By RUTH MILLETT
News comes from London that the wife of a British army major quit her job as assistant commandant of a hospital when her superior, a man, objected to her lipstick. She’s looking for another war job — where camouflaging a face isn’t considered an unpatriotic activtiy.
To men, her gesture of defiance may seem silly, irrational, and ridiculous.
To women it makes sense.
Why should a young, good-looking woman (or any woman, for that matter), be penalized for her patriotism?
Just because a woman has volunteered to do a dangerous and important job in wartime is no reason she has to look grim and unattractive and as much like a man as possible.
It doesn’t take much time for a woman to put on lipstick — no more than it takes a man to look in a mirror, smooth his hair, and admire himself. And if there are any men in the army who have given up that privilege, war does change men’s habits drastically. I havn’t noticed, either, that men stop shaving when they enter the army.
And once a woman’s lipstick is on – how much better off she is. No man can be expected to appreciate the satisfaction that comes from knowing that lipstick is freshly applied. Lipstick gives a woman poise and courage to face the world. Made up, a woman is ready for any emergency. Gray-faced, she is already half-way licked by life.
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NEED ‘PEPPING UP’ WORSE THAN EVER
The major’s wife knows her rights, and the rights of all women – even in wartime.
Ask them to do hard, tiring, dangerous jobs and they agree readily. Ask them to skimp on food, clothes and luxuries – and they do it without complaint.
But tell them to give up lipstick and there is trouble. Their lipstick is their badge of femininity, and they need it worse than ever in times of trouble.
From The Bismark Tribune. Bismark, North Dakota. February 20, 1941.
