putanumonit.com
Primarily relevant to here through the discussion of what people claim to find attractive vs. choose, but also considers various other measures of attractiveness. I dont agree with all these analyses but think its worth posting simply for considering the topic in a lot more detail then Ive previously seen.
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I've always disliked the common feminist answer of "I wear makeup for myself, not for men". I find that very reductive and very much a poisoned explanation based on the feminist brain worm that no woman anywhere should ever try to do anything for the sake of men/a man, try to make a man/men happy, or seek any form of approval from a man/men.
I think there's the issue of proximal and distal causes here, or just different levels of abstraction to explain the same phenomenon.
When I say "thank you" at a restaurant after the server gives me my food, I'm not really "doing it for the server" any more. I'm doing it because it's a deeply ingrained habit at this point, shaped by a lifetime of social conditioning. I'm sure at some point I heard the explanation that saying "thank you" was the polite thing to do, and I did it a few times and got positive reactions, and I slowly became conditioned to do it automatically as a result.
In the same way, I can actually believe that a lot of women wear make up "for themselves", in the sense that they have no conscious thoughts along the line of "Gee, I wonder if a cute boy will see this and swoon over my amazing make up." But it's not going to apply to all women, and I do suspect there's a bit of denial going on for some.
Women know men haven't a fucking clue about makeup, they'll think some girl has a 'natural' look when a woman can tell it took three hours to achieve that 'wind-tousled hair and barely-there makeup' look. Or do you really think men care about contouring videos or what shade of red goes with my skin's undertones?
Like Herrick's poem, which seems to think that "a sweet disorder in the dress" is not fine art. If she really threw her clothes on carelessly, Herrick would not be attracted, he would think she was a slattern:
That's why women say "I do it for me", because while men can't tell, other women can, and if you feel that you look good/are following the season's trends, you feel confident and that you are not left out of the loop.
As is all too common, I think there's an element of miscommunication between the modal reactions of men and women.
Men hear "I do it for me," notice that the thing being done is overtly public and communicative, conclude that the woman is not accurately describing her true motivations, and typical-mind into the conclusion that "obviously, attracting positive attention from the opposite sex is the real goal."
Women note that the conclusion is (often) wrong, and dismiss the rest of the argument. This is also wrong, because while "feeling confident" is internal, knowing that other women will notice and recognize that you are not out of the loop is quintessentially social and externally motivated. There is a contradiction between "I do it (just) for me" and "I do it for social reasons," and men are correct to notice, even if the modal conclusion drawn is in error.
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