Makeup doesn’t make you a bad feminist – Instagram is the real problem

What’s a bit of blusher when people are editing the size of their nose or erasing every wrinkle until they look like a robot?

Cousins would visit from Iran and carefully plaster makeup on their already beautiful faces and were amused by the fact that I did not do the same (Getty)

If there is one thing that makes me flutter my eyelashes and ask the nearest man to help me with my bags, it is other women telling me how to be feminist. Feminist scholar Julie Bindel wrote a column this week about how wearing makeup makes us all slaves to the patriarchy or something.

It was all, “As a feminist, I just jump in the shower, moisturise and go!” (I am paraphrasing). She tells us that “women who wear makeup spend an average of nine whole days every year of their lives applying it. I have chosen to use that time campaigning against sexist stereotypes, such as the notion that women look better with makeup on.”

You know something? Women do look better with makeup on. So do men. If anything we should be campaigning to make it more socially acceptable for men to turn up for work with a slash of red lipstick. It would cheer up a building site no end.

My tongue is in my cheek of course (when I say women look better with makeup on – the building site/lippy thing I mean with the utmost seriousness).

Personally, I don’t really bother with makeup unless I’m on stage, or when I’m returning something in John Lewis (I don’t know why, but I always feel like John Lewis himself will be dealing with my sales return and a bit of lippy makes me feel braver). But you won’t find me at the Clinique counter urging women: “Put the mascara down sister, your stubby eyelashes are perfect the way they are!”

My not being interested in makeup is not me reclaiming my face from the patriarchy, but just because I really like my face the way it is. I always have. I like my skin colour (Nutmeg on the Dulux chart, I believe), big black eyes, full lips and despite my overbite and strong nose, I’m very fond of it. It’s not the most beautiful face in the world, but it’s mine. It’s a mixture of my mum and dad, both people I adore, so I enjoy seeing them look back at me in the mirror.

I like my face so much that when I had children, I didn’t bother making them new faces, I just gave them pretty much exact copies of my own. If they want to paint them when they get older, that is their business.

What I worry about more is the Snapchat and Instagram “perfection” people achieve by altering their images. What’s a bit of blusher when people are editing the size of their nose or erasing every wrinkle until they look like a robot?

Vtech has a selfie camera aimed at girls aged 4+ which tell you to “Snap it! Beautify it! Send it!” Little girls “beautifying” themselves is a creepy concept. But then, in my childhood there was a programme called Minipops where little kids dressed up, makeup and all, and sang pop songs with adult themes. The Eighties was a curious decade. I look back and remind myself that actually, considering we had terms like “wild child” to describe underaged girls who dated adult rock stars (remember Mandy Smith?) girls doctoring pictures to have wide Pixar eyes, tiny noses, and bunny rabbit ears can seem like just a passing eccentricity.

That said, parents have to be aware of what their children are up against with all the face-altering superficial nonsense on social media. I know that in our house, the Vtech camera would be put straight into the charity shop pile for some other mother to tut at.

Growing up, I was surrounded by impossibly glamorous Iranian women and my mother had quite a job protecting me from the cultural expectation that I must emulate these beauties. I found them unapproachable and intimidating – not things I aspire to be. Every dinner party we were dragged along to was like the Dynasty set. Cousins would visit from Iran and carefully plaster makeup on their already beautiful faces and were amused by the fact that I did not do the same. Especially as I lived in the west and was allowed to.

I work in show business so I do glam up and trowel it on for work. I’m not the best example of a feminist, but neither is anyone who thinks telling other women how to look or live their lives is OK. I have managed to make a living in a heavily male-dominated industry for 20 years, I am raising two children and running a home entirely on my own income. I am pretty handy with a power drill, can do basic plumbing jobs and have never had a manicure or pedicure. Does that make me a “better” feminist than a woman who can’t unblock a toilet and spends time on her nails and heels? Nope. It does, however, make me much more tired.