"Who did you get all dressed up for?" "You can't wear that; leave something to the imagination!" "Is there someone you're trying to impress?" These are some of the many questions women and girls hear every time they feel like dressing up and putting on a little makeup. The time to end this is now.
We don't need a reason to put on nice clothes. We don't need a reason to put on a little makeup. There shouldn't be this stigma that girls only make themselves look nice to impress the opposite sex.
I love doing makeup, and I love buying makeup. But I buy this makeup for myself. Makeup helps so many girls feel confident and beautiful, which is one of the most powerful things. When I was in middle school, I felt very insecure about myself and about using makeup to hide my imperfections. I thought people would think I was being superficial if I felt the need to hide my face behind all of these products.
In high school, most of that changed. I started wearing makeup on a more daily basis and even started dressing a little nicer every day. I liked making myself look nice, but people started asking me why I was dressing up. They would ask why I felt the need to look so nice just to go to school, or if I was trying too hard to impress my boyfriend.
You try not to take offense to questions like that, but it's hard not to. They're implying two things: that it's such an extreme rarity to see girls dressed nicely that they must call us out on it, and that there must be a romantic and/or suggestive reason behind the nice clothes and the makeup.
We cannot restrict girls to this. It's simply not healthy. We tell girls to become confident in themselves and to have greater self-esteem, yet we beat them down for trying their best to become more confident.
However, it doesn't stop there. Girls can also be brought down because they're not wearing makeup and wearing just sweatpants and a tee shirt. "You really came to class like that?" "You should try to make yourself look nicer." "You never know who might be watching you, you have to always dress to impress." We can't win, can we?
Here's the simple fix: girls can just stop letting society tell them what to wear and what not to wear, and society can just shut up. There is no right or wrong way to dress or do your makeup. People can wear whatever clothes they want and do their hair however they want. There doesn't have to be an underlying reason for it. You can wear sweatpants and a tee shirt one day, and a dress and heels the next. No one should judge you for that.
