It should. I was looking around on the internet at what make up is made of. I had always heard that eye shadow is fish scales... ok, that sounds kosher enough. However, it seems some other make ups are made of things like rust and crushed insects. Now insects aren't kosher, so why is it that women are wearing these crushed bugs and it hasn't inspired the latest chumrah of a hecsher for make up.
I really never expected religious Jews to be so shallow. In Xtianity, it was really frowned upon to be shallow and looks obsessed. When I was doing the research for my paper, I read something from a secular woman who did an ethnographic study of Gur women in the Tel Aviv area. For them, they were admonished for caring about looks. Their esteemed teacher pointed out that a woman who leaves the house well-dressed with every little bit of her looks tip top communicates "this is what I care about." Yet the women who responded to my survey here in the US equated modesty with looking good. This is what tznius means? I know one acquaintance told me that her husband doesn't want her in denim. He likes her dressed up. The only problem with that is that if we are dressed up every day, what does this leave for a special occasion or Shabbos? Somehow, it seems to me like Shabbos with no make up wouldn't be as special as every day with make up. If you're dressing up all week, surely you aren't getting it from the clothes on Shabbos.
Nevertheless, the community cares so much about a woman's looks. We are plagued with eating disorders. Women are advised to break halacha on the basis that men want them done up like Jon Benet Ramsey. Then the men complain that all us women are after is money. Well, honey, if you want us in brand new clothes and fresh mani-pedis all the time...um YEAH, that will cost and YOU"RE the one who wants it, YOU better be able to pay for it.
The reason that looks determine everything in the frum world is they the frum are objects. What matters is how they are perceived.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand in the real world many people are subjects. They perceive and act.
In the frum world here the main emphasis is how to get charity from fry Yiden, looks are everything, they have to look and play the act of traditional Judaism so they can pull the heart strings of the rich fry Yid. They can only do this by playing the act well and wearing the right chasidic type clothing, even the litvak world has fallen into this. Litvak type clothing in Europe was a regular business suit.
Is it right or is it wrong? Also, why is looking pretty equated with looking modest?
ReplyDeleteFrom a recent post on another blog:
"Gila Silver did everything right. She went to the right schools, she dressed in all of the right clothing. She never stepped out of her house, or even her bedroom for that matter, without her hair done and her makeup immaculate. She went to meet all of the right shadchanim, and got just the right job."
This is shallow. We praise shallowness?
Furthermore, while make up may make a girl look better in the short run, it ruins the skin in the long run. I almost never wear that crap. I look young, freakishly young... Other women pay money to ruin their skin and then there are ads all over the place to help them look younger... if they didnt' wear the crap in the first place they wouldn't need it.
This is the sometimes guest poster:
ReplyDeleteThe irritating aspect is that large amounts of time and $$$ are wasting in this race to look hot yet so many people are claiming to be so poor. They spend thousands on wigs and hired household help--luxuries many normal, even a bit above average folks feel they cannot afford.
Yet these nice frum yids need section 8 housing, food stamps, reduced/free tuition but have this high end image. Does one really 'need' fresh manicure all the time? It's one thing to have nice short clean nails or to treat one's self for a special day, that should be acceptable. It's one thing to wear a touch of make-up to cover skin problems or to polish a professional look, but to spend so much time and effort putting on make-up to look flawless? My friends and I are active in volunteering and helping out others. I've never had an FFB roommate do much of this unless there was something in it for them.
How is going way out of one's way to look attractive really being modest? Modest is supposedly about looking inward, not just on the surface.
In essence these are stealing the normal folks who are paying their own way and these nice frum yids are frauds. Yet they are rewarded and treat those that pay their own way through life like garbage.