betty numbert 1

Bettymagazine

Interview with montreal’s

Fashion by THE MAUDE PROJECT for ladies on the move!

Health lookwhat a girl needs

in her body

Skirtboarders

First Issue$6

2008/2009

THe Rugged Riders and etnies get on board tour

Special

2 3Betty Magazine

Special first Edition

Contents

Phot

o by

: Hea

ther

Lam

b

Editor`s Note Page 5

Winnipeg`s Girl Sk8 ScenePage 8

thiking baby? think bodyPage 12

Rugged Riders tourpage 36

Montreal`s SkirtboardersPage 16

Fashion for the girl on the move4

Calgary’s See Jane SKateCompetition Page 14

Easy on the war paintPage 42

Publisher

Erin Chatelain

Art Director/Editor

Erin Chatelain

Advertising Executive

Glenn Owens

Photo Editor

Ryan Fennessy

Fashion Designer

Claire Friesen

Contributing Writers

Erin Chatelain

Linda Siemens

Renee Massicotte

Elysha Bastien

Vanessa Chatelain

Contributing

Photographers

Ryan Fennessy

Heather Lamb

Geoff Clifford

Julie Levesque

Mathilde Pigeon

Louise Henault-Ethier

Martin Gagnon

Erin Chatelain

Front Page photo: Julie Levesque

Skater: Matilde Pigeon/Boneless

Special thanks to Glenn, Cat and V for

pushing my wheels along

Betty Magazine is printed twice a year (for now)Writing & Photography submissions welcomeSend to [email protected] about subscriptions Send to [email protected]

Betty

Send us your photos and writing! We want to hear from you! What the skating like in your

town?

Betty Magazine strives to encourage girl skaters and provide a publication they

can call thier own

4 5Betty Magazine


5

Before I slammed into this hobby, I spent many nights watching boys skate. Wondering, why don’t I try that? I always wanted to, but there wasn`t any other girls skating. But, when I turned sixteen, I got my first skateboard for twenty bucks.Before I met the girls I skate with now, it was a lonely road to skate on. In the beginning, the extent of my skating was skating to work in a panic after my alarm ceased to go off. Besides that, I only skated on Saturdays at the girls session at Winnipeg’s indoor skate park. I bruised myself, turned ankles, chipped bones and banged my head, all in the name of skateboarding. I started understanding the drive, the aching anger and desire to hear that click and swoosh sound of landing a trick, and now I was skating with a group of girls! As I started to feel more and more comfortable on my deck, I started to skate everywhere. When the heckling began, my heart sunk. Any girl skater can relate to being yelled at by a group of guys in a car while you’re skating down the street. So, I started skating in packs more and more. Getting the girls together to

Living life as a girl skater

go hit a parkade or favorite spot became my highlights. Girls around me wouldn’t stop calling on me to hit the roads and I was loving it. Boredom from the long winter months drove us to sneak into parkades and skate dodging ice, until inevitably a security guard would hear our thunderous wheels echo. But that’s when being a girl skater started to show its rewards. We noticed that guy skaters would get kicked out of places for skating way faster than we did as girls. We even had a security guard tell us we could skate if we kept the noise down. No boy skater ever got that treatment. I started seeing other girls on skateboards that I didn`t know, and finding girl skate web sites all over. I started to feel the surge of girl skaters that was on the rise. I wanted to introduce myself every time I saw a girl with a deck under her arm. Deciding to put together this magazine was a huge project that almost killed me. But I kept meeting girls who wanted to help and I had no idea it would become what it did. It took a lot of bruises and couldn’t of been done without the help of the community. This magazine is for friends and girls with dreams, who need pushes and someone to call on them to keep at it. Let’s rock this world together! Hope you enjoy the mag,

No boy skater ever got that treatment

“”

t h r o u g h i t s g e n e r a t i o n s . S h e i s a d e d i c a t e d u n i f y i n g p e r s o n w h o d o e s n ` t h e s i t a t e t o j o i n t h e s ka t e b o a r d i n g s e s s i o n f o r a f e w b o n e l e s s ` w h e n t h e f i l m i n g d ay i s ove r.

ContributorsLinda Siemens-

writer

Vanessa Chatelain-writer

Elysha Bastien-

Claire Friesen-

Ryan Fennessy-photographer

At t h e s o u r c e o f t h e “ S k i r t b o a r d e r s ” p r o j e c t , M a t h i l d e i s t h e h e a r t o f t h e Q u e b e c f e m a l e s ka t e b o a r d i n g s c e n e s i n c e i t s f i r s t f a l t e r i n g s t e p s . A l way s a r m e d w i t h h e r c a m e r a , s h e d o c u m e n t s t h e e m e r g e n c e o f t h e m ove m e n t

...many many thanks

When she’s not reading or writing

down everything regarding health

and wellness, she’s riding horses,

being sexy and the envy of the town.

Currently in college, Vanessa is

seeking mind enrichments through

the gruelling, poverty-stricken

miserable days of school .

Elysha is 23 years old and is the co-founder

of Rugged Riders. She l ives in Montreal ,

Quebec where she manages the skateboard

division. She has been skateboarding for

over 6 years and has been organizing

Rugged Riders events for about 5 . Oh and

she forgot to mention she can sure rock a

skateboard!

At the moment she might be half way across the

world or teaching theatre in Northern Manitoba or

perhaps she’s playing guitar. You can’t always find

her, but that’s because she doesn’t always want to

be found. She designed the gorgeous clothes for the

Maude project fashion spread. Her style is flavored

with a splash of flirt. You wish you knew Claire, don’t

you?

Heather Lamb-photographer

Erin Chatelain Editor

Originally from Calgary, Heather is currently getting her BD degree in design at Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver. Her goal upon graduating is to establish her own design company.

Linda works at the local head shop and is on a venture towards the healthy path. She is a low riding biker with a strong sense of l iving l i fe to its fullest .

He came and started taking

pictures while we lounged

about in our bitchin’ civvies.

He seemed to know what he

was doing so we hired him

for the zine. Keep an eye out

for this boy’s work; he’s just

getting started.

Mathilde Pigeon-photographer

writer

designer

7


caroline farrellhuge ollie over double set

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TagrampS is a Winnipeg owned business. What are you waiting for?

THIS ramp COULD BE YOUrS

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Great food Awesome people The best ambiance in town Get involved, go to the Mondragon

8 9


Winnipeg`s Girl Skate Scene

10 11Betty Magazine


10 Betty Magazine Betty magazine

Sara Martin (top left), Nathalie Coulson (top right),Erin Chatelain (bottom left), Segourney (bottom right).Just to name a few.

Nugget`from Vancouverfive 0 grind

12 13Betty Magazine


Folic acid is important for living but especially important if you do indeed want your body to become pregnant soon. Neural Tube Defects (NTDs) can be avoided by adequate folic acid intake, from 400 to 600 mcg per day during pregnancy. Because NTDs usually develop before most womyn even realize they are pregnant, it makes sense that efforts to increase intake on a regular basis are very popular. It can be found in legumes and leafy green vegetables. All in all, this is but a few examples of the amount of information that exists about womyn and good nutritional health. I get asked a lot of questions about what’s best for people to eat and for the most part it’s hard to answer them, I could never know enough. But I can tell you that you probably already know what will keep you healthy because your body responds favorably to the things that are good for it, and you notice the benefits it brings.

R ecent ly I read an article about a current report published by the CDC in the United States that is attempting to teach all womyn in general, but especially young womyn to treat their bodies as potential baby homes at all times and to act accordingly with their lifestyle and nutrition choices. Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t expose yourself to workplace hazards, what else, don’t forget to take your folic acid supplements and make sure you maintain a “healthy” weight. I can think of a better reason to follow their guidelines, like the fact that it’s your body as long as you’re alive and the better you treat it, the better it treats you.

thinking baby?think body Linda Siemens

Nutritionally speaking here are a few more suggestions on why health is importance to womyn, in anticipation for a pregnancy or not. Calcium is not necessarily needed in greater quantities, but is considered very important because of our generally lower intake habit. 1000mg a day isn’t that hard to take in, with some good sources being almonds, figs, a fair amount of legumes, raw seaweed and of course fortified foods and dairy products. Everyone knows about iron and it can be a little more difficult for some to get the needed 18mg every day. If you’re not eating meat, then foods like legumes, quinoa, seeds and nuts are all good places to find it. Also try eating or drinking citrus with your iron to help increase the bioavailability.

Photos by Ryan Fennessy

14 15Betty Magazine


Photos Heather LambSee Jane Skate 2007

Calgary Alberta

Photos Heather Lamb

Photos from

It was an awesome experience to capture the only all girls skateboarding competition in Calgary ”

“

16 17Betty Magazine


o how long have you been skating?

mathilde: It’s been around 10 years. I started with my brother in my little town because there was nothing to do. So I bought a skateboard and would go with my brother and all his gang, who were mostly boys, after a while I started learning ollies.

Brigitte: It’s been more than 10 years now that I’ve been skating, on and off. I bought my first skateboard when I was 12 and I’d always skate to school. I stopped for a couple of years but I picked it up again with the girls from my area.

Louise: It’s been 15 years that I’ve been skating. I skated with some people who wouldn’t borrow me their skate so I said fuck off and I bought my first skateboard. I was 12 years old. So I started in my garage because I wasn’t able to do anything. I practiced really hard and at the end of a year I was doing kickflips.

annie, the youngest of the Skirts skates up with a hat pulled side ways and a bag of chips in her mouth.

So I ask her how long she`d been skating after getting the proper introductions.

annie: It’s been about five years that I’ve been skating. I just felt like

starting, I saw people skating and I wanted to try it, so I bought myself a skate. my favourite trick on a rail is a nollie front side feeble and my favourite street trick is a kick flip because it’s the most difficult to land. The hardest one to get is a hard flip.

mathilde: my favourite trick is kickflips but I only land them once every two million.

Louise: my favourite trick is ollie because you can just keep doing them bigger and bigger. Differently, with grabs.

mathilde: It’s the base of everything!

Louise: and the hardest trick, well, they`re all hard, but I think the hardest time is when you’re scared to do something and you can’t get the right mind frame to actually do it.

mathilde: It could be as stupid as, should I go down this hill or not.

Laughter breaks from all of them. I’m a tad behind since I’m used to the prairie’s flat lands. No hills to worry about there.

Brigitte: If the light is red you choose to not go.

They laugh again. The sound of skate wheels skidding on pavement is heard beneath us, in the pipe we sit on.

Annie Gugulia Back side boardslide

Picture by Martin G

agnonPicture by Louise H

enault Ethier

Before meeting them, I sat quiet in a montreal park listening for the sound of wheels on pavement, the scoop sound of an Ollie and perhaps some girls laughing. Just as I was

getting nervous that perhaps they wouldn’t show, the echoes came to me from across the park. It was the girls, the Skirtboarders, riding up to meet me. I knew it was them and yelled

out. after introducing myself, it didn’t take long before we were riding down the street, talking loud and buying beer. We were the only skater chicks for miles and we were now

united. We all took turns on montreal’s famous skate pipe, and then mathilde, Louise, Brigitte, Elysha and annie had time to sit with me and talk. Here’s what they said.

Montreal’s Skirtboarders

www.skirtboaRDERS.COM

s

18 19Betty Magazine


music, it makes me want to skate. I hear a beat or the radio and I just want to jump on my board. Sometimes though you know a good piano solo motivates me. But I like rock, heavy metal and jazz too.

mathilde: I like everything, well almost everything. I don’t like the punk rock. The sound doesn’t make me want to move. I never liked it. I just like to hear music that comes from other countries and other parts of the world. I love finding out stuff like; in South america there is a francophone community that exists with their own distinct music that is different from everyone else. and I think that I really tried to showcase that through the video we just put out.

Brigitte: Effectively

mathilde: all the music in our skate video is Quebecois. It’s really full of all sorts of music from here, there’s some in English, French, there’s smooth music and modern stuff.

Do you have any advice for other girl skaters?

Brigitte: Yeah watch out for cars in the streets, firstly. Secondly, ipods are not a good idea because you don’t hear the cars. Thirdly, don’t be shy because if skating tempts you, you already have enough potential.

annie: Don’t discourage yourself because you can’t do it the first try, you need to have perseverance. You can’t take it for granted, you have to push yourself.

Louise: Well I’m going to be the auntie here and say, wear a helmet. (laughs) You know I’m always the one wearing my helmet.

mathilde: Yeah, where is it now?

Louise: I forgot it. Laughing, some of us fall back into the grass. The sun is setting, the sound of steady wheels on pavement is constant.

Louise: No but really, it’s real nice to skate and look cool and everything but accidents are not foreseen, and it would be fun if people got to keep their heads. But really that was auntie advice, skate for the fun. For girls who are interested in starting they should realize that it develops so many things, your concentration, balance, the thighs, (she laughs as she grabs her strong leg). and getting into a gang helps with the spirit. meeting up with a group of girls is fun, like a fraternity. It’s definitely a sport for a young girl who wants to grow internally.

mathilde: I’m giving feminist advice. Well, I guess the best thing I can say is that if you’re a girl that is starting to skate, regroup yourself with

Louise HenaultFrontside 5-0 grind

Photo by Martin G

agnon

Montreal`s Hour Newspaper where the Skirtboarders made front page

really in the last 10 years, there hasn’t been a lot of problems. You know now people see that you skate because it’s fun not because of anything else. Before guys were really like skating is not for girls, it’s a boy thing. But not anymore.

mathilde: Yeah, I think that those that are minimally sexist of the fact that we are girls and we skate well, they should shut their mouths because we’d rather not hear them.

The girls are cheerful and egging on the boys around us as they skate. We are sitting on top of montreal’s famous skate pipe. It was built for the Expo 67 for athletes to walk through. a large cement tube, now covered in graffiti. a man on a bike shows up with some food and some beer. They explain to me it’s the delivery boy from the corner store just five minutes from here. You could actually call the store and they would deliver you beer, smokes and food. Only in montreal, I think to myself. my curiosity poking me, I ask what kind of music they listen to.

Brigitte: absolutely everything. at the moment I’m into Flagging molly, she’s a sexy rock genre with an accordion.

Louise: Yeah, I listen to everything too, I love

Brigitte: The trick I like to look at the most, my favourite trick is the stalefish (an ollie you grab through your legs) but I can`t pull it off. But the ollie is the most fun. The hardest is the face plant, I can’t catch it, but all of them are hard.Have you ever had any trouble being a girl skater?

mathilde: I have never had any trouble, on the contrary, in my case I was very welcomed by the boys. I started skating with boys that I’d known since I was five years old so there was never a conflict. They were my buddies that I skated with. The boys here, in montreal, are actually very welcoming. Often, they seem proud. They seem happy when we, a gang of girls, show up.

Louise: I also think the same thing. I’ll admit that the first few years weren’t easy.. Sometimes I’d go to a skatepark and try a trick and I’d lose my skate and someone would pitch my skate farther away from me.

and stupid things like at a competition some guy lost his shoe and I went up to give it back to him and he called me a bitch. and it’s already happened that I got a kick in the ass. Yeah, pretty bizarre stuff. These guys would always steal my skate but after that I met a bunch of good guys and they don’t let people mistreat me (giggles). But

Caroline Farrell50/50 grind

Montreal’s skate pipe

20 21Betty Magazine


other girls. It’s just so cool and fun. It’s like a sort of power that you can only get when you skate with a group of girls. Skating with boys is fun too but, I think when you skate with boys, without realizing it, you see them do something and think “Oh he’s a boy that’s why he can do that.” and you might think you can`t cause you’re a girl. It’s stupid like that but regrouping with girls pushes just pushes you so hard. I’m not the best one in the gang but they always push me to try and say “go ahead, be at ease you’ll get it”, and you know I can also push margot the best skater when she needs it.

Brigitte: Yeah, we know all our limits.

mathilde: We know each other and know our weakness and strengths so we can give each other advice.

Louise: Yeah and guys are like jump those fifteen stairs(laughs). Between us girls, we know our limit on how much advice to give or how much coaxing before it’s time to back off too.

How did Skirtboarders start?

Photo by Louise Henault Ethier

Photo by Martin G

agnon

Reneta RuizFrontside 50/50 grind

Some Skirts

Brigitte: It’s her fault (points at mathilde).

mathilde: Yeah, and these two girls (Louise, Brigitte) are my oldest skate friends. For real though, us three, I think we are the “original members”(laughing). But now were really a gang and it’s really big. We’ve been a girl skate gang for 8 or 9 years now but we didn’t have a name back then. It started just us three skating around and we`d see other girls on decks and invite them to skate and then more girls showed up and we’d make days to meet at the skate park and it evolved like that really. We just became more and more girls and then we started taking pictures and I started filming and then from there everything started spilling. We needed a web site, a name and I though Skirtboarders. It all sort of happened naturally. It’s an evolution.

are there certain things that piss you off?

mathilde: Yeah it’s usually, the people that are overrated about skating. You know they take it like a competitive sport and become too egotistical. Landing a trick and acting like he’s the best in the world. It’s rare but insulting when you see it.

Margaux Walker, Eloise Teoret, Anne-Sophie Julien, Annie Guglia

Margaux Walker50/50 grind Photos by Louise H

enault Ethier

21Betty Magazine


ElyshaJust being cool

Photo by Erin Chatelain

mathilde, annie, Louise, Brigitte & Cat on the left corner

Elyshago visit the Skirtboarders web site at www.skirtboarders.com and purchase their skate video. They rock it.

Brigitte: For me, what’s shitty in montreal is the absence of nice skate parks. You know, I’m a park skater, I grew up skating ramp and I travelled to places that have bowls. and then you come back to montreal and there’s always the same f%&ing skate parks. They are not fluid. In montreal it’s all street. But I love to carve in bowls like in East Hastings in Vancouver, it’s so pleasant. I get the feeling that I’d skate more if there was better skate parks. I love rolling and carving fast, and working out my butt.

We’re lucky here in montreal cause we can go down hills. But bowls are more smooth. It’s also better for the knees. and it sucks in the winter at the indoor parks which are loud and dusty, and whenever a new indoor skate park opens it closes right away. So here we are a little limited when it comes to skating.

Do you finding any obstacles being a girl skater?

annie: I guess we might have less guts because we have less role models. You know guys have had role models for 50 years and we’ve had some for less than 10 years, so we’ll see in fifty years.

annie tells us she went to a skate competition that day just for fun.

annie: I recently hurt myself so I wasn’t trying super hard. The mini ramp was flat, but I won first place.

With humility and poise, theses girls are slowly making their way to the top of the girl skateboard scene. With the recent rugged riders tour, the release of the Skirtboarders video and the expansion of their network, when it comes to girls skateboarding, these girls are role models. Erin Chatelain

Julie LevesqueBoardslide

Caroline Farrell50/50 grind

Photo by Louise Henault Ethier

24 25Betty Magazine


Clothes hand-made by Claire FriesenScreen printing by Suzie Smith

L-RBlue cut & paste tank, Pleated face skirt1980s party dressBrown prom dressMetallica cut & paste shirt, Pink 1980s party skirt

For girls with places to go, things to ride, curbs to hop and heads to turn

Maude Clothing has what you need

Photos by Ryan Fennessy

When everyone else is sweating from the sun, be your own kind of hot with Maude`s summer line Brown Prom dress;Blue cut & paste shirt;Pleated face skirt .

Below Maude one of a kind Cowboy Dress;

Left model: Black cut & paste shirtPleated 1980s party skirtRight model: Black crumple tankYellow Basket ball skirt

You can land anything, anytime. Today`s for hanging at the park.Blue time skirtBlue This-way tankRight: 1980s Party dress Jewlery; Ragpickers

You already stick out at a skate park

Do it on yourown terms

The view is nice on top.Left model: Blue &white, cut & paste shirtPolka Dot pencil skirtRight model: Rabbit halterJeans, jewlery, shoes-model’s own

Your own terms

They had been looking for something to do all day.

It was too hot to skate and climbing a building

seemed like the next best thing.

Left Model: Grey cut & paste skate shirtRight model: Blue cut & aste Wolf dress

Tamarah Drybroughtfeeble

36 37Betty Magazine


spread over a smooth old concrete foundation.

ur next trip was Ottawa for the 5th annual

Chicks Flip Out contest organized by Rugged Riders

and presented by etnies girl and Top of the World

skateshop. We began the day with an etnies girl Get

on Board clinic where we taught 4 young girls to

skateboard. Once the contest got underway everyone

was shook up by the level of skating. This year there

were girls coming from Vancouver, Montreal, as far

as Belgium to battle it out for the 1000$ cash prize.

Tamara Drybrough from Vancouver won 1st place

prize with her solid runs and amazing backside flips

over the pyramid. Anne-Sophie Julien (2nd), Allison

“Nugget” Matasi (3rd) and Caroline Farrell (4th).

Sophie Poppe won Best Trick with a nollie fs lipslide.

Next stop on the tour was Montreal, which was very

laid back. Mostly skating a few street spots and

Elysha holding a Get On Board Clinic; 2007 Rugged Riders Tour

photo: Geoff C

lifford

O

ast August marked the first edition of the

Rugged N Raw Tour presented by etnies girl and

Rugged Riders.

Five girls with their skateboards hit the road with

a photographer, and a filmer, stopping at five East

coast destinations stretching over 1 month, doing

4 demos, 3 etnies girls Get on Board clinics, and 1

Chicks Flip Out contest. We were, Eloise Theoret,

Annie Guglia, Aimee Garrett and Caroline Farrell as

well as myself, Elysha Bastien, Team manager.

Our tour all started with a weekend trip to Toronto,

where we skated and stayed at the Adrift skate-shop.

At the back of the shop was a small skate-park with a

box, 1\4 pipe and a wall-ride. The girls skated non-stop

till about 4am before passing out on mats and cushions

sprawled out across the park. The next morning we

were up and skating the storefront obstacles for a demo

during the no car Sunday festival.

We left the shop early afternoon in search of street spots

to get some photos and some footage. After getting

kicked out of every spot we found this wicked junk

yard spot where benches, pole jams, gaps and jumps

Clementine Bonenfant, 2007 Chicks Flip Out contest Ottawa 2007 Lagacy Skatepark

photo: Geoff C

lifford

L

official tour video, more photos and team profiles at RuggedRiders.com and stay tuned for info on next summer’s

tour. Thanks to all our sponsors; etnies girl, Adrift skateshop, Top of the World, Axis boardshop, Pro Girls shop, Flip

skateboards, WRG mag, and Expose magazine.

Elysha Bastien

Co-founder of Rugged Riders, and Skateboard Division Team Manager/ Events Coordinator.

The Rugged

Team siging

posters at

Halifax’s

ProGirl Skate

Shop

38 39Betty Magazine


BBQs at the infamous Big O. Annie killed it that

day with a fs rock.

By the end of August we all squeezed into two

cars and headed east to Halifax. Our first east

coast tour stop was Moncton. Aimee did a sick

kickflip fakie on a steep and very narrow bank

and Eloise got an insanely huge 10-stair ollie at

a church. The rain was bad so we went to the

Riverview indoor skatepark where we ended

up meeting a crew of young girls waiting

impatiently for our arrival. We held our second

etnies girl Get on Board clinic with amazing

little skaters pumped to learn. Then, back on

the road to Halifax.

This was the most exciting stop of the tour

thanks to the girls at Pro Girl shop. There were

tons of spectators and lots of girls with their

skateboards in hand ready to learn. The demo

was followed by the last clinic where there

were 24 girls riding! We went from the park to

the Pro-Girl shop for some poster signing and

then rushed to find some street spots to skate

before the sun went down.

So while the tour was meant to be a sort of

gypsy style adventure with our tents and

campfires we only ended up camping out once,

in Lawrencetown, Halifax. This turned out to

be a hilarious night and I won’t say too much.

verall, the Rugged n Raw tour was an

outstanding success, the team ripped up

eastern Canada with their style and big bag

of tricks impressing everyone. Check out the

A young Betty, Samarah and below she’s doing a rock to fakie

O

Caroline Farrellback side boardslide

42 43Betty Magazine


ake-up can be a form

of self-expression, but how far

is too far, and do young girls

have the capacity and maturity

to know when to draw the

line? The perception of beauty

is falsified by all this masking

of who we really are, how

we really look. The make-up

industry implies we cover-up

our true self and encourages

unrealistic expectations of

looking like models on the covers

of magazines. This natural

versus fake has a huge impact

on growing girls who struggle

with accepting who we really are.

A warped view of appearance

is common for teenagers, and

applying pounds of make-

up makes the equation more

complicated. Peeling the layers

is an overwhelming and daunting

task, even for the most industrial

make-up removers, but can we

look inward beyond layers and

layers of putty and powder? How

can we improve ourselves when

were simply concerned with

which make-up company makes

the best mascara?

The implications of

make-up on our personal

growth and the development

of healthy positive ideals are

apparent. Since the beginning

of time women have been

hiding and changing who

they are to impress others

and to be accepted into the

proper group. But now is

the time for a positive image

change! With magazines and

shows vigilant about looks,

which lipstick to wear or

what foundation will make us

stand out in the crowd, focus

on our achievements and

encouragement for our goals

is limited. How can women see

clearly with all that make up

in their eyes? Heath concerns

aside, make up wearers should

question which face to put

forward. The spotlight on make

up is just burning us out. The

focus should be on building

character, recognizing our

achievements and realizing

our goals. It is time to take off

the war paint, stop going into

battle and be proud of who we

are as individuals.

Vanesssa Chatelain

he

spotlight on

make-up

is just

burning

us out

T

m

ake-up has been manipulating women since the beginning of history. Roman playwright Plautus

(254-184 BC) wrote, “A woman without paint is like food without salt”. Although he might have preferred

this look, it was not always in the best interest of the woman involved. Prostitutes commonly wore make-up

to entice their customers and the elite desired pale complexions to prove they were not working class, which

led to countless risks. Greco-Roman women wore lead and chalk on their faces. European women often took

to bleeding themselves for a paler complexion and a woman by the name of Agua Toffana invented a powder

named Signora Toffana during the Italian Renaissance made of arsenic. She was later executed after some

600 husbands died from approaching their wives who wore it. From lemon juice in the eyes to pinching

cheeks, women took some drastic measures to fit into a specific social group and cope with the rising social

pressures. These pressures are still on the surface today.

ake-up today is highly

influential on young girls.

The younger generations are

faced with identity issues as

so much focus is on beauty

products and its no wonder

many young women have a

hard time developing their

individuality. More concerned

with fitting into a standard,

women hide behind thick

veils of make-up, not focusing

on developing a sense of self.

Make-up may have enhanced

its formulas and have

improved its ingredients over

the years, but a recent report

found women who wore make

up every day absorb almost

5 pounds of chemicals into

their bodies each year. The

affects of masking ourselves

are skin deep, untold

and damaging to our self-

evolution.

m E War paintasy on the

m

Backside HeelflipCaroline Farrell/skirtboarders

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