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All Made Up

The Power and Pitfalls of Beauty Culture, from Cleopatra to Kim Kardashian

Rae Nudson

Beacon Press, 2021

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Makeup generates power and confers status, but also takes them away, depending on culture, time and context. In a politically charged atmosphere where culture wars rage, Rae Nudson offers history, unusual analysis and controversial connotations. If gay and trans people use makeup, is it self-expression or rebellion against gender roles? If women leaders use it, are they putting their most powerful face forward or indulging the patriarchy? Makeup is “ink,” Nudson says, and it conveys a message – inadvertent or not.

Summary

Standards of beauty change over time, and makeup creates and entrenches those standards.

As long as society judges a woman’s worth by her appearance, makeup will remain politically charged. Makeup communicates a message. It can beguile, disguise flaws, accentuate wealth or privilege, and express individuality. Throughout history, from Empress Wu to Queen Elizabeth I to Hillary Rodham Clinton, famous women have used makeup as a tool to gain and maintain power in a male-dominated world.

Women have a complicated relationship with makeup in a patriarchal society, in which men’s ideas about womanhood impose beauty standards that can sexualize and oppress women. A woman can wear makeup to demonstrate that she is powerful or to show that she is weak and needs male protection. White women with money control beauty standards, creating societal standards that pose difficulties for women of color, who might not conform to Eurocentric beauty ideals.

Society’s determination of what usage of makeup is acceptable relies on gender, wealth, race and sexuality, among other factors. Sometimes, cosmetics confer worth; sometimes, ...

About the Author

Reporter Rae Nudson has written for Esquire, The Cut, Paste Magazine, The Week, The Billfold and Real Life, among others.

All Made Up

The Power and Pitfalls of Beauty Culture, from Cleopatra to Kim Kardashian

Read or listen offline

Editorial Rating

Qualities

Recommendation

Summary

Standards of beauty change over time, and makeup creates and entrenches those standards.

About the Author

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