White women try to "reclaim power" through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everybody seems to hate everyone else - even when their heart is in the right place.

Its starting to look like this whole “melting pot” experiment isn’t working. Maybe its time to give this thing back to the native americans and everyone else go home and sit in their corners.

I guess I have to go somewhere around Czechloslovakia.

Czech is nice. If you took your American assets you could live like a queen in Prague or Brno

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

This x 10000. At times it definitely feels like there is actually nothing I can say, be, or do is "right" enough. A constant #nowinsituation - and I'm sure someone will comment on how this post/feeling is wrong or misguided...

[Anonymous]

NPR is black, black, black, gay, gay, trans, trans, trans, school shooting, white boy, white boy, white boy.

It isn't news. It's an ad.

[Anonymous]

As a naturally pale person, I have wondered for years why there hasn’t been a push to say that pale can be beautiful too. We don’t need skin cancer or nonstop sunless tanner to feel beautiful.

[Anonymous]

This is a divisive, misogynistic article. These misogynists use race to divide women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

Who exactly is this alleged to be happening to? I am a white woman and my experience of living is not in any way captured by this. I am not "constantly being told" anything like the above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is remarkable that we made it this far without anyone acknowledging the various white power movements involved in, say, the attempt to overthrow the 2020 Presidential election results. This is real, they are active and dangerous, and white people who do not do much to distinguish themselves from those folks should expect some unpleasant criticism at a minimum. Openly calling oneself a “vanilla girl” in that context is not a neutral act.

Ma’am, this is a thread about skincare and nails.

The title is "White women try to 'reclaim power' through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts." It's not a thread about skincare and nails; it's a thread about white women "reclaiming power."

The question is: what "power" is this that white women are "reclaiming?"

[Anonymous]

I can't be bothered to look up whoever this "Steffi Cao" nitwit is. The foolishness this country seems to be diving headfirst into is very depressing. I hope the pendulum swings back to common sense sooner rather than later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a naturally pale person, I have wondered for years why there hasn’t been a push to say that pale can be beautiful too. We don’t need skin cancer or nonstop sunless tanner to feel beautiful.

I feel this way too! My entire childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, I was criticize for being "pasty" and the fact that my skin absolutely does not tan. Though I do think it has become much more acceptable in the last few years to just be pale and to not attempt to make your skin more tan.

I know this is not the same thing as racism, by the way -- not saying I was discriminated against for being pale. I'm just talking about beauty standards, and in the 80s/90s/00s, having bronzed skin was considered healthy and attractive and pale skin indicated you spent too much time inside and were sickly. Similar to the way women with small breasts get/got criticized for being insufficiently "womanly". It's not some kind of crisis, but it can make you feel bad about yourself over time. It's reasonable that women who feel the natural way their bodies look has been viewed as unattractive might try to reclaim that for themselves and say "no, I'm beautiful as I am." This is a normal thing to want for yourself and it's not an attempt to "reclaim" the power to oppress other people. Good lord.

[Anonymous]

I think part of the vanilla/minimalist trend isn’t really directed to white women at all but a much more creepy marketing campaign designed for very young girls of all races that they can’t overtly market makeup to.

Older women are increasingly rejecting makeup or doing it on their terms. So the creeps that run the beauty industry have to aim younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the vanilla/minimalist trend isn’t really directed to white women at all but a much more creepy marketing campaign designed for very young girls of all races that they can’t overtly market makeup to.

Older women are increasingly rejecting makeup or doing it on their terms. So the creeps that run the beauty industry have to aim younger.

The beauty industry is predominately women. The whole idea that it's men controlling women is weird. It's women following other women. And fashion and styles always come in and out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the vanilla/minimalist trend isn’t really directed to white women at all but a much more creepy marketing campaign designed for very young girls of all races that they can’t overtly market makeup to.

Older women are increasingly rejecting makeup or doing it on their terms. So the creeps that run the beauty industry have to aim younger.

The beauty industry is predominately women. The whole idea that it's men controlling women is weird. It's women following other women. And fashion and styles always come in and out.

Women work in the industry but it’s overwhelmingly owned by and run by men. Look at the largest beauty companies in the world— L’Oréal, Unilever, P&G, Shiseido, Estée Lauder all have male CEOs. Advertising and marketing firms that help decide the aesthetic? Largely run by men. Beauty magazines? Sure, they’ll have women editors, but they’re owned by men and editorial direction will always be guided by the industry itself because it’s ad dollars that drive those magazines. Hollywood and the decision makers who influence aesthetics with who they cast and how they look on screen? Mostly men. Fashion houses that set beauty ideals by the models they cast in runway shows and campaigns and the beauty aesthetics they impose? MEN.

Just because your local Sephora is like 99% women when you visit dies not mean that women dominate the industry. Women are the consumers and they might actually make and sell the products, but they do not run the industry and never have. How can you not understand this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

It's interesting that voicing even any opposition to an argument like this (which you yourself deem "silly") is being "fragile." That's an interesting word choice because it's not the kind of word you hear assigned to any other group of people, except maybe children (and not even all children, just girls). "Don't be so fragile about it" is a pretty classic neg against white women. Along with being shrill or hysterical.

White women are accused of "playing the victim" but we are also told, that if we do so much as vocalize a defense of ourselves in the face of criticism, that we are being "fragile" or using "white tears." The stereotype of the white woman is someone who performs weakness in order to get the protection of white men, but when white women stand up for themselves (not hiding behind white men but using their own words and argument stop advocate for themselves), they are dismissed and told to sit back down.

And that is why white women get angry about this stuff. White women absolutely have to be accountable for the role they've played, and continue to play, in white supremacy. But the fixation on white women as though we run the world (we don't) is bizarre and I think speaks to a broader misogyny -- it's easier to scape goat white women for their role in white supremacy than to actually dismantle the sources of white supremacy. It's easier to make fun of a skinny 24 year old white woman on Instagram posting about her #cleanface beauty regimen than it is to actually challenge a person with real power.

Whatever, I guess I'm just being "fragile."

What she said.

NP. Exactly this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

This x 10000. At times it definitely feels like there is actually nothing I can say, be, or do is "right" enough. A constant #nowinsituation - and I'm sure someone will comment on how this post/feeling is wrong or misguided...

Agree with this.

[Anonymous]

My favorite thing about all these "discussions" is how they try to make everything about race (and we are still demonizing white women 99% of the time) while completely ignoring the rampant misogyny. It's insane.