Today in Makeup Shaming: Teachers Forcibly Removed Students’ Makeup
Wearing and removing makeup shouldn’t be humiliating. (Photo: Getty Images)
An investigation is underway at Cairns State High School in North Queensland, Australia after it was reported that a pair of teachers forcibly removed their female students’ makeup — with their fingernails. As reported by The Cairns Post, the Department of Education confirmed that the incident happened over a month ago and that the investigation is still happening. A group of Year 9 students were lined up in front of their classmates, and one-by-one the teachers scraped off their makeup — mascara and foundation — due to the violation of the uniform policy.
“Surely a more private setting would have been more appropriate, and I’m not sure the teachers have to be so ‘hands on’, touching the students’ faces like this,’’ one parent told The Cairns Post. A Department of Education spokesperson said that generally, students are offered facial wipes to use in the bathroom for makeup removal. The school’s Parents and Citizens’ Association president Joshua Trevino confirmed that the P&C supported the policy but it was up to the school to decide how to enforce it.
Lining up female students in front of their classmates — including male classmates — is public shaming, however, and at an adolescent age when young teenage girls are trying to fit into their own bodies, humiliating them for the sake of a uniform policy can be potentially traumatizing and sexist. Instead of quietly asking the girls to remove the makeup in the bathroom because it violates a school rule, the teachers used the group of girls for a public demonstration to humiliate and to turn makeup wearing into a source of shame. If there is a lesson to be learned here, maybe it is the teachers who should be learning it.
Related:
5 Things I Wish I’d Known About Beauty In High School
Mindy Kaling on Hating High School: ‘If You Weren’t Gorgeous — Just Funny — You Had No Value’