At 6:45 in the morning.
I’m turning off my cell phone’s morning call while my eyes are still asleep.
It’s time to forcefully get my body awake to go to work.
Rubbing my eyes that are not yet open.
I finish my breakfast in 30 mins from preparation to washing dishes.
Now it’s about 7:20.
My preparation is quite a lot when I go into the bathroom to wash.
From face cleansing to shampoo, putting a shaving foam on my beard.
Then I use a razor to clean the tip of the chin.
I get out of the bathroom and spread skin, lotion, moisturizing products and sun cream over my skin.
Here is not the end.
I dry my hair with a hair dryer, hole the shape, apply the wax, and spray it for fixing.
Occasionally when I have an important appointment, I put the BB-cream or foundation lightly.
I have to get pretty tidy today.
It’s roughly 8:15 when I’m completely dressed up.
It takes about an hour for me to totally be prepared and I should leave by now in order to not be late for my work.
My repeated struggle of preparation every morning stimulates me to imagine a terrible thought that ‘women are more serious than this? How do they manage it?” That hits me the scene of a women mindlessly preparing in the morning in TV drama.
‘You are the woman but not doing the makeup?’
A woman who is angry with a criticism of a boss mocking her.
It is a regular situation in the drama that deals with the troublesome story of woman’s work life.
A woman tries to refute what the boss has just said with the anger coming to the end of the neck. It is just her imagination though,,
You can easily see the scene where a woman is running ahead to the toilet and release her anger with tears.
When I see a dramatic scene like this in drama, the question always comes to my mid.
‘why do you need a make-up to go to work?’
Although it is necessary for a job that is directly customer facing like sales or customer service, it is hard to think that a make-up will improve the work efficiency of general office workers.
Rather than being totally involved and devoted to makeup in the morning, a woman could relax and enjoy breakfast and a cup of coffee.
It may be better in terms of stress reduction or work efficiency for her.
Nonetheless, it is a reality that you can’t help but to have a make-up for other people’s eyes or expectations, or not for your own worth.
Women ,who are in a dilemma of irritable but irreversibly must-to-have makeup, often shoots the angry bullet asking ‘if having a makeup is related to the work, why do men go to work without it?’
Although it is not comparable to women, there is no big difference with the fact that the morning of men also invest efforts into their ‘morning preparation’.
As a social norm that a clean impression/appearance is considered a courtesy, a man diligently cleans his hair to avoid the boss’s criticism.
Of course, most of his choices are for himself, not just to avoid the boss’s point of view.
But the question of why women should make up is not yet resolved.
It is not right to put a negative opinion on cleanliness or courtesy of a woman only because she is not have a proper makeup.
It is generally a social myth and is not clear that why a woman should have an appropriate makeup in order to stay courteous and respectful.
Nonetheless, there are people who are narrow minded that women must make up regardless of whatsoever.
If a man has a mind like this, a man does not have the right to point his finger at a woman putting on a makeup in a public place like metro or subway.
I think that makeup should at least be a choice for self-satisfaction or appeal and that it should not be forced by the social norms or others unless someone who points out is willing to pay for all that expensive cosmetics and delay the check-in time for work.