Jezebel has certainly been a treasure trove of gobsmacking nuttiness this week! In a new post, the infallibly sensible Tracy Moore (she’s one who farts a lot) does a cost benefit analysis on being a woman and it’s the usual *facepalm* level of idiocy one has come to expect from ol’ Jez!
So, apparently, it costs MONEY to be a woman. Here’s all the things ladies must cash up for:
Hair
Makeup
Clothing
Shoes
Therapy
Weight management
To a total of $849 000 over the course of a lifetime!
The average woman spends $65 A WEEK on cosmetics!
Holy fucking Christ! I spend maybe $65 a YEAR on cosmetics and I like Lancome!
As we know, men (who typically have short hair that must be cut much more frequently) do not spend money grooming all the various hair on their bodies. Most dudes do not wear make-up, so yeah, I’ll give her a pass on that one, although Mr. JB has quite the post-shave skin care regime going on. Men do not spend money on clothing or shoes. They do not spend money on stress relieving activities like video games, nor do they spend money taking care of their bodies and maintaining their weights.
Okay, okay. Tracy is simply pointing out that women typically spend MORE money than men on these items.
Because patriarchy. They HAVE TO. It’s all part of the system of oppression. Ladies are FORCED to own 30 pairs of shoes and 200 separate items of clothing and to spend $65 a week on makeup (Jesus that blows my mind). They have NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. The shoe gestapo is well known for randomly bursting into lady homes and taking a shoe inventory and god help the gal who doesn’t own her requisite 30 pairs.
This is the kind of shit that drives me completely insane when I read Western women complaining about their lot in life.
Here we have a system, set up to benefit WOMEN, with completely voluntary participation and women start screaming because there is a cost associated with taking full advantage of that system. Grooming, hair, makeup, clothing, weight management are all things that women can use to emphasize their sexual attractiveness and then parlay that into some material benefits, should they so choose.
No one is REQUIRED to wear make-up or do their hair up fancy every day. Bullshit. There are BENEFITS associated with doing so, but it always comes down to personal choice. And along with benefits, there are COSTS!
And always, there is this unwritten assumption that men don’t have to do these things. Do the writers have any idea how much razor blades for men cost? Have they ever imagined what it’s like to get up every day and have to shave and wear a suit and tie? The number one aspect of physical appearance that affects men’s income isn’t even one they can control: HEIGHT.
Oh, the injustice of it! Ladies be crying.
And just in case you were thinking that feminism represents the interests of all women, take a good look at their whining over self-imposed sartorial sanctions: $6 000 a year spent on clothing.
$6 000!
Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, hello rich white lady working as a secretary in an office somewhere. Plenty of folks don’t have $6 000 a year to spend on FOOD, never mind the latest taffeta shrug from Zara.
Personally, I’m surprised the costs associated with mental health aren’t higher, since these women are all clearly batshit insane. Apparently, self-help books aren’t particularly effective. Thank god for the blogosphere, eh?
It comes down to this: women want to have all the benefits associated with being feminine, they want the right to NOT ACTUALLY BE FEMININE, and they don’t want to pay for that. Yeah, that seems reasonable. I want all the benefits of an education, but I don’t want to actually become educated and I would like there to be no cost associated with my lack of education.
The reality is that most of these women have completely lost the ability to compete on the basis of femininity, which is, to be certain, a powerful force that can be harnessed and exploited for tremendous gains, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Men and women alike respond to a man’s height, just as men and women alike respond to a woman’s beauty, which is far more than just what she looks like.
True beauty involves some basic attention to your physical appearance, but it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Don’t be fat. There’s 95% of your beauty problem solved right there. Don’t want to fuss with your hair? Grow it out. A chignon requires a few bobby pins and a trim once or twice a year.
Don’t care to spend a great deal of money on clothes? Buy classics. That’s WHY they’re called classics! They don’t need to be replaced. My professional wardrobe, which I have not worn in over ten years, is hanging in my closest and is still perfectly acceptable for wear because it consists of classic clothing that never goes out of style. And yes, three kids and ten years later, I still fit in every single piece.
But the most important aspect of beauty, which happens to be A) FREE and B) apparently elusive is to have a cheerful heart and a genuine sense of care and concern for the people who surround you. Beauty is about how you interact with the world and the people in it. Be kind, be generous, be thoughtful, be considerate, be gracious, be giving.
In other words, be feminine. Be a woman. It won’t cost you anything and you might just find you gain far more than you could ever imagine. And you’ll probably save a shit ton of money on self-help books, too.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
I don’t think it’s possible to spend that much on makeup a week without deliberately making yourself up like a whore to go out at night. Several nights a week.
I also have about the same respect for women that do that as I do the whores. I stop talking to a woman that feels entitled to my spending money on a drink just to talk with her. Feminine women can get a lot of things, and if they’re worth it I’m happy to pony up. To go for the lowest reward of a drink and settle for that before you even know me is retarded in its use of time and money to achieve anything halfway feminine.
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i really feel like having a power washer on hand just to see how much make up washes off. they probably do tht themselves at night cuz there’s like no way you can spen $65 a week on make up without using half of it in 2 days. or maybe it’s a secret known only to women, i don’t really care either way though
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About a year ago I encountered a woman, about 58 and divorced and hostile, who spent a lot of money for clothes and make-up to cover up her age. Her own mother told me she was “high-maintenance.” Her hostility toward men was just oozing out of her.
To me, a woman spending a lot of money on clothes and make-up is one of the biggest red flags there is.
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Another great article – particularly liked ‘batshit insane’ haha.The term for some reason reminded me that before my last book ‘Feminism: the ugly truth’ was published, it had a different subtitle. The book was to be titled ‘Feminism: Crones’ Disease’, but with the same waxwork face http://lpspublishing.co.uk. In the UK the chapter title that’s most angered feminists is, ‘Are feminists less attractive than normal women?’ Few have complained about the subsequent chapter’s title, ‘Are feminists less intelligent than normal women?’ I think even feminists would have to agree the answer to that is a resounding ‘YES!’
Mike Buchanan
ANTI-FEMINISM LEAGUE
ttp://fightingfeminism.wordpress.com
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“Do the writers have any idea how much razor blades for men cost?”
Yes, they are very expensive. That’s why(other reason being a very irritated skin post-shave) I went old style with a safety razor, a shaving brush & a shaving soap. Sure, a quality safety razor and brush aren’t exactly cheap, but they’ll last for years, if not for life, when properly used. A pack of 10 quality razor blades costs just a couple of pounds and they last a week each. There are some great tutorials on YT on how to use a safety razor and how to make a proper lather from a shaving soap.
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I’m trying to figure out why weight management would be expensive. If you’re eating less you’re spending less– correct? I don’t really go to the gym. I’d rather walk and so some simple resistance exercises at home. But even if I went to the gym, it’s not terribly expensive.
Oh wait. It’s the gym clothes isn’t it? I wouldn’t know. I’m all about sweats and t-shirts when working out. I refuse to sweat into anything expensive. I’m notoriously cheap though. My mom always told me you’re so tight you squeak. My husband just tells me that he’s a lucky man. 🙂
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You’re exactly right about the 95 percent of beauty= don’t be fat (with outlier exceptions…large moles and whatnot).
“Weight management”= push away from the table. Money saved by eating less=less money spent, not more. Those dumb bitches. After my last baby I wanted to lose weight and ate brown rice and vegetables (took vitamins too) along with the occasional protein chicken/or eggs for six weeks. Weight gone. Money saved. Rice and veggies make good toddler food too.
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BTW…is that picture of the woman with the up-do Ann-Margret? She’s such a lovely lady.
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I know, it always made me wonder. The accepted explanation is that eating healthy is expensive and requires time, and like you said, “gyms are expensive!”. You suggest eating less, but that has some dire consequences: the poor dear may get *hungry*, and that’s like, not fair. It also means eating stuff you don’t like; that isn’t fair either. Finally, it also may mean cutting out on going out to expensive restaurants with the girlfriends every second day. Requiring anyone to suffer through these terrible ordeals is just cruel. Don’t you know, instead of giving them sensible advice (otherwise known as “judging”) you should be completely supportive of whatever ineffective method they’ll choose to lose weight, and if it doesn’t work for them, you should help them convince themselves that somebody else is to blame. Either genetics, men, society, the Patriarchy, the media, the food industry, their parents, their kids, their husbands or the women who are thin.
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Gosh, Liz, that’s exactly what I did, too.
How did the two of us come to know such a well-guarded secret?
One of the biggest benefits has been that my kids have been accustomed to eating vegetables and have seen me eat tons of them since infancy.
My kids eat a shit ton of veggies! I don’t get these kids who don’t eat vegetables? What? How is that possible? It must be because mommy doesn’t eat them either.
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I’m thinking it’s slimshake breakfasts, jenny craig lunches, and ‘salad’ at the fancy new ‘healthy’ restaurant, that makes weight management so expensive. Not to mention shakeweights, the abbuster, and every other ‘as seen on TV’ shilled by someone who got their flat stomach from responsible eating.
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These lists always entertain me. “It’s so haaard to be a woman and HAVE to do all the things I choose to do!”
I can’t claim to have a good idea how much makeup and fancy shoes or fashion clothing cost, but I know they aren’t necessities, making the actual cost irrelevant.
I have a job and a husband. I got and keep both with:
-no makeup (I believe my face is supposed to be the colour it was when I was born),
-an occasional split-end trim from my sister,
-simple clothing that I wear until it wears out (and second hand stores are amazing).
-a pair of general shoes, two pairs black dress shoes (admitted excess), and one pair white (though I didn’t need to buy white ones until my wedding)
-healthy eating, and an active lifestyle.
I am lucky enough to have not needed to spend on therapy, but that’s not a function of being a woman, that’s a function of mental health. And until we redefine women’s natural irrationality as a mental illness, they aren’t notably more likely to be genuinely clinically ill than men.
I am also lucky enough to have never needed an actual professional wardrobe (I work in a casual industry), as for me, the alterations would be painfully expensive. But by not wasting money in so many other areas, I could make it work. Or maybe if I was filling a whole wardrobe of dress-shirts, I’d take the time to upgrade my sewing skills and learn to alter my own.
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Worry about appearance and weight management? Why? I bet Andrea Dworkin never worried about these things.
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It’s notable that a lot of women eating those “healthy” products are not particularly slim. I find that real food, made in my own kitchen, works wonders for my waistline.
Those shakeweights crack me up.
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Actually, it’s often cheaper to be fat. It’s not quantity so much as quality.The cheapest food that doesn’t require time to prepare (and working class people are often shorter on time than money) is fast food. Healthier kinds of food (such as fresh fruits) tends to be more expensive.
Hence why, contrary to what many believe, weight correlates negatively with wealth: rich people are generally healthier and less likely to be obese than poorer people. For women this is especially true.
Now, generally speaking, managing weight is just about the simplest thing in the world. May not always be easy, but it’s always simply; as a biologist once told me, the best dieting advice, as suggested by the first law of thermodynamics, is simply: eat less, do more.
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I adore shoes and being a plus size woman, you can always trust that shoes will fit. HOWEVER I don’t own 30 pairs of shoes. I have 17 pairs of shoes and haven’t bought ANY shoes in the last 8 months. Clearly I’m falling short of expectations so I’m giving myself permission this weekend to go out an buy another 13 pairs of shoes. However I do have an excess of handbags so maybe that evens it out. While I’m at it I need to buy another couple of hundred dollars worth of makeup!! It is just soooooo difficult being a woman these days!!!
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No matter how crappy the food, if you don’t eat excess amounts, you won’t be fat (assuming normal hormones and such). You might not be the healthiest if you’re living off of quick food, but it doesn’t necessarily mean fat.
And I suspect the bigger issue is the habits and knowledge. Having grown up middle class with the expectation that food is made at home and what is normal eating, I had no trouble eating reasonably healthy food on extremely low budgets as a working student.
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Man where do these women get all this money from?
I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes for about three years – I have four pairs.
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I’ve probably spent less £65 on make up in my LIFE! Most of it when I was a teenager. (Can never remember the $ to £ exchange so I’ll just use UK currency.) I haven’t been to a hairdresser since 1998. And my husband has longer hair than I do, and uses more expensive shampoo. Ok I’m not the norm – but FFS! The ONLY things women actually need that men don’t are bras and sanitary products. And even bras are optional.
I wonder if they’d consider that buying drinks/meals/flowers for women is an additional financial burden on men? Nah – what crazytalk – that’s obviously a choice.
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Bras *can* be optional for women of some breast sizes. But for a woman of certain size and activity level, there’s really no option there, other than bra vs. other restraining device.
And even for the small-breasted, I think it would be appropriate to say that in our society, bras are basically a non-optional requirement. To not wear one is to be considered genuinely unprofessional in a way noticed unlike skipping makeup or expensive shoes.
And on the upside of sanitary products, either old-fashioned or newish products can make those very cheap if preferred.
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those less well endowed could always just use a sash type deal ( not if they’d be called tupe top bras or what, that ain’t my field)
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I probably spend £65 a year on wigs…if any one gives a fuck…
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Kinky!
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And those well-endowed could use a bustier. But one way or another, some sort of similar product is pretty standardly expected in public.
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Reminds of the time Greta Christina spent $200 on a pair of shoes (money that was donated by readers to help pay for her cancer treatment, but that’s another story).
If I spend $200 on a pair of shoes, they better last 10 times as long as a pair of $20 shoes!
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