Sure, those are interesting questions. But what’s “healthy” or not… How do I know? Especially for something like how you wear your hair and makeup. Seems pretty innocuous to me.
Also, I think this is by and large how professional women in certain jobs are supposed to look.
It’s not just hair and makeup. It’s extensive plastic surgery.
I married into a family in which many women are obsessive about appearance. It’s mainly because they are constantly criticized. The result is plastic surgery and eating disorders and it’s clearly generational. I’m not sure who you want to judge here, but if anything I’d judge the culture that makes some women feel they have to do this to be more worthy. And we can also judge Trump for only hiring GOILFs.*
*Government Officials
I can’t let anyone off the hook because of “the culture,” not when, for generations now, there’s been a path to political and professional careers open for women who don’t have to make themselves Jessica Rabbit-level cartoon characters.
And it doesn’t have to be based on the women on the Left. Jean Kirkpatrick and Condoleeza Rice never seemed to include being a 14 year old boy’s wet dream as among their qualifications.
“Supposed” by whom? Is there an HR manager out there somewhere who’s saying that women should have straight blond hair, facelifts, breast implants, and pouty lips?
I’m pretty sure that “the culture” is exactly what we’re criticizing, here.
I clicked on the link to Fox News women and they looked like normal pretty women to me. There have been women on this board who could attest how strict the dress code is for women at various places of employment. When I worked in New York City women in corporate and legal jobs were expected to look immaculate and wear heels. For some, presumably they think they needed plastic surgery to look the part, because otherwise they wouldn’t get hired. There are absolutely businesses that will only hire women if they meet a certain attractiveness threshold. And one of the only ways to remain that attractive is to have plastic surgery. I have an Aunt-in-law who looks the exact same as she did 20 years ago. It’s not luck.
Yeah but what I’m telling you is it starts way before the career. It starts when your mother is putting makeup on you at five years old, and at ten you get your first pair of sexy lace panties, it starts with being raised from as long as you can remember to be thin and pretty, at any cost, no matter how much it hurts you. And if you don’t fit the mold you are constantly criticized. And when you’re thirteen and you have a family photo done, your grandmother has your body photoshopped because your arms look too fat.
That’s where it starts. Long, long before you start thinking about plastic surgery.
These are real examples. These are people I know and love.
That describes Cordelia Naismith in the Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold. I don’t think every occurrence of this trope in SF necessarily has anything to do with Heinlein.
That look was pioneered by the bevy that Harun Yahya put on Turkish TV. He imposed a uniform look of way-overdone blondeness on all those women. Injected lips and all. I think he was riffing off of what was being seen on Fox News and just made it more extreme.
Also, let them off the hook for what? Not fitting your personal definition of attractiveness? Getting plastic surgery when you don’t see the point?
When you make certain women’s appearance so important as to deserve emphasis here, can you really be surprised some women take their appearance really seriously? If you want women to stop worrying about their appearance, stop mocking the ones you don’t like.
I’m criticizing Harun Yahya, who imposed that look on the female followers of his cult. Sick and creepy.
No. For being evil fascists.
That Ooh face article was hilarious though.
I think I would have lost my shit in the 60s. I’m barely hanging onto it in 2025.
What @Spice_Weasel said, basically.
You’re doing it by targeting mainly one subset of it, by gender, and based on appearance alone. That’s at minimum shallow. The Noems and MTGs of the NewNaziParty have plenty of actual offenses to focus on, rather than their freely-chosen appearance.
What is the Left, fucking first graders?
No, it’s the Right who are fucking first graders.
It’s not really a gender thing, I’ve heard terms like “Republican android” used to refer to the plastic & artificial look affected by right-wingers of both genders. The Right has always been very controlling about how people look and dress, that’s why men with long hair was such a huge issue in the 1960s for example.
How does one criticize a culture of expecting artificial appearance in women, without pointing out that the women in that culture appear artificial?
Yeah, but it’s really hard for me to not think Poul Anderson’s character isn’t based on Ginny. Heck, her first name is “Virginia”.
You can critique the system by describing the pressures and expectations without calling the women themselves “artificial.” Or even “artificial appearing”.
The fact that Virginia Matuchek was obviously the dominant partner led me to wonder about the Heinleins’ marriage. Especially as his writing increasingly espoused her political philosophy (his adults always tended a bit libertarian, but veered more and more in that direction as time went on).