidado agradable”.Because it should not forget that the act of spreading a cream is, above all, a simple and beautiful pleasure.