My mother couldn’t leave the house without makeup.
My mother was unconventional, charismatic, and extraordinary. When she shone her light on you anything seemed possible.
My mother was brilliant, capable, creative and independent.
In her 20’s in the 1950’s she was an actor, a first class air stewardess travelling the world, a woman with a career, charismatic, stylish, adventurous. She had the world at her feet.
And then she fell madly in love and became…a wife.
And then…a wife and mother.
And then…a mother of three children, with no family support or network, living in another country with a husband who travelled constantly.
I suspect my mother had postnatal depression with me. She definitely suffered loneliness and isolation and like so many women of her generation she self-medicated. In her case she numbed herself with alcohol.
The alcohol preceded the marriage so I don’t know if her addiction was triggered by trauma, mental health or the fact that riding the second wave of feminism didn’t quite deliver on the promise. For this woman of the world, being consigned to being a mother in the suburbs definitely fuelled her consumption.
But something she did every day no matter what, was to sit in front of her makeup mirror (anyone remember those ones with the lights on the side?) and apply a deep coating of makeup. Troweled it on. This mask of makeup and the rigidly lacquered helmet of hair she applied every morning before facing the day became an integral part of her identity.
People talked about my mum’s hair as much as they didn’t talk about her drinking. (I felt a lot of shame as a kid but that’s another story).
My mother was a pioneer as a working mother, ostensibly powering through the early years with us. She became a publicist, literary agent, and started her own business. But the drinking never stopped, she just overlaid more coping and masking mechanisms. And everyday she applied that mask of makeup. Every day. She simply couldn’t or wouldn’t do life, and definitely not public life, without them.
My mother was ahead of her time, yet still a product of it.
Watching this daily ritual as I was growing up, I swore I would never let myself become like my mother and definitely wouldn’t be restricted by what I saw as socially mandated props for women both in and out of the workplace.
I was clear I would always have the confidence to simply be me in the world and challenge the status quo along the way. And I didn’t want to feel like I would be less than me if I wasn’t wearing makeup.
Even when my boyfriend’s grandmother told me how much “prettier” I looked when I wore it.
And especially, early in my career, when preparing to do a roadshow presentation as part of a gruelling interstate schedule, I mentioned being tired to my manager and she suggested I just “pop on a bit of lippy and I’d be fine.”
I instantly rebelled at the inter-generational requirement of women to present “nicely” to the world and responded “no thanks I’m a one application a day kind of girl”
From that day on, I pretty much stopped wearing lipstick at work because I refused to do what was expected of women in the workforce unless I chose to. It’s the equivalent of a tie for men. If people want to wear either, sure, that’s their choice but they shouldn’t feel compelled to.
Over time, not wearing much makeup has become part of MY identity. For many years it was a bit of a “f you” to my mother too, but age, therapy and having my own daughters helped me find compassion for her. So now it is more of a salute to my mother alongside a determination to carry the baton of feminism, wearing a different uniform, one that is purely of my own making.