On Touching Your Face Being a Feminist Issue

[danieldwilliam]

I've seen a couple of my friends comment on the difficulty of not touching their face.

I was thinking of ways to help people not do that - putting your hands in your pockets sprung to mind.

Then I was thinking of things you could do to mitigate the risks of touching your face - periodically giving your face a wipe with an alcohol infused wipe.

Then it occured to me that women's clothing often doesn't have pockets and women often wear make-up which makes scrubbing their face every couple of hours problematic.

Touching your face turns out to be a feminist issue.

Comments

[strange_complex]

While everything you say here is true, I also think that people who wear make-up regularly may be better trained at not touching their face in the first place, through years of resisting the urge in order to avoid smudging the make-up.

That said, though, the adjustments I'll be making in the current circumstances basically boil down to stopping wearing make-up anyway. As I'm asthmatic, I'm already working wholly from home, where I don't wear make-up. Before I started that, I had already developed the new habit of washing my whole face (as well as my hands) with soap and water when I got back into the house, in case there were any viruses lingering there which might get into my respiratory tract. Now, I only really plan to go out when necessary to the supermarket and perhaps individual local friends' houses for the next few months, and won't be wearing make-up when I do so. That way, the face-washing when I get home will be easier and less messy, plus there's less chance of viruses sticking in the make-up itself while I'm out.

So, in short, make-up has trained me well for this hour of need, but now I'm here I am going to leave it behind.

[danieldwilliam]

Good point on the training for not-touching a made-up face.

I think I'm going to incorporate washing my face a few times duri8ng the day in to my routine.

[cmcmck]

You noticed!

Something I learned very quickly at fifteen was check hair, check jewellery,check makeup and it's a damn hard thing to unlearn!

[alithea]

It's funny but wearing makeup is what makes me want to touch my face, probably because I wear it so infrequently.

[cmcmck]

Same here but I also obsess over hair and earrings!