One of Ophelia Fang’s blogs is about the beauty market in China.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/fcophelia/2013/11/08/beauty-market-in-china/

I highly agree with her that women doesn’t care too much about beauty back during the Mao time. There are several reasons. Firstly, it was a hard time for China after having the World War II and the civil wars for about 12 years. People were poor and women had to farm at home. As a result, women were at the physiological and safety stages in the Maslow’s Hierarchy, and they would never think about dressing themselves or spending money to be prettier. Nowadays, people have come over the stages and now at the love, esteem, or self-actualization stages. Hence, people in China started to consider how to dress up, how to do make up, and how to be more beautiful.

Also, she commented that for women in western countries, being beautiful is usually a desire related to one’s emotion. Whereas in China usually pursue beauty to get a good job or the addition in salary. It makes sense to me. However, my reasoning might be different with hers. Compared with Chinese culture, western culture is more about individualism and Chinese culture is relatively more about collectivism. As a consequence, women in western countries tend to obey and listen to themselves more than Chinese women do, rather than considering the affects and consequences to other people. Nevertheless, China is a much more competitive country due to high population and few job opportunities, women must care more about how other people see and think about them. They never want to create a negative impression so that it influences their job opportunities. Therefore, Chinese women is more likely to stylish themselves based on whether the new style or look will get her a better job or an addition in salary.