As a school girl, Lupita Nyong’o started a petition for her peers

Actor Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave (2013) and starred in this year’s superhero smash hit Black Panther, had once demanded that girls in her school be allowed to wear make-up. She even started a petition for it.

Nyong’o, 35, attended a former all-boys high school, which allowed female students in the last two years. She was shocked to discover that the school had an “archaic” rule that stated girls weren’t allowed to wear make-up to class. The actor told InStyle magazine that she was “angry” when she found out about this rule.

She wanted to make sure that her school peers had the freedom of choice to wear make-up if they wanted to. “I went to an all-boys school for high school, and they had girls in the last two classes. This is a school with 700 boys and a handful of girls. At one point, there was an archaic rule that said that girls could not wear make-up to school. I was angry that the powers that be were trying to basically oppress and control the small female population,” she told the magazine. The actor said that it infuriated her to the point that she started a petition.

“I said to myself, ‘Look, if a woman wants to wear makeup to school to feel confident in an environment where she’s a minority, why not? It does not actually change whether or not she’s able to take in the information being given to her in the classroom.’ I personally had no interest in wearing make-up, but I just did not think it was right,” she said.

Nyong’o is still not obsessed with wearing make-up, but uses it for fun.