Why your selfie is a mirror into a society that discriminates against women

19th March 2014

Girls and women have been nominating each other on social media to post pictures of themselves with no make-up, filling Facebook news feeds with photos and hashtags about cancer awareness-raising and cancer research. The response to this ‘no make-up selfie’ campaign is proof of oppression of women and their appearance.

The campaign has largely turned into a vanity project (who looks best with no make-up) and a chauvinistic vitriol of hate (“put your make-up back on, women”, and “put your ugly mugs away” are examples of online comments from educated 20-somethings). With no defined goal or message and an anonymous campaign instigator who has not stated what aspect of cancer, cancer treatment or which cancer charity(s) we should be becoming more ‘aware’ of, the ‘nominees’ have been left to interpret and create their own messages. This has enabled critics of the apparent pointlessness of the campaign who care very much about cancer issues to jump in with useful information about which charities are best to support, how to donate, and how to do a breast self-examination.

So, amidst the cat-calling, the sexists and the sceptics, the women who are taking the selfies really have helped to raise awareness – the words ‘Cancer Research UK’, ‘MacMillan Cancer Research’ are appearing more on news feeds and Twitter feeds than on an ordinary day. Apparently both Cancer Research UK and the Breast Cancer Campaign have seen surges in donations today.

In fact, most hugely successful fundraising campaigns have involved people doing crazy, unique challenges that have no direct correlation with the cause they are raising funds for or awareness about.

But when you look beneath the surface, the criticisms of the no make-up campaign, for the most part, are not really about the need for more direct action or the fact that one can ‘like’ a picture or status on social media about a cause, without making the effort to effect real change.

Rather it is the fact that women have not ‘made their faces’ that has irritated the online community. As a 23 year old female who grew up in the UK, I am not surprised that women not wearing make-up is attention-grabbing. What is more troubling is that people are annoyed, and even frightened by it.

Among the statuses and tweets I have seen are accusations of “silly”, “dim”, “shallow” girls caring more about their looks than cancer, who are buying make-up products instead of donating the money to charity, yet think they are being heroes. I have seen a parody campaign of men drawing faces on their genitals and posting photos of them on Twitter. Women are accused of being “scary”, “ugly”, “terrifying” – of spamming Facebook news feeds with their “ugly mugs”. Cheap laughs are being made with lines like, “Are you hoping to scare cancer away?” It’s all claimed to be “banter”, “it’s just a joke”, “women are as guilty of pressurising each other as men”, but it exposes a very real culture of fear and hate for a woman’s natural face, that a girl is open for criticism and insults if she does anything to change her appearance.

I wonder how many people would sponsor someone they knew to wear no make-up for a month, compared with how many would sponsor their male friends to grow a moustache, through the largely successful Movember. I would bet that it is very few – that in most cases the same people who find it funny or silly for a man to let the hair on his upper lip grow wildly, would not light-heartedly cheer on woman going au naturel with the same amount of support. I would love to be proved wrong. While there are problems with the labelling of some men with moustaches as ‘creepy-looking’, it is the shock of a woman without the mask of make-up that attracts the most hateful comments – in spite of how it actually makes her look. Often, it is the concept of women being without make-up that has provoked these insults rather than the photos themselves.

These reactions prove that it is deeply engrained in our society to have a different minimum level of expectation of presentation in a woman’s appearance than a man’s.

Therefore, it’s fantastic that many women and girls have decided to upload photos of what they actually look like for all their social circles to see, whether or not they are asking for their peers to think about cancer. Rather than dismissing the act as “narcissistic” and “smug”, rather than not engaging in the debate because talking about the bravery of breaking social norms makes you “wince” if it’s in the context of cancer, we’ve got to talk about why wearing no make-up is so unusual.

While many people have concluded from the #nomakeupselfie campaign that women do not have to wear make-up all the time to be beautiful, the average reaction, as far as I can see, is that a world where women don’t wear make-up is highly undesirable.

2 and a half years ago, I decided to stop wearing any make-up, after almost 10 years of believing it would harm my well-being if I did not. I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve chosen to wear make-up for particular occasions since then. Other than sleeping a little longer every morning and saving plenty of money, there has been no marked difference to my life. I know others who don’t wear make-up and, like me, they would never consider themselves brave – mainly they just they feel happier, more free and acknowledge how transformational and fun make-up can be when you feel like wearing it.

This campaign has proven that people are not used to seeing natural female faces. That is a problem. I’d hate to think my face scares people or that I haven’t made it presentable enough to do my job properly. So while it’s important that this campaign raises cancer awareness, we must not ignore what it has shown about pervasive and dangerous attitudes towards women and girls. We should be working towards a future where a ‘no make-up selfie’ is not a challenge – it is literally a photo of yourself. There should be no need for derogatory adjectives like ‘bare-faced’ that add to the shaming language of ‘covering up’ that girls grow up with to fit the socially-constructed ideal of elegance.

If you’ve enjoyed causing a fuss with your no make-up selfie, try actually living for a while without make-up (if you don’t already) and see what reactions you get from friends and strangers. I hope you find that the majority of people couldn’t care less and will treat you with the level of respect all humans deserve, regardless of our decisions on whether to conform to gender, have a moustache, shave our legs or wear foundation on a daily basis.