THE DEVALUATION OF FEMALE DIGITAL AESTHETIC ENTREPRENEURS (MAKEUP ARTISTS) OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

Aesthetic entrepreneurship involves the aesthetic labor of doing as well as teaching makeup and makeup tutorials on digital spaces and real life, contributing towards a large part of business for media companies (Banet, 2017), providing growth opportunities and successful ventures (Duffy, 2015) ultimately leading towards national economic growth and progress (Nawaz, 2018). This line of work, unfortunately, is not recognized as actual ‘work’ and is therefore devalued in the entrepreneurial context (Duffy, 2015; McRobbie, 2018). In this proposal a framework is proposed trying to explain how and what leads towards this general disvalue, experienced by females in particular. The stigma theory given by Goffman (1963), involves the co-occurrence of labeling, stereotyping, status loss and discrimination of the ‘stigmatized individual’, leading them to be excluded and devalued in a particular social context. Occupational Gender Segregation is the concept of considering female and female-dominant work being worthy of less recognition, value and pay compared to male and male-dominant (Grimshaw & Rubery, 2007). Both these constructs together lead towards the development and widespread of the Devaluation Theory (England, 1992), which stands on the concept of devaluing women labor and any line of work which is typically done by women, effecting women and men both, as long as the occupation is typically ‘feminine’ (Tam, 1997). This Devaluation Theory when enters the Entrepreneurial context, leads towards the stigmatization and general devalue of Digital Aesthetic Entrepreneurs (Makeup Artists) in the industry. A qualitative research has been carried out, through semi-structured interviews of female Digital Aesthetic Entrepreneurs (Makeup Artists) of Pakistan, trying to find out their experiences working in this field, whether they feel a stigma and devalue towards them and their profession, why they think this devaluation occurs and how they manage it in their daily lives. The study shed light on a variety of experiences from both digital and non-digital female Makeup Artists of Pakistan, indicating that them and their line of work is actually devalued, and further points towards various reasons behind why this phenomenon takes place, as well as how they manage it.