In “I can’t believe this is really happening; get me off this planet” news, a man is suing his wife for fraud after seeing her without makeup for the first time. I guess he would know a thing or two about fraud, what with clearly not really meaning any of those vows or anything.
The Algerian man told the court that when he woke up next to his wife the morning after their wedding, he could hardly recognize her. Emirates 24/7 reports that the man claimed he first thought she was a “thief who came to steal his apartment” and demanded $20,000 in damages for his psychological shock at seeing that his wife is actually a human being with a real face like everyone else.
If this were just an isolated incident, it’d be much easier to laugh off, but we’re all too familiar around here with the duality of expectations that society places on women. As this man clearly is only interested in his wife’s looks, so the rest of the world generally sends women the message that they’re only as good as how they measure up against arbitrary standards of beauty. Then, when they do something—like wearing makeup—to live up to what’s expected of them, they’re criticized for that, too.
This was illustrated painfully well in a recent video showing how social media users responded to pictures of the same woman with and without makeup:
As you can see, the Algerian groom is sadly not alone in the opinion that wearing makeup is somehow dishonest. How about this, guys: It’s not a woman’s fault that you don’t know what is and isn’t a realistic expectation for what a human face actually looks like despite the immense importance you tend to put on it.
(via Uproxx, image via Laura Tou)
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