Full Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.
Who wears lipstick today - as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world's most conspicuous - and contentious - tool of artifice. Tossing expired ideas about femininity like so many tubes of melting wax, Lipstick explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation, as well as how lipstick can knock gender norms off balance.
Contents
Introduction
1. Painted Ladies and Tainted Men
Lipstick Story #1: Margaret
2. Painted Ladies and Painted Men
Sidebar #1: The Pesky Endurance of Public High School Lipstick Bans
Lipstick Story #2: Maurice
3. Lipstick Feminism and Sticky Pleasures
Sidebar #2: The Myth of the Red-Lipped Suffragette
Lipstick Story #3: Shaela
4. Whitewashed Beauty, Appropriation, and Lipstick Legacies
Sidebar #3: Four Decades of Lipstick Lyrics and Music Videos
Lipstick Story #4: Dorothea
5. A Femme-Friendlier Future?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
