Originally written for Bad Housekeeping (March 2014), read it here.
Attitudes about how women’s bodies and faces ‘should’ look run deep in society, their influence so extensive that they burrow into the mind. These judgements on women’s appearances do not just come from advertising or popular culture, but grow within girls’ own heads as internalised misogyny. Poisonous thoughts taught to us by the media become entrenched within us until we cannot differentiate our own thoughts from those the patriarchy wants us to have. Cruel and unsolicited opinions about women’s weight, clothing choices, skin, and make-up can roll off the tongue before you even question why you think them. The most personal aspect of my feminism has been the long, arduous process of unlearning these toxic perceptions. Recognising these harmful, sexist attitudes as unfounded and separate from myself is freeing, but it is also a constant battle.
The media we consume is incredibly influential as it has great power in perpetuating these damaging attitudes. A lot of television has a vein of misogyny running through it, but occasionally I come across something which is astounding in its level of hatred towards young girls. Snog Marry Avoid, BBC Three’s half ‘documentary’, half make-over show, is one of these. The programme involves heavily scrutinising and criticising a woman’s appearance (and it is nearly always a woman) before offering her up to be judged by a series of random men unknown to her. The message of this is clear to all girls watching: your worth is determined by how many strangers deem you suitably fuckable. Though this is couched in pre-watershed friendly terms such as “snog” and “marry”, the sinister implication that women are only valuable so long as they are attractive to men is devastatingly obvious.
Once the women have been suitably rated by these strangers, we reach the make-over stage, which has been wittingly re-titled “the make-under”. Because these women wear too much make-up and look over the top and horrendous, get it?! After everything which is perceived to be unsavoury about the girl’s appearance is stripped away, and after the unbelievably irritating pretend robot has made some good jibes about how orange her make-up wipe is, she is transformed into a ‘natural beauty’—the show’s favourite, but actually pretty inaccurate, catchphrase. It is important to note that we are not actually being presented with natural beauty, but rather an imitation of it. These women are not now bare-faced and completely devoid of the ‘fakery’ the show is so insistent that it dislikes, but instead they are shown to us with make-up which is deemed more acceptable than what they were wearing before. Make-up which is more appropriate and satisfying to the male gaze. Again, we women learn a patriarchal lesson here: neither men nor society are interested in your real natural appearance, they only want you to look as if you are naturally beautiful. They are interested in your beauty but only if they cannot see its mechanics, the visible traces of how you achieved this flawlessness.
As viewers, we are encouraged to make fun of these girls. To belittle and critique their appearances, often deriding their self-esteem and personalities as a result. How dare we think we can do this? How have we become so normalised with judging women that our opinion on their appearance is considered more important than their own? And I have done this too, been sucked into this half hour monstrosity of judgement and vitriol masquerading as a fucking beauty programme, finding myself disagreeing and commenting on these poor, poor girls as if it was any of my business. Entertainment such as this (I struggle to call it culture) is not just a reflection of current societal norms, but a vehicle which encourages and promotes them. The misogyny in our society is stagnating and it is due to popular culture like this programme that normalises the scrutiny of women’s bodies as if they were public property. As a piece of media which reinforces so many negative patriarchal attitudes about women and beauty, Snog Marry Avoid is far more harmful than it initially appears.
