[Music]
right here
top right corner it’s at comfortably sat
tall uninvited unwanted red and inflamed
at the age of seven I remember having
this godforsaken fringe that accentuated
the roundness of my already pretty round
and plump face and with that my cheeks
were sore from all the pinching that
took place a family family gatherings
this is a good time to mention that I’m
from Georgia a place where it’s very
likely for your third grade teacher who
happens to be your maternal second
cousin to also be your uncle’s wife
everyone’s pretty much related and if
not they live within a ten-block radius
so you can imagine the pain that that
fact alongside might my friend subjected
my chubby cheeks god I hated that French
but at the age of eight there was
nothing more I was grateful for it than
that French you see at eight mother
nature decided that my face was to host
a family of brutes one after the other
pimple after pimple non-stop dominating
every corner of my forehead I managed it
until one of those pimples decided to
migrate the tip of my nose during class
what’s taller than Everest the mountain
on Merriam’s nose a family gatherings
are you sure your daughter’s washing her
face properly I did believe me I tried
everything from baking soda to tumeric
the toothpaste you name it so this went
on until one day I decided that I had
enough I decided that it was a bad time
that I let the makeup artist do the
magic that they claimed they could and
that makeup artist salvaged my
self-confidence because in a few minutes
my life was transformed
there was one less person pulling me
aside to recommend the skincare line
there was one less whisper
our one less stare and that one less of
everything made the biggest difference
because that day I debuted my smile to
the world that was also the day that I
was told that I needed braces but that’s
another story for another day
so last year I had this mammoth
realization I fire alarm went off and I
ferociously refused to exit the safety
without my makeup on it hit me then that
ever since the first day I started
wearing makeup six years ago I have not
left the house without at the very least
a single layer foundation in fact up
until a year ago the only people who saw
my face in its raw form where my two
sisters one of which is very kind enough
to remind me of my unfortunate situation
and my mother my dermatologists himself
he accepted the fact that he was not
going to examine my face without that
one layer foundation but that one layer
foundation it finally caught me up with
girls my age was speak season four rang
the head job and covering your hair
thing is for the longest time I needed
that hair to cover the Horde of warlords
on my forehead but now I didn’t need
that I was finally in the loop but life
isn’t always rainbows and ponies and at
one point my bad days ruled out my good
days entirely my acne got so bad that I
couldn’t even cry about it because if I
did my face would burn from all the
tears I pushed through it though every
morning I’d walk to my dresser I’d grab
my makeup brushes than get in an arm
workout three layers of liquid
foundation three assorted concealers to
color correctors an extra coat of
powdered foundation
and an extra coat of translucent powder
to mattify my face because we wouldn’t
want to draw the wrong kind of focus to
my problematic skin that’s the routine
pretty much layer upon layer of makeup
to maintain that false image that I
projected to the world of who I was
physically I put in so much effort but
the outcome for me was worth it I mean
how could a 14 year old teenager
say no to fitting in with her other
porcelain skin friends let alone the
fact that this teenager is a part of a
society with cultural and religious
protocols that literally limit any
attention given to a female to only her
face thankfully after some time my skin
got better its recuperated not entirely
but considerably so the acne stopped but
the makeup did it how could it at that
point it was reflexive but interestingly
with time I found myself reaching out
for different tools based on my mood
that morning if I felt rather cheery I’d
go heavy-handed on the blusher if I had
too much cake mad before I’d spend a few
more minutes try to carve me out some
cheekbones or if I felt exotic and I
want to make the green and my eyes pop I
choose an eyeshadow color on the
opposite end of the color wheel which in
my case is this crimson red but the last
thing I want is for people to think that
I have an infection in my eye
so I’d go for the next best thing which
is this persimmony Orange and if I felt
rather fancy I did a few copper
undertones here and there you see it
became much more than I want to cover
this dit up in fact at some point I got
to I want to cover this one this one
this one but not these two because they
add some real elements and some Flair I
like to think that I mastered the art of
concealing years worth of scarring with
that one layer that I consider my face
and I like to think that I mastered it
so well that it is that it explains why
I receive those you don’t need makeup at
all comments but do I really not need
makeup at all because the other day I
was feeling feeling rather adventurous
and I decided to introduce one of my
close friends to this unmasked medium
and so I did and you know what they said
wow you’re really good at makeup
this is where most of you would be like
Miriam you chose us you forced yourself
onto this route true it may be that but
you can’t deny the fact that many women
myself included we fall into the
cyclical wormhole that is makeup we girl
went to it and it becomes a part of us
it shifts from being this need to being
a want but just when we’re comfortable
with it we’re told that we don’t need it
that we’re supposed to be liberated from
it so we take it off and we start
receiving less and less compliments so
we wear it again this time we tone it
down a notch or two because according to
the headlines we read almost 40 percent
of males think that women wear too much
were more pain so we cross our fingers
in the hopes of being that remaining 60
you see it all boils down to this
undeniable debate of whether or not a
woman should wear makeup and what it
means if one chooses to but Marian what
if you only think you like wearing
makeup and really it’s a part of some
deep-seated psychological need to fit in
with these patriarchal demands of
society aren’t you objectifying yourself
let me ask you this are you objectifying
yourself when you brush your hair every
morning so that it is not a hopelessly
tangled mess and you can go about your
day functioning as a normal human being
are you objectifying yourself when you
invest in a brand new pair of jeans
because it’s been almost a decade since
you’ve got your last pair does every
ounce of energy you put into your
appearance constitute objectifying
yourself we’re at a point where we’re so
fixated on being critics and
commentating on a woman’s decision to
wear makeup that she’s doing this to fit
in that she’s overdoing it or under
doing it and it’s a similar case with
the men who wear makeup yes men do do
that in fact in a survey of about a
thousand men only 26% of them did not
indulge in beauty products many of them
got their eyebrows threaded or waxed got
manicures done use tinted moisturizers
and
palms got facials done because because
there’s a simple fact that men’s skin is
far more oily than women so in fact it’s
been the men who have been needing the
help all along men from ancient Egypt to
18th century France they embraced those
beauty products because it was a sign of
nobility but something must have
happened along the way because now I
think if we were to find out that a male
in our society wore makeup I don’t think
we just questioned his decision to do so
I think we’d rather question his
sexuality I mean how dare he overstep
his gender bounds when the poor thing
just wanted to keep his lips moisturized
we make it our life’s purpose to make
sure that we never run out of things to
say and now we’re saying that makeup is
feminine we’re essentially this binary
society despite all of this massive
advancement we can only really deal with
zeros and ones if you’re a female and
you wear makeup and you’re a zero if
you’re a male and you don’t wear makeup
the neuro one maybe yes maybe I did
start wearing makeup because this
society gets thrown off if it can’t
categorize someone as being either
strictly male or strictly female but
we’re being ignorant because there’s
this huge gap that we’re not addressing
on what goes on behind the scenes
interestingly there’s this Arabic
proverb that reads he who can’t reach
the grapes calls them sour now could it
be the case of why we choose to sweep
things under the rug I mean how many
males have there to so much as use a
smidgen of their mother or sister or
partner’s makeup I’m assuming not many
my guess would be that within the first
five minutes you would scratch if not
blind one of your eyeballs or you’d be
hit with the sudden realization that
maybe you should incorporate cardio back
into your manly fitness routine at the
gym because you couldn’t keep up with
all the scaffolding and layering makeup
is tough it’s taxing and it’s arduous so
think again before you make another
comment
he who can’t reach the grapes calls them
sour and now to address this
heated question of am I really
advocating these patriarchal ideals and
betraying the decades worth the feminist
movements by choosing to wear makeup
which happens to make me look like a
by-product of some gender role I choose
to wear makeup because I know that from
the moment that I step into my first
engineering lecture of the day that I’d
revel in the fact that I will constantly
be proving my male counterparts wrong
I’d force them to go beyond the binary
spectrum of zeros and ones and have them
deal with threes and fours and 5 & 6
because I am female I am feminine I’m an
aspiring engineer I am strong and I wear
makeup in fact some days I wear so much
makeup that you could literally trace me
back to anywhere and for that I will not
apologize because I quite frankly like
having a cake face I am proud to have
appropriated this war paint to myself
and my needs but Mariam wait this isn’t
the real you you weren’t born into this
world with a bottle of foundation and a
tube of mascara firstly how does a gym
membership reveal a more authentic and
truer self than a Sephora’s rewards
program how does a beard which can be
argued to achieve the same outcome in
terms of covering one’s face be more
real than minerals that you could
literally just wash off at the end of
the night this is what we’re saying now
now we’re saying that if you’re a male
and you don’t wear makeup then you’re
real you’re honest but if you so much as
just wear just a tiny bit a tiny bit
that’s all it takes and that’s it for
you that’s your done it’s game over
secondly massaging my face every morning
with brush strokes doesn’t detract the
real me my face on its own it doesn’t
really say anything about me or Who I am
it’s pure probability and genetics now
makeup makeup gave me the power to
control the face that I had no control
over
or whatsoever at birth in a life that is
sometimes overwhelmingly filled with
things that I strictly have to do makeup
breaks that when putting on mascara no
two people will open their mouths exact
same way no two people put on blusher or
contour in the exact same areas it’s one
of the last relics of individuality and
for so many years I struggle to define
my relationship with it but now I take
pride knowing that I can be whoever I
want to be whenever whatever be gothic
emo preppy ill you name it I’m
practically your walking Photoshop I can
find two and retexturize draw 0 or 100%
attention to my face by manipulating the
way the light hits it I am my own
shape-shifter so you tell me am i
demeaning under estimating undermining
myself and my powers by choosing what
you get to see every day thank you
[Applause]
right here
top right corner it’s at comfortably sat
tall uninvited unwanted red and inflamed
at the age of seven I remember having
this godforsaken fringe that accentuated
the roundness of my already pretty round
and plump face and with that my cheeks
were sore from all the pinching that
took place a family family gatherings
this is a good time to mention that I’m
from Georgia a place where it’s very
likely for your third grade teacher who
happens to be your maternal second
cousin to also be your uncle’s wife
everyone’s pretty much related and if
not they live within a ten-block radius
so you can imagine the pain that that
fact alongside might my friend subjected
my chubby cheeks god I hated that French
but at the age of eight there was
nothing more I was grateful for it than
that French you see at eight mother
nature decided that my face was to host
a family of brutes one after the other
pimple after pimple non-stop dominating
every corner of my forehead I managed it
until one of those pimples decided to
migrate the tip of my nose during class
what’s taller than Everest the mountain
on Merriam’s nose a family gatherings
are you sure your daughter’s washing her
face properly I did believe me I tried
everything from baking soda to tumeric
the toothpaste you name it so this went
on until one day I decided that I had
enough I decided that it was a bad time
that I let the makeup artist do the
magic that they claimed they could and
that makeup artist salvaged my
self-confidence because in a few minutes
my life was transformed
there was one less person pulling me
aside to recommend the skincare line
there was one less whisper
our one less stare and that one less of
everything made the biggest difference
because that day I debuted my smile to
the world that was also the day that I
was told that I needed braces but that’s
another story for another day
so last year I had this mammoth
realization I fire alarm went off and I
ferociously refused to exit the safety
without my makeup on it hit me then that
ever since the first day I started
wearing makeup six years ago I have not
left the house without at the very least
a single layer foundation in fact up
until a year ago the only people who saw
my face in its raw form where my two
sisters one of which is very kind enough
to remind me of my unfortunate situation
and my mother my dermatologists himself
he accepted the fact that he was not
going to examine my face without that
one layer foundation but that one layer
foundation it finally caught me up with
girls my age was speak season four rang
the head job and covering your hair
thing is for the longest time I needed
that hair to cover the Horde of warlords
on my forehead but now I didn’t need
that I was finally in the loop but life
isn’t always rainbows and ponies and at
one point my bad days ruled out my good
days entirely my acne got so bad that I
couldn’t even cry about it because if I
did my face would burn from all the
tears I pushed through it though every
morning I’d walk to my dresser I’d grab
my makeup brushes than get in an arm
workout three layers of liquid
foundation three assorted concealers to
color correctors an extra coat of
powdered foundation
and an extra coat of translucent powder
to mattify my face because we wouldn’t
want to draw the wrong kind of focus to
my problematic skin that’s the routine
pretty much layer upon layer of makeup
to maintain that false image that I
projected to the world of who I was
physically I put in so much effort but
the outcome for me was worth it I mean
how could a 14 year old teenager
say no to fitting in with her other
porcelain skin friends let alone the
fact that this teenager is a part of a
society with cultural and religious
protocols that literally limit any
attention given to a female to only her
face thankfully after some time my skin
got better its recuperated not entirely
but considerably so the acne stopped but
the makeup did it how could it at that
point it was reflexive but interestingly
with time I found myself reaching out
for different tools based on my mood
that morning if I felt rather cheery I’d
go heavy-handed on the blusher if I had
too much cake mad before I’d spend a few
more minutes try to carve me out some
cheekbones or if I felt exotic and I
want to make the green and my eyes pop I
choose an eyeshadow color on the
opposite end of the color wheel which in
my case is this crimson red but the last
thing I want is for people to think that
I have an infection in my eye
so I’d go for the next best thing which
is this persimmony Orange and if I felt
rather fancy I did a few copper
undertones here and there you see it
became much more than I want to cover
this dit up in fact at some point I got
to I want to cover this one this one
this one but not these two because they
add some real elements and some Flair I
like to think that I mastered the art of
concealing years worth of scarring with
that one layer that I consider my face
and I like to think that I mastered it
so well that it is that it explains why
I receive those you don’t need makeup at
all comments but do I really not need
makeup at all because the other day I
was feeling feeling rather adventurous
and I decided to introduce one of my
close friends to this unmasked medium
and so I did and you know what they said
wow you’re really good at makeup
this is where most of you would be like
Miriam you chose us you forced yourself
onto this route true it may be that but
you can’t deny the fact that many women
myself included we fall into the
cyclical wormhole that is makeup we girl
went to it and it becomes a part of us
it shifts from being this need to being
a want but just when we’re comfortable
with it we’re told that we don’t need it
that we’re supposed to be liberated from
it so we take it off and we start
receiving less and less compliments so
we wear it again this time we tone it
down a notch or two because according to
the headlines we read almost 40 percent
of males think that women wear too much
were more pain so we cross our fingers
in the hopes of being that remaining 60
you see it all boils down to this
undeniable debate of whether or not a
woman should wear makeup and what it
means if one chooses to but Marian what
if you only think you like wearing
makeup and really it’s a part of some
deep-seated psychological need to fit in
with these patriarchal demands of
society aren’t you objectifying yourself
let me ask you this are you objectifying
yourself when you brush your hair every
morning so that it is not a hopelessly
tangled mess and you can go about your
day functioning as a normal human being
are you objectifying yourself when you
invest in a brand new pair of jeans
because it’s been almost a decade since
you’ve got your last pair does every
ounce of energy you put into your
appearance constitute objectifying
yourself we’re at a point where we’re so
fixated on being critics and
commentating on a woman’s decision to
wear makeup that she’s doing this to fit
in that she’s overdoing it or under
doing it and it’s a similar case with
the men who wear makeup yes men do do
that in fact in a survey of about a
thousand men only 26% of them did not
indulge in beauty products many of them
got their eyebrows threaded or waxed got
manicures done use tinted moisturizers
and
palms got facials done because because
there’s a simple fact that men’s skin is
far more oily than women so in fact it’s
been the men who have been needing the
help all along men from ancient Egypt to
18th century France they embraced those
beauty products because it was a sign of
nobility but something must have
happened along the way because now I
think if we were to find out that a male
in our society wore makeup I don’t think
we just questioned his decision to do so
I think we’d rather question his
sexuality I mean how dare he overstep
his gender bounds when the poor thing
just wanted to keep his lips moisturized
we make it our life’s purpose to make
sure that we never run out of things to
say and now we’re saying that makeup is
feminine we’re essentially this binary
society despite all of this massive
advancement we can only really deal with
zeros and ones if you’re a female and
you wear makeup and you’re a zero if
you’re a male and you don’t wear makeup
the neuro one maybe yes maybe I did
start wearing makeup because this
society gets thrown off if it can’t
categorize someone as being either
strictly male or strictly female but
we’re being ignorant because there’s
this huge gap that we’re not addressing
on what goes on behind the scenes
interestingly there’s this Arabic
proverb that reads he who can’t reach
the grapes calls them sour now could it
be the case of why we choose to sweep
things under the rug I mean how many
males have there to so much as use a
smidgen of their mother or sister or
partner’s makeup I’m assuming not many
my guess would be that within the first
five minutes you would scratch if not
blind one of your eyeballs or you’d be
hit with the sudden realization that
maybe you should incorporate cardio back
into your manly fitness routine at the
gym because you couldn’t keep up with
all the scaffolding and layering makeup
is tough it’s taxing and it’s arduous so
think again before you make another
comment
he who can’t reach the grapes calls them
sour and now to address this
heated question of am I really
advocating these patriarchal ideals and
betraying the decades worth the feminist
movements by choosing to wear makeup
which happens to make me look like a
by-product of some gender role I choose
to wear makeup because I know that from
the moment that I step into my first
engineering lecture of the day that I’d
revel in the fact that I will constantly
be proving my male counterparts wrong
I’d force them to go beyond the binary
spectrum of zeros and ones and have them
deal with threes and fours and 5 & 6
because I am female I am feminine I’m an
aspiring engineer I am strong and I wear
makeup in fact some days I wear so much
makeup that you could literally trace me
back to anywhere and for that I will not
apologize because I quite frankly like
having a cake face I am proud to have
appropriated this war paint to myself
and my needs but Mariam wait this isn’t
the real you you weren’t born into this
world with a bottle of foundation and a
tube of mascara firstly how does a gym
membership reveal a more authentic and
truer self than a Sephora’s rewards
program how does a beard which can be
argued to achieve the same outcome in
terms of covering one’s face be more
real than minerals that you could
literally just wash off at the end of
the night this is what we’re saying now
now we’re saying that if you’re a male
and you don’t wear makeup then you’re
real you’re honest but if you so much as
just wear just a tiny bit a tiny bit
that’s all it takes and that’s it for
you that’s your done it’s game over
secondly massaging my face every morning
with brush strokes doesn’t detract the
real me my face on its own it doesn’t
really say anything about me or Who I am
it’s pure probability and genetics now
makeup makeup gave me the power to
control the face that I had no control
over
or whatsoever at birth in a life that is
sometimes overwhelmingly filled with
things that I strictly have to do makeup
breaks that when putting on mascara no
two people will open their mouths exact
same way no two people put on blusher or
contour in the exact same areas it’s one
of the last relics of individuality and
for so many years I struggle to define
my relationship with it but now I take
pride knowing that I can be whoever I
want to be whenever whatever be gothic
emo preppy ill you name it I’m
practically your walking Photoshop I can
find two and retexturize draw 0 or 100%
attention to my face by manipulating the
way the light hits it I am my own
shape-shifter so you tell me am i
demeaning under estimating undermining
myself and my powers by choosing what
you get to see every day thank you
[Applause]
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