By Women, For Women, For Men?

Feminism has become a dirty word, and it's no wonder why. Like any social or political movement, the image has been exhausted, and overcome with stories of extremists and photos of topless women holding signs that more closely resemble an anti-men movement than a pro-women one. The phrase "I'm not a feminist or anything" is tossed around more often than that picture of Miley Cyrus smoking pot, and it is no longer cool to be associated with the word 'feminist'. And while I understand the connotation, I also recognize that the biggest prevention from rebuilding an image, is disappearing all together. Greater still, I fear that in an effort to disassociate with the "crazy side" we are now living in a society that is moving backward in the realm of women's rights.

I recently read an article entitled 'Beauty mistakes that turn men off' and in case you were wondering, your perfume is too strong, your foundation is too heavy, your eyelashes are too 'spidery', your skin is too dry, your legs are too prickly, your teeth are too yellow, your lip gloss is too sticky, your skin is too orange, your hair is too stiff, your eye makeup is too dark, your lip color is too bold, your hair is too accessorized, and your nail polish is too dark. For who, though? Men. Men as a whole - an entire gender - hates your lip color. Obviously this offended me (not just as a woman, but as a human being) for a number of reasons, but in the whole thing - I was most disappointed to see that this article had been written by a woman. 

It is widely accepted that men are the biggest hindrances to women being valued as equals in society, but I'm not so sure. I've spent enough time on the internet to know that when you read something that upsets you, the next logical step is to read more things similar and get more upset...so that's what I did. And do you know what? I'd say that, conservatively, 80% of these articles picking women apart to make them more attractive to men are written by women. For women. For men. WHY. Who are these hypothetical men that we're all so concerned about pleasing? I once tweeted in jest,

Going to start a magazine called How to Manipulate Men into Letting You Devote Your Life to Serving Them..then the inside will just be Cosmo

— Paige Baker (@vpbaker) January 21, 2012

but in all honestly, it's not that far of a stretch. Every article everywhere is telling you how to change yourself be more appealing to a hypothetical man that apparently hates dark nail polish, but for fun, let's explore the idea that you don't need a man the same way you don't need a woman. Forget the fact that it's a ridiculous notion to assume that an entire gender likes or dislikes anything based solely on gender, because at the end of the day - even if they did - it does not matter. If you like Yahoo!'s beauty tips, take them. But take them for yourself, and not for a supposed hypothetical who is going to be turned off by you otherwise. Let people take you as you are, not as they would like to see you, and let your "self improvement" be motivated by your own standards.

I am a feminist. And sometimes my eyelashes are a little spidery.