Women wear makeup in order to appear more attractive, mainly to men but also to each other. That is the simple and uninteresting truth of the matter. Yet, while explaining her “skincare and red lip routine” in a recent video for Vogue, 30-year-old congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez argued that a woman’s choice of makeup is among the most “substantive decisions” she makes.
Got that? It’s not getting a job, buying a house, getting married, or having or raising children; it’s lipstick and concealer.
Having explained her choice of tinted moisturizer, foundation, eyeliner, and so on (as well as how to transport one’s makeup while on the move), the congresswoman from New York concluded that the real “key” to women’s cosmetic empowerment is simply “feeling beautiful” and “loving yourself” which “no amount of money or make-up can really compensate for.” Here she explained that “queer” and “non-binary” people are leading the way; since naturally, the people who care most if others mess up their pronouns care least about what others think of them.
Of course, the real key to feeling beautiful (as AOC’s no-makeup look at the beginning of the video demonstrates) is having genetically good skin and striking features, which makeup products merely amplify. Although her enemies like to pretend otherwise, AOC is an unusually good-looking politician, who, I’ll admit, looks especially pretty in the products she’s carefully selected. Still, why she thinks drawing attention to her appearance means that Congress should take her more “seriously” is beyond me.