made up!

This year, I began wearing makeup. Not a lot, just a little concealer, a little eyeshadow. Eyeliner, maybe. Mascara, certainly. Though I have tried to resist their weaseling ways since middle school, for better or for worse, my powders and products and brushes and blenders have settled comfortably into my morning routine.

All this to say, I am not anti-makeup; in fact, I quite enjoy the 15 minutes or so that I spend with my supplies and myself each morning. If I can do something that provides me more confdence as I move through my day, I see no reason not to. For no shortage of reasons—creativity, gender validation, artistic expression, relaxation and sheer enjoyment, to name a few— choosing to wear makeup can be positive for many people. In addition, the makeup industry has expanded greatly in terms of inclusivity—creating more diverse defnitions of beauty.

Nevertheless, our choices don’t exist in a vacuum. It is inherently contradictory to paint the action of painting our faces as an embodiment of self-confdence and empowerment. The beauty industry’s recent messaging that cosmetic products constitute self-care is laughable.

Elise Haulund

er to girls, who understand before they can even spell out P-R-E-T-T-Y that prettiness is a path to happiness. When Anne Hathaway adorns eyeshadow and straight hair in “The Princess Diaries,” she gains social currency and confdence among her peers. When Cinderella transforms from a homely maid into a glittering princess, she gains access to an opulent palace and marriage to Prince Charming.

As girls age out of the impermanence of their childhood faces, they develop a keen sense of what is “wrong” with how they will look for the rest of their lives. These insecurities don’t simply threaten their vanity, but threaten their success. In a study by the Pew Research Center, men and women consistently ranked “physical attractiveness” as the trait that society values most in women, versus “honesty” in men. Beauty isn’t a bonus for women; it’s an expectation. Lack thereof could cost women in numerous aspects of their lives, from workplace respect to their love lives.

feeces not only women’s pockets, but their mental space as well.

The nagging voice in our minds to constantly curate our appearance, to evaluate ourselves from the third person—is my smile too big? is my hair knotted? is my mascara smudged?—inhibits us from reaching our full potential in classrooms, workplaces and social events. Whether we are conscious of it or not, it is distracting. Society’s historical overemphasis on women’s beauty has always been a means of suppressing women.

7:30 (6:30 for Zero Period).

However, I myself don’t choose to hangout with people after school because of my anxiety to get everything done before any extracurricular activity I have (and yes, I am juggling 3 days of them at the moment), afterward spending the rest of my day just goofng of and researching random topics that grab my interest (not a bunch of creeps shaking their arses to earworms) before getting to bed by 21:00 and waking up at 5:30 (and no, I don’t have a Zero Period this year). I know this is just one example, but an afternoon routine of a SpEd kid is harder to fgure out than someone’s NordVPN password.

Another issue that most SpEd kids are running into is having to do their work a certain way. I had to deal with this for two years in middle school and 5th grade with Eureka Math, which [I think] is complete rubbish.

So what can you do to help students like me?

If you see someone wandering and you want to approach or socialize with them, do so quietly and in a way that doesn’t disturb them. If they simply do not want to socialize with others during breaks, leave them alone and don’t disturb them.

If you are a teacher, you can try to give them more information on how to do a question if they are struggling. Consider giving them a few breaks during class and seating them away from anyone who would bother them during class.

You can also opt to give them sticky notes to write any questions they urgently need to ask, which would be responded to near the end of class, and even set an alarm for right before the end of class so that if the SpEd student is scared of being late, they’ll know they’ll be on time.

Although makeup is open to everyone, there is no denying the pervasive and damaging implications it has for women and teenage girls. Market research agency Mintel found that over 50 percent of 12–14-year-olds use mascara, eyeliner and eyebrow pencils, on top of the 45 percent that also use foundation and concealer on a regular basis. Furthermore, the age that young girls start wearing makeup is ever-sinking: Glamour magazine reports that the average age dropped from 14-years-old to 11-years-old over the last decade alone.

Makeup is, essentially, a means of editing your appearance. This is an especially enticing pow -

No matter how fun and artistic makeup is, the beauty industry could not exist without thriving of of girls’ low self-esteem. For companies to sell concealer, girls must frst believe there is something that demands concealing. To sell color corrector, something that warrants correcting. Who profts most from these perceived shortcomings?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the women forking out hundreds of dollars at Sephora.

Not to mention, many of the most prevalent beauty standards—big bright eyes, rosy cheeks, cute button noses, long curly eyelashes—stem from racism and the exaltation of whiteness. Despite progression in the industry, women are encouraged to strive for features that still often align with European standards of beauty. Again, who sets these standards of beauty? And who profts of of them?

Men shoulder their fair share of insecurities, but men are not indoctrinated into exalting the importance of their appearance like women. Masculinity is something men can wake up with, whereas femininity is a tricky foating target that women must painstakingly work for. Beauty is pain, right?

These days, beauty is also expensive. Men face harmful standards, but they are not expected to spend extravagant amounts of money on products to meet said standards. Women, to receive respect, are expected to spend time and money to make their appearances decent. The double standard of attractiveness for men and women

Beauty culture isn’t harmless. Data released this February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that nearly three in fve teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, double the rate of boys. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as many as 10 in 100 young women sufer from an eating disorder, especially anorexia nervosa and bulimia, which are devastating at best and life-threatening at worst. Teenage girls are in a mental health crisis, and it is not nonsensical to draw a line between this fact and inescapable pressure to perform an act of beautifcation. Certainly, people can empower them- selves through makeup. I do not aim to tell you what’s right and wrong. Choosing to do something that makes you feel that bit more confdent throughout the day is wonderful. Indulging in your femininity is worth celebration. Exploring diferent forms of gender expression is invaluable. Women, as do people of all genders, deserve the right to choose whether or not to wear makeup without judgment either way.

But, it is not lost on me that each morning, as I hide my acne scars with concealer, drag out my eyelashes with mascara, feign a good night’s rest with some shimmer in my eyes’ inner corners and create ruses with my rouges, I don’t really feel all that great about myself.