The book “Ein Hauch von Lippenstift für die Würde – Weiblichkeit in Zeiten grosser Not” by author Henriette Schroeder touches a subject few people dare to touch. The exact translation to English means “A touch of lipstick for dignity – femininity in times of great hardship”. It is a real pity the book has not been translated to other languages.
How to stay an individual, a female individual, when all things normal in peaceful times have been taken from you? This does not only mean war, also imprisonment under harsh conditions like in a concentration camp, a refugee camp, a Russian penal camp etc.
The normal answer by people is usually that the affected population tries to get enough to eat, access to bomb shelters, physical safety, heating, and maybe hangs on to books and music (and all other kinds of art). This is certainly true, all those points mentioned are important.
But there is more, maybe for men, certainly for women. Henriette Schroeder writes about the eternal attempt by most women to keep some beauty and individualism in their lives. To keep one’s head up through looking their best in tough times. To have an armour of make-up, scent, or only lipstick on them to not show their complete vulnerability.
There are examples of women in the book who used more lipstick in war than during peaceful times or wore uncomfortable high-heel shoes just to show the other side that they do not succumb.
The range of women interviewed by Henriette Schroeder range from those in war-torn societies like the Yugoslavia and Chechenia in the 1990s to those imprisoned by totalitarian systems of old and new. They all felt like being reduced to almost nothing, that the system wanted them to be a nobody, a number only. Strong women rebel when forced to conformity. Naturally there are also those who opt in totally or do not care about their individuality.
Democracy’s beauty is that you can care about your individuality. Strong people, in this case women, continue this even when the situation or surroundings are not favourable any more. They defend their old life, the life in peace to which they want to go back as soon as possible, using all the means possible.
The clear recommendation is to read this book, or similar ones, that certainly exist in other languages.
It is a topic not much in the open space, but from time to time one reads a sentence or a section and thinks ‘yes, that is completely right’. Strong women do not want to be beautiful for men, but for themselves. Because they have an identity and they have colours and dignity.
One of those sections is in international bestseller “Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow” by Danish author Peter Hoeg. The main character, Miss Smilla, prepares to do something illegal. She decides to dress as well as possible, not only because in general other people treat well dressed persons better than shabbily dressed ones, but mainly because she herself feels better and stronger, knowing she is beautiful.
The front cover of “Ein Hauch von Lippenstift für die Würde” shows the picture of then 18-year-old Kumrije in a Macedonian refugee camp, photographed by Daniel Biskup. The picture was made in 1999. Her classical face (highlighted by the colour on her lips) gives the situation of waiting helplessly for some news of her loved ones from the war area back some normality.
The observation that well-dressed and good-looking people are treated better has also found entry in popular psychology and is today sometimes looked at with disdain. We live in the age of a loud minority telling people that it is not important how one looks like and how one dresses, in times where compliments are seen as something bordering on intrusiveness and reducing a woman on her appearance.
Fortunately, some balance is now returning to the public debate. No sensible person wants the end 1990s, early 2000s back, when women in the work place were treated with a lot of chauvinism (not to speak of the decades before, where women were often confined to the housewife role).
The fear to be reduced to your looks only when somebody dares to make a compliment is clearly a problem of people who are living in free and peaceful countries with many chances. Maybe not with the same chances for everybody, but in an open society without danger for body or soul.
Looking at war-torn Ukraine today, we see women doing their jobs, even working in the military and endure terrible losses – mostly with well-manicured nails. Artfully painted fake nails seem to be today’s equivalent to lipstick in Henriette Schroeder’s book.
The book “Ein Hauch von Lippenstift für die Würde” might be not politically correct today in some people’s eyes. It is correct in showing how women defend their dignity and humanity, their need for beauty and colour under any circumstances and on a very personal level.
It is a book that gives hope and courage in times where war comes closer and wars become more frequent than in the years before. Never let yourself be reduced to what other people want you to be, always stay yourself. No matter what.
All rights to the books belong to:
Schroeder, Henriette: Ein Hauch von Lippenstift für die Würde – Weiblichkeit in Zeiten grosser Not, 2014, Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag GmbH, München, printed by GGP Media GmbH, Pössneck, Germany, ISBN: 978-3-938045-91-6
Hoeg, Peter: Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow, 1996, published by Vintage, ISBN: 978-1860461675