The Power of Red Lipstick

What the “Conservative” and “Liberal” Make-Up Trend Reveals About Our Own Feminine Biases.

It never ceases to amaze me just how often remnants of the Madonna/Whore Complex show up in pop culture and social media. It even trickles so far down to women’s make-up routine. As if everything that a woman does centers around one single question? “Are you a “good” woman? or a “bad” one?”

Conservative vs. Liberal Make-Up

It’s just make-up y’all…or is it? Make-up has existed longer than the bible and most of our religious text today. Scientists have noted that as far back as 3500 BCE, women and men in Mesopotamia would crush gemstones to decorate their lips, and in Egypt, Khol was commonly used to protect one’s eyes from the sun.

For context, the Torah and Book of Genesis are said to be written around 1000–500 BCE, meaning that the art of make-up and adorning one’s appearance existed at least 2000 prior to the creation of the monotheistic religions we are so familiar with today (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).

So how has it come to be that make-up has gotten so controversial? Well, we can thank the Madonna-Whore (Or what I have started referring to as the Goddess-Witch Spectrum) for that…

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