BEAUTY & GROOMING

Are Gen Z beauty trends just candy-coated misogyny?

By Hitanshi Kamdar
16 February, 2023

As beauty and misogyny have always existed at a precarious juncture, some videos of viral beauty trends turn out to be more disturbing than light-hearted

“Perfect the messy bun for the ultimate cool girl hairstyle in time for your next date.”

“Keep his attention on you all night with these seductive lipstick shades.”

These headlines may seem like they belong to relic columns in a fashion magazine from the early 2000s but misogyny never really left the beauty discourse for women. A few years ago, it used to be the fashion glossies that imparted sage advice targeting female readers, telling them the correct way to dress and picking the ideal lipstick shade or fragrance in order to get male attention. But as mainstream media matured, social media arose as the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, spewing sexist narratives in the guise of innocuous beauty trends.

Repackaged wrongly

While social media for millennials was littered with perfectly curated and highly edited images, Gen Z’s content is meant to be an antithesis to that. One would imagine that this reframing of social media as a truly democratic platform might help reduce problematic behaviour and pivot from misogynistic trends. However, all that the rebranding has managed to achieve is repackage the narrative of women needing male validation in the form of beauty hacks.

One example of such a trend from last year is the “red nail theory” which originated on TikTok before cropping up on Instagram. Creator GirlBossTown made a video pointing out a direct correlation between wearing red nail paint and getting increased male attention. “Every time I have red nails, a guy comments on it ... and then it hit me. In the ’90s, when we were growing up, women had red nails a lot—especially our moms. And I weirdly think guys are attracted to red nails because it reminds them of their moms,” she says. What followed was a slew of videos with women testing the theory and reporting how well it worked with men.

Videos titled “make him obsessed with you with this doe eye technique” have flooded For You Pages

Zendaya donning the 'siren eyes' trend

Then there are the “siren eyes” and “doe eyes” trends that reframe eye make-up into seduction techniques. Videos titled “make him go wild with seductive siren eyes” or “make him obsessed with you with this doe eye technique” have flooded For You Pages.

On the surface, these beauty trends may appear harmless. After all, what’s wrong with painting your nails red or tweaking your eye shape with a little eyeliner? However, it’s the glaring subtext in these videos that forms the root of the issue. Packaged in videos meant as guidelines for women on how to attract male attention, these beauty trends are just a Gen-Z version of badly-aged fashion magazine columns that advise women on how to dress and act to “attract the man of your dreams”.

While it may be easy to dismiss these trends as mere videos on the Internet, the results are more widespread than an Instagram reel. “Our make-up changes with the times, which are decided by trends so I find myself using certain social media make-up hacks in real life as well,” says Mohana Patki, a content creator at Glamrs. “But some of these viral trends do have a certain connection with misogyny,” she adds. This connection is subtle and can often be a subconscious messaging. Twenty-three-year-old human resource manager Aumi Upadhyay, who often experiments with viral make-up trends, has recently started observing this. “It’s hard to notice at first, but a lot of them are essentially guidelines on how to embrace a neatly packaged femininity for male validation.”

The idea that a woman needs to look or act a certain way in order to get male attention plays into outdated heteronormative tropes of the male gaze being the yardstick against which women are meant to measure themselves, eventually recasting them into reductive categories. The repackaged sexist beauty theories seem almost as harmful for men, with videos reducing them to being easily manipulated with a swish of eyeliner or a flick of bright nail varnish. 

"REFRAMING THE LANGUAGE FROM THINGS LIKE 'MAKE YOURSELF MORE ATTRACTIVE FOR SOMEONE' TO 'MAKE YOURSELF FEEL MORE CONFIDENT' CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE"
Mohana Patki

Social media is often perceived as silly or fun, which deters from the problematic narrative it often spews. The repetitive algorithm creates a toxic echo-chamber for such videos to continue to cycle through the same feeds, hammering in the message of male validation, which can be particularly harmful to young, formative minds.

Breaking through the candy coating

Beauty and misogyny have always existed at a precarious crossroads. Giving into beauty trends may feel like surrendering to the male gaze, while consciously straying away might be perceived as a form of internalised misogyny by veering into the “not-like-other-girls” territory. 

There’s a popular Margaret Atwood quote from her novel The Robber Bride that is often brought up in discourse around the male gaze. “Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” This perfectly sums up the complexities of a woman’s relationship with her own appearance. Is there any way to truly rewire your brain to accept beauty theories without grappling with a feminist dilemma?

One possible answer to this has risen on social media itself, in the form of “ugly beauty”. Popularised by Julia Fox when she recently proclaimed “ugly” and “ageing” was in. Her statement saying she just wants to be ugly as a form of rebellion seems to have catapulted a new trend where women are deliberately putting on make-up in a way that’s not conventionally attractive—for instance, there’s crying makeup with puffy eyes, shaved eyebrows or scummy makeup with clumpy eyelashes. 

Changing the conversation around these videos would be a good way to break away from the male gaze, says Mohana Patki

Julia Fox recently proclaimed “ugly” and “ageing” was in,  and she stated that she just wants to be ugly as a form of rebellion 

While ugly beauty can spell the ultimate rebellion from the male gaze, there is something to be said for women wanting conventional beauty for themselves. “Changing the conversation around these videos would be a good way to break away from the male gaze,” says Patki. “Reframing the language from things like ‘make yourself more attractive for someone’ to ‘make yourself feel more confident’ can make a difference. For example, if I were to put on red nail polish, I’d have an added level of confidence within myself, which, in turn, would prove the make-up theory right or wrong.”

There is also something to be said about finding community through these trends. Upadhyay sees herself engaging in more conversations with fellow make-up aficionados than potential romantic interests every time she tries a trend that has gone viral. “I’ve found myself trying new looks just to get more platonic compliments and validation rather than using them as flirting techniques,” she shares.

Despite the layered nuances, there is an easier way to distance yourself from the problematic subtext of beauty hacks—just have fun with such trends and remind yourself to do what feels right to you.

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