That said, I do think there is a big difference, especially if by "makeup" you mean what everyone else means by "makeup". Men are not respected more if they wear eyeliner and blusher every day.
The kind of makeup that male actors on TV use isn't about wearing eyeliner.
There are women who use makeup to look artificial and there are women who go for a "natural look". I don't think that a women who goes for an artificial look will get more status in a Yoga class than a women who uses less makeup. The benefits of looking artificial for women depend on the social circle in which the woman moves.
While Angela Merkel does use makeup, she didn't get in a position of political power by being good looking. Using makeup to make her look very feminine wouldn't help her.
I do think that men would benefit from optimizing their personal appearance, eg by getting rid of acne, whitening teeth, dressing better, wearing heel lifts, etc.
A lot of men have acne because of hormonal issues. If I try to avoid to show emotions on my face, it gets tense. That reduces blood flow in my face. Less bloodflow means that it's more difficult for my immune system to clear my face of bacteria that cause acne.
I don't think it's an accident that you see acne more often in asocial nerds than you see it when you look bodybuilders. The difference also isn't that the bodybuilder went to more dermatologists.
Then again, you'll be more confident wearing a mask the more practice you have with it.
Your brain will always know that you are afraid to be open if you wear a mask for the sake of impressing other people. I don't have an issue with a woman putting on makeup because she enjoys putting on makeup and don't think that will reduce confidence.
Re Steve Jobs: Giving one outlier as a counterexample does not undermine the general principle.
I'm talking about making strategic choices. Steve Job is someone who went to Buddhist meditation retreats before he was famous. That distinguishes him. As a result he wasn't obsessed about optimizing his appearance on the makeup level.
It's not a choice that in the cards for someone who did that level of deep internal work, to put on makeup to impress other people. Yes, there are women who are on that level who put on makeup because they like the activity but it comes from a very different place than putting on makeup to make people like them.
If I try to avoid to show emotions on my face, it gets tense. That reduces blood flow in my face. Less bloodflow means that it's more difficult for my immune system to clear my face of bacteria that cause acne.
This is very interesting; is this a significant cause of acne, and if so how do you know? If this were true, we would expect that other things that decrease blood flow in the face (such as cold weather, maybe?) would also increase acne.
Here are other hypotheses on acne, not sure whether they're true:
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.