'If I had a daughter, I would teach her that a woman's duty is above all to be decorative,' another female Kazakh colleague told me very seriously. She was a highly intelligent professional woman who had brought up a child alone whilst working full time. She admitted that even on a recent ranch holiday, she had always applied her lipstick before going down to the stables.
I was definitely not decorative enough for Kazakh standards. Most young women were extremely good-looking already and also spent hours making themselves glamorous every morning. Like Ukraine and Russia, Kazakhstan is like a country sponsored by FHM: models everywhere. Profoundly disquieting for your average hearty Western girl.
'May we ask you a personal question, Gemma?' probed another colleague. 'We noticed that you do not wear make-up; is it because you have an allergy to cosmetics?' They were bemused when I said 'no'. Why would a woman not want to look as gorgeous as possible 24/7? Why would she wear glasses and flat shoes to work (they considered that trousers and flat shoes were just not 'prilichny' or 'decent' in an office environment. They all knew I was living with my boyfriend and not married (also not mainstream in Kazakhstan), and were gently trying to nudge me towards better personal grooming in the hope that he would do the decent thing and marry me (he did: was it those eight blonde streaks I had done in the summer of 2005 that led to his mountaintop proposal?)
So in Kazakhstan (as well as Russia), the predominant opinion amongst people I knew is that a woman makes herself attractive as a kind of duty of respect to others and to herself. In Soviet times it was also part of trying to add some glamour to the bleakness, and was a kind of valiant resistance against the feeling of being knackered out and dehumanised by daily life, when women queued for food around 7-8 hours per week. Cultured grannies sported perfectly whipped-up maroon beehives, nowadays toned down at Toni and Guy in Almaty or Astana.
Although grunge has been washed in to this region through MTV and the internet, it is too late for the over twenty fives who must stick to the beauty norms, with a Western size zero flavour: eating disorders have skyrocketed in the former Soviet Union since 1991.
None of this is true for men. A friend in Almaty was deeply disturbed by her teenage son's vanity and the way he cared for his appearance. Any trip in a shared 'marshrutka' or minibus taxi reveals a certain disregard for personal hygiene amongst the men, added to the usual post-Soviet infusion of tobacco, meat fat and last night's spirits. The harsh truth is that in Kazakhstan, if you wish to get a boyfriend with his facial features more or less in alignment, you have to look like Agyness Deyne, or better.
Cut to the Netherlands. Tall, statuesque women stride fearlessly about wearing leggings with baggy flowery dresses over them and long flat boots, their manes of wild hair in varying shades of blonde blowing haphazardly in the wind. Of course, the more soignee exist, but unlike the UK, not everyone has ironed hair and pastelly lipsticks (perhaps because they are incompatible with rain and gales), and there isn't the same trend as in the UK towards the Because I'm Inferior L'Oreal Zombie look that has taken over a lot of my home country.
A lot of Dutch women dress functionally, as if setting off on a Girl Guiding expedition, wearing sensible waterproof jackets over their black polyester work trousers. Do they get boyfriends? Yes. Does this make me feel more comfortable, as a person who a) believes women shouldn't have to be dressed as Carry On style dolly birds to be considered sexy and b) is basically unwilling to wear uncomfortable clothes and shoes unless for a special occasion. I don't know. Anyone want to borrow my straighteners?
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