As a group, our projects discuss the gendering of labor . We ask questions regarding agency,  the boundaries between beauty and work, queer reproductive and care labor, globalization of beauty and work through reimagination, gendered care and consumption, and feminization of (non-waged) reproductive care labor.

Introduction to the interactive system of reproductive care labor and production

To be accepted in society, there is a certain standard of beauty that women are expected to uphold both as a form of reproductive labor  and also in productive labor spheres . Using makeup or other beauty products to make yourself more attractive is something women may do to attract the gaze of a man, and even if she isn’t looking for a man, it’s still expected of her to display herself like she is. This is one form of reproductive labor that is typically impressed more upon women than men. In the productive labor sphere, there is usually an expectation to appear “professional” ; the idea of a professional appearance is typically very different between men and women, with women usually being expected to wear makeup, and style their hair in certain ways before they even clock in for work. This is extra unpaid labor that is directly tied with femininity, especially because being perceived as beautiful can directly contribute to your success in your career even if the job has little to do with beauty.

Introduction to the gendering of reproductive labor within beauty, fashion and the home

Beauty is not only an idea or social phenomenon but a form of reproductive labor , situated in the capitalist, gendered division of labor, where women are expected to perform, yet are both underpaid and not acknowledged. The woman, historically, has served as a marker for a man’s financial status. A well-dressed woman would show how her husband could afford certain luxuries. Beautification practices became more and more linked to femininity. Soon, a woman was now expected  to be perfectly made up, with makeup and clothes. The ideal of a perfectly groomed woman became deeply ingrained in societal norms, further blurring the line between a woman’s appearance and value. Taking care of the home, raising the children, and maintaining a beautiful appearance were now a part of women’s work. It is also why the beauty and fashion industries are dominated by women. In furthering our discussion, we ask how globalization influenced beauty standards worldwide and what impact has this had on reproductive labor associated with maintaining these standards in different cultural contexts. How do factors such as class or sexuality play into this division of labor? And how have women challenged and freed themselves from such power structures?

Debates and questions

The debate around beauty is essentially about whether it is a personal choice or a choice that internalizes patriarchy. In other words, how do we understand individual’s agency with the idea of beauty and its practices? How do we define the freedom of women in a patriarchal society? How can we negotiate the boundary between women’s free will and the dominant patriarchal ideologies? If a woman finds joy in dressing up, is this woman making her own decision for herself, or is this woman so deeply affected by patriarchy to the point that she internalizes this connection between beauty and satisfaction? And what are the possibilities beyond seeing this practice of beauty from either side of a dichotomy? Another factor to consider is how globalization has affected one’s understanding of beauty. If one chooses a certain fashion style, how is that choice related to cultural hierarchies and larger political relations between these cultures? And how is that specific choice representing different messages associated with the style and why is the person favoring one style over another?

Queering care work

To further our discussions above, we also encourage looking at the gendering of labor in a critical, reflective, and potentially transformative way. Thinking within and beyond the messy debates and boundaries of feminized reproductive care work, we would like to reflect on and challenge the binary of masculine productiveness and feminine reproduction of work and labor in the contemporary post-colonial capitalist world. We should also rethink how popular narratives risk reinforcing neoliberal structures of gender and labor by focusing on standardized values of productivity while addressing issues of care work. One of the ways of queering reproductive care work may concern diving into the embodied experiences of women and feminized bodies, capturing temporal moments and gestures that create ruptures of capitalist time and space normality. Seeing reproductive labor and care work from a queer perspective allows us to gain insights into their deconstructing and transformative power through interrogating their discursive performance and performativity, as well as their process and positions in the globalizing world.    

Keywords:Boundaries of beauty and work, Question of agency, Queer reproductive and care labor, Globalization of beauty and work through reimagination (international relation), Gendered care and consumption, Feminization of (non waged) reproductive care labor (that constitute “life” and “living”), Queerness of reproductive care labor