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What do feminists want regarding the "beauty industry"?


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According to businesswire.com, "The global Cosmetic market was 460 billion USD in 2014 and is estimated to reach 675 billion USD by 2020 growing at a rate of 6.4%. Of the cosmetic products, Skin care has the highest market share while Oral Cosmetics would be the fasted [sic] growing market during the forecasted period."

 

Nearly half a trillion dollars.  Annually, this is significantly more than how much the worldwide narcotics trade is worth, less but in the ballpark of how much the US spends on defense, somewhat less than how much the advertising industry is worth, and less than a third the worldwide automotive industry.

 

I wonder what feminists make out of this.  Do they think the cosmetics industry should cease to exist because it is a manifestation of the female response to the male gaze?  Or do they think that it should diminish as women become empowered?  Or via the perversity principle should it increase as women because more empowered?  Or should half of the industry shift to serving men because as we all know men and women are psychologically identical and therefore should act, and coif, and primp, identically?

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The industry could be bigger if men wore makeup.

 

But of course only women are allowed to lie.

 

The direction of the lie is interesting:  women, by wearing makeup, are signalling that they are impossibly youthful (i.e., porelessness and wrinkleless, unblemished skin), and, with the rest of traditionally feminine accoutrements, aroused, fertile, wealthy, and healthy.  It's a commanding package, really.  Men signal health, arousal, virility, wealth, and status, but signaling youth is not as important, so there's less need, beyond metrosexual fads, for men to make themselves up.

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The direction of the lie is interesting:  women, by wearing makeup, are signalling that they are impossibly youthful (i.e., porelessness and wrinkleless, unblemished skin), and, with the rest of traditionally feminine accoutrements, aroused, fertile, wealthy, and healthy.  It's a commanding package, really.  Men signal health, arousal, virility, wealth, and status, but signaling youth is not as important, so there's less need, beyond metrosexual fads, for men to make themselves up.

 

Is there an equivalent industry for men that makes half a trillion dollars a year for covering up who men truly are?

 

Slaves and slave masters have to play by different rules.

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Is there an equivalent industry for men that makes half a trillion dollars a year for covering up who men truly are?

 

Slaves and slave masters have to play by different rules.

 

Touché!

 

But, of course, many men seem to like this "covering up" and so pay attention to the women who do it, at least to some degree.  It can't be an entire industry devoted to female vanity, with no male input, can it?

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Trying to figure out what women in general want is hard enough.  Trying to figure out what a crazy radical political fringe of women want is insanity.

 

Nah man, they want the same thing. The difference is the crazy radical political fridge women don't want to pay for it.

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