Pink Collar Jobs
The Girlification of 🎀Moonlighting🎀
In today’s post:
QTNA Beauty & Pop Culture Questions
The Full Beat Pink Collar Jobs: The Girlification of Moonlighting
You know how I feel about celebrity beauty brands? I feel the same way about influencer brands. Unless they are breaking new ground frfr, I’m not interested.
Are people intentionally sweating on one another in the name of wellness? I thought this article was clickbait, until I read that some sauna enthusiasts sit back to back on purpose to “get closer.” While I get the appeal of bonding with others over a shared interest, sharing sweat is too close for me.
Was anyone besides Doechii even at Paris Fashion Week? The photos would have us believe not, because she ate every look and dominated every outlet. Doechii transformed into a different character, for every show and gave ethereal boho goddess one day, trap Grace Jones à la Nissan Altima the next, and vintage Hollywood glam in between. This piece offers a fun behind the scenes look at some of her beauty and styling choices.
Pink Collar Jobs: The Girlification of Moonlighting
Unlike many other TikTok trends, Pink Collar job posts are not explicitly about wearing the latest beauty or fashion item. In these posts, women take their followers along to their second jobs as pilates instructors, yoga teachers, lash technicians, and hairstylists. Many of these roles are wellness and beauty adjacent, have a creative element, and are mostly patronized by women.
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One set of pink collar workers are women who claim to have left their corporate positions because they were burnt out, overlooked, and generally unhappy in their environments. For these women, their full-time pink collar jobs offer them less stress and a creative outlet working primarily with other women.
The other category are women who already have full-time corporate roles, and do their pink collar work on the side. For example, the preceding video shows a lawyer who moonlights as a pilates instructor. Other videos include a data analyst, a pharmacist, and a receptionist clocking out of their day jobs, and into their second one.
In most instances, all of the creators are wearing pink and presenting a version of themselves that is beautiful and well. Wellness here refers to physical and mental wellness, which is unsurprising considering the international political climate. Recall my prediction about women’s wellness. I proposed “…women would be turning to indoor and enclosed wellness spaces, to insulate themselves from the horrors of our clown show government.”
Read more about how capitalism impacts women’s aesthetic choices.
What is easy to lose in the sea of smiling faces and taut pink bodysuits, is the reality many of these women are moonlighting. The precariousness of the U.S. economy is such that, while it may be enjoyable to have a second job working with women on their fitness, it may also be necessary for survival. According to this piece in Entrepreneur, “A record-high 8.9 million people in the U.S. reported working multiple jobs in February.” The article also notes that we haven’t seen numbers like this since our last great recession in 2009.
What these creators have done, for better or worse, is romanticize what may be a requirement for survival. They have had to supplement their full-time jobs, but chose to do so with other roles that allow them to be surrounded by other women. Because of this, they can forge connections over shared interests in beauty, pilates, dance, etc. If you must do something, you may as well do something you like with people you enjoy.🎀