Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [560]

It was not very skilfully done, but Winston’s standards in such matters were not high. He had never before seen or imagined a woman of the Party with cosmetics on her face. The improvement in her appearance was startling. With just a few dabs of colour in the right places she had become not only very much prettier, but, above all, far more feminine. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 560

Note

‘Far more feminine’ is the telling phrase — the Party’s androgynous uniform suppresses gender as a category of the self, and rouge reinstates an individuality that is also a gender identity. A few dabs of colour undo the state’s aesthetic conditioning.