by Onleilove Alston

Naomi Wolf author of The Beauty Myth discusses how images fueled by consumerism are used against women.  Wolf points out that the beauty myth becomes harsher  after times of political gain for women, thus distracting us from the cause of equality. As  Ecclesiastes 1:9 states “their is nothing new under the sun” because in the Song of Songs (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) we can hear the protest of a woman who does not fit into her society’s beauty myth:

“I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon. “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me.My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.”

The unnamed love interest in this Biblical text does not fold under the beauty myth but stands up to it, affirming not only her beauty but her humanity. Colorism is one form of the beauty myth that is a common reality for women around the world; Dalits in India, the color caste system in African-American rap videos, and African women using deadly skin bleaching creams are just a few examples of this social ill.

This video was created by Kari Morris and Onleilove Alston based on scriptures from Song of Songs 1:5-6; 5:7; 8:6b and Music “‘Til We Reach That Day” taken from the Original Cast Album of RAGTIME.  In this video Kari and I wanted to feature women who may stand outside of the beauty myth yet convey a beauty that surpasses society’s norms, we also wanted to show the beauty of women doing justice because “charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). One way we can fear or reverence God is by being agents of justice in the world, which highlights a true beauty which is not temporal but eternal in value.

As we seek to be women of faith and justice how can we debunk the beauty myth in our own lives and communities? How can men be allies in this effort?

Kari Morris a graduate of  The Actors Studio and Union Theological Seminary is an  actor, writer,singer and executive producer of the film “Two”.

Onleilove Alston is a student at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University School of Social Work. She organizes with NY Faith & Justice and the Poverty Initiative. During the summer of 2008 she served at Sojourners as a Beatitudes Society Fellow. You can visit her blog- Esther’s Call

(Originally titled “I think you owe me a great big apology” – a quote from the NIN song “Terrible Lie”. He has sort of apologized for the “plump” remark, to be fair.)

So, Trent Reznor has decided to hang up his twitter hat. That’s nice. Not something I’d even really notice, since I’ve not been a big Nine Inch Nails fan for 15 years or so, if not for the acquaintance who pointed out this charming paragraph:

Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don’t know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I’ve ever come across. It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn’t stop there – hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

Ugly on the inside, indeed. Now, I know next to nothing about Metal Sludge and the Wiki is less than helpful. Nor do I really care. And maybe the majority of the people posting behind that fabulous page requiring an affirmation of the First Amendment are truly abhorrent, unpleasant people who no one really would want to wile away an hour or three with. I have not a clue (if they are truly obsessed with any band or celebrity to the point of sending death threats and hate mail and blatant racism, then, really, I wouldn’t want to invite them to a party).

But, if that’s the case, then why, pray tell, is is necessary to comment on their physical appearance? Why the fat-hating nastiness about the inherent unattractiveness of “plump” women. If they are truly such abhorrent specimens of humanity, it shouldn’t matter whether they are supermodels or, well, not supermodels. Making nasty claims about people’s appearance and supposed lack of sex life is pretty damn ugly too. I don’t care who you are.

EDITED TO ADD:
Apparently Reznor did clarify his remarks here:

Just glanced at this stuff. May I clarify:
I have no issue with PLUMP people and I apologize if some of you incorrectly inferred I was equating being overweight to being unworthy. I used that term for two reasons: one – these cunts on MS portray themselves as in a very inaccurate way, because they can. It’s their one place they can wield a little power and escape their pathetic lives. Two – I knew it would hurt them and it most definitely has.
Place my comments in context. If you haven’t seen the type of comments we’ve been getting and the sheer level of ignorance, you have no reference in which to comment on this.

I know MOST of you are not a part of this and I didn’t mean to offend you – this situation has angered and saddened me.

And THAT is it from me on this topic. 

So, these folks actively misrepresent themselves (something which is clearly extremely rare on these here internets). I do not begrudge Reznor his anger. I do not begrudge him the loathing he has for people who send racist tirades about his fiancee or who send death threats or who are by all evidence rude, unpleasant, horrible people.

 I do, however, hold him to the same standard I would hold anyone – that mocking of appearance and sexual attractiveness, while easy and appealing – is still problematic, no matter how abhorrent the subject of the mockery.

A Guardian article on the editor of Cosmopolitan. Peronsally I find it hard to understand how you peddle such narrow images of women and believe you are helping the cause….but none the less….

Oh, negative body image, my old and pesky friend. Most women get acquainted with it before adulthood. I think I first met mine at puberty, like many women before me. Since Naomi Wolf launched the third-wave feminist movement with The Beauty Myth, female negative body image has been blasted as a major cause of low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and a host of other zero-fun maladies that plague women.

Now we can add bad sex to that list, and it has to do with how we view our genitals. Genital self-image is, believe it or not, kind of a big deal. A 2005 study, sponsored by Summer’s Eve, involving 2,206 women showed that the cuter you think your thang is, the better sex you have.

The study reports, “Women who scored highest on the Genital Self-Image Scale reported greater levels of sexual function in all areas, had more sexual energy, and had an easier time achieving orgasm.” Hey-o!

Learning to love what we see in the mirror. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, painting by Giovanni Bellini)

An even earlier study on Canadian post-secondary students, both boys and girls, reported similar findings. I found this tidbit interesting: “Item analysis suggested that, for men, the locus of genital dissatisfaction was penis size whereas for women, the loci were genital odour and pubic hair (amount and texture).”

It’s sad to admit that even though our genitals are one of the most essential parts of our body—they’re what ensure survival of the human species—we spend so little time loving them, treating them well, spending quality time with them. When was the last time we took a good look at ourselves “down there” in the mirror? Or worse yet, how many times have I heard women say that they think their genitals are ugly? Ladies, it’s time we learned to love what we’ve got going on down there. We can all enjoy our sex lives more, solo or otherwise, if we dote on our vaginas!

This is what one sex therapist in Philadelphia says on the matter:

“Get in the habit of loving yourself, emotionally and physically. Does this mean you need to increase your masturbation habits? Not necessarily, but it does mean you need to appreciate yourself more. Increasing your sexual self-esteem means feeling good in your skin, in and out of your clothes, appreciating your perfection and imperfection, knowing that all of this makes you need a unique sexual creation. One way to assist with accomplishing this is to take some time looking at your body in a mirror and identifying the parts of your body you appreciate and enjoy.”

Our genitals are our friends. Stop hating on them, start loving them, and have more orgasms. The world would be a better place.

- Nina Wegner

Interesting article from a former burlesque dancer about how it is nothing more than stripping….

Do you agree? I am inclined to. The performances i have seen previous have only made me slightly uncomfortable watching the men around me oogling…it didn’t feel liberating in the slightest.

These words are too often uttered by women. I think every woman I know has said something along these lines at least once.
As much as it an ‘old hat’ issue; whenever I hear someone say these things it makes me sad. Why do we hate ourselves so much? Is it a reflection of a misogynist society; does our society hate women so much it’s teaching us to hate ourselves?
I am reminded of the feminist classic ‘ Our bodies Ourselves’ and I feel that while we hate our bodies so much they cannot truly be ours; in addition to the constant public dissection of female bodies. We are trapped in a state of dissociation from our bodies.  We are just not at home in our bodies, we are not ourselves in our body. We are taught to hate them, to not be too familiar with them, to keep them in a way benefiting others with little thought for our own comfort.
I hate the way I hear every female I know express scorn and distaste for her own body. It makes me angry, it makes me deeply sad. These are our bodies, they carry us through life they are amazing wonderful things; why do we hate them so much? Why do we cover up our ‘problem’ areas with shame? Why do we cut ourselves open and insert bits of plastic? Inject toxic chemicals into our faces? Why do we never ever feel we are good enough as we are?
I hardly ever read women’s magazine, and flicking through a few the other day I realised why I stopped. This is only one small sample of a larger culture that seeks to shame women and our bodies. Every other page was dissecting a celebrity’s body, what they wore, how much they weighed, circles around bad skin, sweat patches, a stray hair. It is no coincidence that the majority of celebrities subjected to such treatment are women.
Even the ’serious’ media is guilty.  For example of all the articles on Michelle Obama I can recall many more focusing on her body and her wardrobe than those which highlight her considerable career achievements and intelligence. Female leaders are subject to scrutiny of their looks and ‘image’ far more than their male counterparts; they cannot win. If they show cleavage or legs they are ‘inappropriate’ yet if they cover up they are frumpy and ‘not making the most of themselves’.
It is a hideous double standard that shows how women are still regarded as having a purpose to look good to please men. How our bodies are never our own but held up for public scrutiny, especially if we dare deviate from the norm by being too thin, too fat, too short , too tall, too pale, too dark, too ugly, too pretty, too available, too un-avilable.
You can dismiss these pressure as just ‘in the media’ but when it saturates so deeply and is indeed borne out of attitudes already present in society; offering us a hideous magnified view of our own views and prejudices. I don’t read women’s magazines, I know this is all bollocks and I try my hardest to not let it get to me; yet sometimes it does. I wish I didn’t get a self esteem boost from someone saying how pretty I look, or asking me if I’ve lost weight. But I do. I wish I could be happy in my body all the time. I wish I didn’t look in a mirror and feel a sense of hatred and disappointment that I do not match some mythical ideal unobtainable without photoshop.

I wish I was at home in my skin instead of wondering if it’s too flabby, too pale, too spotty. Wondering if I need to slather it with make-up, fake tan and hoist it in with underwear that would do Isambard Kingdom Brunel proud before I am deemed ‘acceptable’ and presentable to the world.
I wish my body was myself. I wish my body was mine and I did not feel I was in front of judge, jury and executioner every time I walk out my front door.
I hate these pressures put upon me by society yet as I am part of society I feel unable to escape them. It’s no use telling us to just ignore all this stuff, that it doesn’t matter and to call us ’silly’ for ‘obsessing’ about weight and body issues.  We have it constantly thrown in our faces that we are defective, that we are in need of a magic potion and a nip and tuck; and all those attacks hurt. They damage our self esteem, they damage our mental health, they damage our physical health and it is not a trivial issue.

I have to admit that when Dove first began its “Campaign for Real Beauty” a few years ago, I was pretty skeptical – especially because the campaign came just before Dove launched a new line of beauty products for women. Were they really trying to educate women about the beauty myth, or trying merely to sell products which perpetuate the unrealistic expectations faced by young women?

Originally I suspected it to be a marketing ploy, but in reality it may have been a smart PR move for the company, one which I personally support. As part of their Campaign for Real Beauty, they established the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. According to the Web site:

“The Dove Self-Esteem Fund (DSEF) was established as an agent of change to inspire and educate girls and young women about a wider definition of beauty. The DSEF is committed to help girls build positive self-esteem and a healthy body image, with a goal of reaching 5 million girls globally by 2010. The DSEF has already reached 2 million young women. Our definition of ‘reaching’ a girls is when she has gone through an educational program that lasts at least an hour of her life.”

I think educating young women about healthy body image and positive self-esteem is very important in today’s image-and-celebrity-obsessed society. As anyone who has read Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth knows, women’s beauty expectations have served to negatively impact women in almost all aspects of life. To anyone who hasn’t read it, get your copy now.

creepy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/30/beauty-pageant-women

Increasing pressure to look good….on men?

Thinner, smoother, lighter…

According to Naomi Wolfe, one of the main issues is this:

If the public woman is stigmatized [sic] as too “pretty,” she’s a threat, a rival – or simply not serious; if derided as too “ugly,” one risks tarring oneself with the same brush by identifying with her agenda.

Sadly, I think this is probably true; but there’s another side to it, that is the deeply engrained belief in both men and women (in my opinion) that men are better leaders. I would never say this, and I hate to think that I believe it, but when it comes to political posters, pre-election, I find myself looking at the women’s posters and criticising their hairdos; I think their smiles are false, their foundation blotchy; I might resent their success or envy them their intelligence and, inevitably, I, personally, am more likely to vote male.

But what’s the solution? Positive discrimination? I’m fundamentally against it. As Wolf herself put it: “It is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see.”

I’ve heard people say that the flood of women getting cosmetic surgery is not a big deal, that cosmetic surgery is just another way of caring for one’s physical appearance.  It’s no different from going to the gym to tone up, they say.  So what if the women take a few shortcuts using modern technology?  After all, gym rats spend huge amounts of time, effort, money and even pain on their goals.  What’s the difference?

The way I see it, the difference is int he road traveled to get there.  People building their physiques in the gym often work as hard as athletes.  They have to work past the torture of lactic acid, muscle soreness, and forced reps and supersets; they have to deal with the dieting, the repeated sessions, the bad days where one has to drag oneself to the gym, the hours of cardio.

Physical training builds much more than just your physique.  Adherence to that lifestyle requires dedication, discipline, and ambition.  You can’t get anything out of bodybuilding that you don’t put into it.  The harder you work, the more goals you achieve.  This builds self confidence in one’s abilities.  You can’t cheat or take shortcuts – no matter which pills you take, you won’t defeat the laws of physics (calories expended vs. calories consumed).  Genetically gifted people may have a leg up on you, but it doesn’t matter because you’re only in competition with yourself.  You learn to not only value yourself, but to value the effort you’re capable of exerting to get something you want.  You become healthier; you decrease your risk of illness; you’re more competent at defending yourself; you have more energy, less stress, and more confidence.  The benefits of dedication to fitness touch every aspect of your life; your physical appearance is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.

There’s the difference between a physique built by the gym and a physique built by saline and vacuum tubes.  The former requires a solid backbone in discipline; the latter requires a checkbook.  The former demands a path that leads to personal responsibility in all aspects of one’s life; the latter has no path.  The former requires clean living, good diet, and a sterling work ethic; the latter ignores health altogether.  The former allows the creation of one’s personal beauty; the latter presents beauty chosen by someone else.

In 1990, Tatiana Mamanova, a Soviet feminist, responding to a question about the difference between the West and Russia, replied:

“The pornography. . . it’s everywhere, even on billboards. . . [it] is a different kind of assault. And it doesn’t feel like freedom to me.”

- from The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

I’ve been blogging elsewhere about my desire to lose weight.  At least that’s what it started out as.  Along the way, this blogging, in the best possible way, has forced me to examine in more detail my attitudes about food and size and acceptance.

While I certainly applaud the concept of fat acceptance, I’ve always been more of the “it is okay for other people, but I still need to loose 20 lbs” school of thought.  But one of the things that trying to blog consistently about diet and exercise has helped me realize is that I do feel measurably better – both physically and mentally – if I engage in regular moderate exercise.  I may have exercise specific aches and pains, but I have fewer headaches and less back and knee pain and just feel better than I do when I’m sluggish.  Likewise, I do feel better when I try to make “better choices” in the “have a grapefruit instead of a piece of cheese” vein.   But you know what turns me into a cranky screaming harpy?  Tracking my damn food intake and feeling guilty about eating things that I enjoy.

So, I say no.  I refuse to feel guilty about food.  I refuse to think constantly about what I “can” or “should” eat.  I would rather have to buy whole new wardrobes in sizes 16 and 18 and beyond than to keep beating myself up about the fact that I want to eat dessert or am sick of Lean Cuisines and turkey.  Do I want to eat food that is good for me?  Absolutely.  Should we be having less McDonald’s and pizza at my house?  Absolutely.  But I refuse to feel guilty for liking a cheeseburger better than a grilled chicken sandwich or worse.  I refuse to talk about having a cookie as “being bad.”  I refuse to feign sheepish guilt at getting the damn onion rings.  I refuse to turn away the dessert menu just because I had a fruity cocktail before dinner.

Forget the new year’s resolution to lose weight.  I will eat what I want and I will keep exercising.  If the scale moves or the waist shrinks, great.  If it doesn’t, great too.  

*Title inspired in part by this post by fillyjonk at Shapely Prose.

So, Perez Hilton loves to hate Rumer Willis. And, while we’re on the subject of Perez’s hates (should I even be giving him more screen space?) Kirsten Dunst; Lily Allen; and Alexa Joel. I could wax lyrical about how gay ol’ Perez hates strong women – but, gay men love strong women, no? And he loves Katy Perry, so that just can’t be right, now can it? Because Katy Perry believes in equal rights – like, if men can kiss women then, like, women can totally kiss other women too! But, then, equally, she don’t wanna be one of the boys…

I digress, and I ramble. What I have to say is both too long and too complicated to explain fully in a blog post. Only to echo the age-old cries of the bravest of my sex: who cares what you look like? Who ever turned around and said “Bruce [Willis, father of the above-papped Rumer] has a huge chin”. Nobody. He’s an action hero, so we all fancy him. Who ever turned around and said “gosh, George should get some work done, he’s looking awful old”. Nobody. Who ever took a look at Bill Gates and said: “He may be really successful, but he’s a bit chubby, isn’t he?”

Naomi Wolf has a much better way of explaining it in her book, The Beauty Myth, which is worth a look. It’s made me think twice, but it’s also made me sad because, so far, it has explained and broken down a lot of how I feel about my own image, about how distorted my sense of self worth is, but it hasn’t offered me any alternatives. I’m only on chapter three, so I’m hoping that she’ll offer me a way out before the end.

But her thesis is this: the beauty myth has enveloped and encompassed all women, impressing upon us the need to be thin and beautiful; the need to consume, to use the latest face creams, anti-wrinkle creams and anti-cellulite creams; the need to be feminine, girlish, without ever being too intelligent, or opinionated. Who last accused a man of being too intelligent or opinionated?

And then there is that old chestnut: the ugly feminist. Well, I must be, mustn’t I, if I’m encouraging women to abandon the beauty myth in favour of the truth – which is this: one can spend one’s life striving for perfection, but this “perfection” is liquid, you can’t touch it, it changes at the tip of a fingertip and at the whim of Karl Lagerfeld. That should not be a depressing though, because you’re worth so much more than the value of your face.

A couple of things. First, I have to remind everyone to check out the following websites, because they're super awesome. The False is my drawing and illustration blog, which hasn't been updated much recently because I don't have a scanner, and it hasn't been convenient to cart my drawings to school to use the library scanners. Stay tuned though, because it's bound to take off any day now. A Great Sausage is my photo blog. It's cool. I tend to update it much more often; hopefully soon I can get it up to once a day.

Second, I went out to the meadow just up the street a couple days ago to test out my pinhole camera. Up until maybe a year ago it was a farm with sheep and  horses on it, but apparently when the owner was approached by the development company he took their offer without any hesitation, and he's probably living in some overpriced Yaletown loft as we speak. When I went out on Saturday, the surveyors had staked everything out, but it was still a nice meadow with some small groves of deciduous trees (one had a kite caught in it), a road lined with Morning Glories and blackberry bushes, birds and rabbits darting an weaving through the bushes, and an old outhouse, apparently the last remnant of the homestead that used to be on the land, labelled “girls only.” There was no male counterpart. I started a new roll of film today and headed out to the meadow again, only to discover that the entire piece of land had been gutted. All the grass and brush was flattened or dug up, and the groves of trees were now sitting in gigantic piles of detritus, mixed in with old bags and plastic oil bottles and scrap two-by-fours. Down at the bottom of the glen, where there used to be a field of lupine alive with white butterflies, there was only a mud pit partially filled in with water. Bummer. I took some pictures, some of which may turn out okay, but regrettably I discovered that I had forgotten to set the ISO on my digital camera, which I was using as a light meter, so all the pinhole photos I took on Saturday will probably be overexposed.

Third, as you may be able to tell from The False or my Facebook page, I'm reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth right now. While I'd give it mixed reviews so far (if that was even possible), she made a fascinating point about how the (largely) fake technical jargon that's attached to most beauty products and diet-oriented foods and weight-loss products nowadays eerily mirrors the tendency of the Establishment to exclude women from “higher” intellectual realms, especially the natural sciences. Similarly, it's been on my mind lately how Lysol products make claims about how many bacteria there are per square inch of your toilet, and how gross that is, while eliding the well-established facts that there are often much more bacteria on places like your skin (50 to 500 million per square inch), and that bacteria are a part of being a healthy, that “dirty” environments are necessary for developing children's immune systems, and that indiscriminate use of household antimicrobial products is probably contributing to antibiotic resistant bacteria. (And let's leave the “not all bugs need drugs” campaign for another day.) Is it just a coincidence that this kind of marketing strategy for household products is similar to the marketing strategies of beauty products in that they exclude women from the knowledge of the natural sciences?

By Susan Faludi

I am partway through this book and full of things to say about it, and the thought of sitting down to type them all out exhausts me. I am a Susan Faludi fan, to the extent that someone can be a fan who has read only books by her. In fact, I have read only three books by her and I’m not even sure if there are more. The cover of the book promotes her as the author of Backlash and Stiffed, and those are–fancy this!–the very two books I’ve read!

I hardly remember Backlash and I only remember reading it as a follow-up to Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, which a friend gave to me in college. I was riled up and indignant after reading Wolf, but all I can remember about it is that she wrote about liking to wear cowboy boots and lipstick. I remember even less of Backlash. I read those two authors again in succession with Wolf’s Mis-Conceptions and Faludi’s Stiffed and still have much stronger memories of both books. I wasn’t pregnant then, but Wolf had me riled up again, this time about the medical industrial complex and the pathologizing of pregnancy and the benefits of going au natural in the delivery room, if I was such a coward as to resort to a delivery room in the first place. I am sure I am overstating the contents of the book, but it did influence me to the point that when I was actually pregnant I established from the outset a contrary relationship with my doctor, arguing over everything from conception dates to induction of labor. I even spent four hours of my life in horrible pain because I waved off the epidural when it was offered to me (and when I finally demanded it they took their sweet time about hooking it up–yeah, the stuff that romcoms are made of). Second time around, I let the doctors do whatever they wanted and there were a lot more smiles and air kisses. Dude. They invented medicine for a reason! Should I get pregnant again, I’ll provide a full-length diatribe, but until then it is just a digression.

So after reading Mis-Conceptions I read Faludi’s Stiffed; they must have been published relatively close together, because I remember pulling them from the “New” shelf at the new (at the time) library. This memory is highly fallible and I welcome publication date corrections. Anyway, Stiffed just struck me as eloquent and sad, and left me with a real appreciation of how men’s status has changed, for better and for worse, throughout the decades, too. I don’t remember that the book was particularly the “male answer” to the feminism movement, and it wasn’t a call for pity for men, but it hit some real emotional moments and described real pain and confusion. What I remember the most were the interviews with Sylvester Stallone (of all people!). He talked about himself, his father, his career, the characters he portrayed… the interview was excerpted throughout the book, but getting him into it was a real bonus. I mean, what other persona encapsulates so many masculine ideals and failures? The other guys I remember are the laid-off aeronautical engineers and the Vietnam vets being harangued by World War II vets. It’s a dense book, it’s a hard book to read, and it is so not bitter, angry, or resentful.

I am appreciating these qualities again in the new book, The Terror Dream. Talk about 9/11 annoys me because I am heartless and cold; I even hate the phrase “9/11.” Not as much as I hate “9-11″ or the word “kinnygarden,” but it’s up there. 1) I prefer to refer to events with actual references to events and 2) I dislike cutesy shorthand. But it’s in the subtitle of the book, so I roll with it. And it actually did occur on that date, so I can’t fault the term entirely. And thus I arrive at this interesting observation. Sort of interesting.

This is the copy of the hardcover book I am in possession of:

Note the subtitle: “Fear and Fantasy” and “9/11.” Note the art. It’s a sunset, or a sunny day obscured by smoke, with a cityscape far in the distance. I hadn’t paid attention to the cover at all. And then a chain of events arose with these links:

1. I was reading the book last night before going to sleep.
2. I was impressed with the book.
3. I reported first thing to my online friends at Northern Attack how much I was enjoying the book so far.
4. I looked up reviews at Amazon so I could learn what to think about the book.
5. I noticed that a paperback version of the book was going to be released in two months, with the following subtitle and cover art:

Of course, the book isn’t available yet, but I don’t think I am naive to assume that the actual book will be the same. Look at those silhouettes–it’s obviously the World Trade Center. But the subtitle is so different! “Myth” and “Misogyny”? “Insecure”? I really wonder whose idea it was to change it? I worked for a tiny while in a tiny corner of book publishing, and learned just enough to find changes like these interesting although not nearly enough to qualify for ever making changes like that myself at real book publishing company in a position of real responsibility. I also don’t know enough about Faludi’s clout or Holt’s attitudes to do more than speculate about the source of the change. Did the book fail to sell enough copies? Was “9/11″ off-putting? Is it a dated term? Does “Misogyny” more completely encompass the author’s ideas? I can tell you right now, based on the assumption that the text is not changing in any meaningful way, that I hate the new cover. It looks like retrofiction, or the opening credits of “Bewitched.” Was there a conversation between editors and the designers about it? Was that the point? I also don’t like the change from “Post-9/11″ to “Insecure.” It’s so vague. When has “America” ever been more or less confident than it is now? Not to go all postmodern, if that’s the right term, but “Americans” are “Americans” just like they have always been. Militarily, we are probably more secure than “before.” It’s such a weak word.

Of course, the first cover conveys absolutely no information. For that matter, the title conveys no real information. I am currently reading books on gender roles for my next work project. I never would have selected this book based on the title if I hadn’t seen a review of the book that popped up in my database search on “gender roles.” The second cover certainly shows men acting and women victiming, but the title is just an odd one. Perhaps it’s aiming for some artful juxtaposition that I am too dense to see.

But none of that was what I really meant to talk about. Last night, after I turned the light out, my head was filled with amazement at how different reading this Faludi book is from reading that stupid Maureen Dowd book. That Dowd book was scatterbrained, vague, oddly arranged, and written so the author and her unnamed friends–who comprise the bulk of information “sources” for the “research”–could laugh about their private jokes later. But the Faludi book (which I would normally refer to by name, especially in a Word document, but I am not now doing so because I am sick of typing the codes and because actually leaving off typing to go click the format button provided is an interruption of my thought that would be far more disruptive than this parenthetical aside is) hits newspaper headlines, interviews, press conferences, letters to the editors, blog comments, chat room transcripts, magazine articles, movie dialogue… you name it. She either has a staff of ten people or she spends more time online than I do! I wish I was her. My admiration for her seemingly thorough coverage of pop-culture and journalism sources is countered by my embarrassment that I let all these horrible turns of events slip by my notice. Of course, my out is that when I’m online I’m watching old SciFi at Hulu.com, I’m posting up a storm on online message boards, I’m shopping, or I’m trying to figure out what new ailment is affecting my tomato harvest that will never be. (It appears to be fungus, this time. Damn you, unusual semi-tropical weather!) Plus she manages to absorb and remember all this sad testaments to the state of the union without becoming angry or hostile. At least, she never seems angry or hostile to me. She lays it out, and then I get riled up. It’s not the same as the Naomi Wolf approach, who is angry for you and then you collude in rage. But I can’t remember everything that I was thinking about and I am not that sorry that I didn’t get up and type it out. You’ll have to trust me that it was articulate, insightful, well-formatted, and full of key words and phrases that would have driven traffic to this blog like a mofo.

For purposes of full disclosure, I am only partway through the book. I reserve the right to take it all back, undermine what I’ve said today, and retract my initial impressions. Still, if nothing else, it was fun to remember those crazy days when the 9/11 Widows were in the news! Those crazy kids. It takes all kinds, right? And now that I have loosely corralled my thoughts, I can return to my BSG podcast listening. I’m on the part where they are discussing the script for the Razor movie. I haven’t seen all the way through season 4 yet, though, so don’t tell me what happens after Callie gets sucked out the airlock. But am I the only person in the world who thought she was killing herself after finding herself pregnant with a second Cylon baby? And why the hell are Helo AND Athena on the garbage scow with Starbuck instead of with Hera. If ever there was a couple in the known universe who is less likely to leave their baby again it is that one, but I can’t believe they would have brought her along, and we certainly didn’t see her on the ship.

It’s a mystery.

Thanks to a discussion elsewhere on-line, I’ve been thinking on The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolfe, which has gotten me thinking on my relationship to and evolution within feminism.

I first read this book in 1992 – what must have been the first paperback edition – for an introductory Women’s Studies class at the University of Illinois.  I confess that at the time, I was not too keen on the book.  It – like much of what was taught in that particular class – felt too didactic.  Too much like victimization.  I had been raised in a home where feminism was almost taken for granted.  I liked sex (or the idea of it, anyway).  I liked black eyeliner and coloring my hair and wearing lipstick the color of a bruise.  I liked using a fake id to get into bars and clubs wearing clothing that would barely cause an eye raise in today’s youth culture, but which felt daring at the time.  I liked playing with standards of beauty and subverting them to my will.  Arguably, I’m still at it, but not in quite the same way.

I left what I thought of as “mainstream feminism” for a long while because I felt judged by the young women in that particular class and I felt silenced by a teaching assistant who I didn’t think appreciated my “difference”.  Looking back on my mindset at the time, it was I who was being closeminded and chafing at being required to look at the world through a more critical lens.  I felt personally attacked where really, there was the need to acknowledge that the world was larger than my experience.

Likewise, as time went on, I felt stifled, even betrayed, by a campus “feminism” that I wanted to be more flexible and critical in its dicta.  I cringed as WS majors declared that the subject of a diary of life in feudal Japanshould have left her husband – completely ignoring the social strictures of the culture and the time.  By the time I was in law school, I felt stuck between the second and third waves, both of which held appeal,  but neither of which I felt I could relate to.  I held on to “feminist” as a label – I never cottoned to the idea of “womanist” or * “I believe in equality but don’t call myself a feminist”.  But I definitely fell off the awareness wagon for a time.

But back to The Beauty Myth.  To paraphrase the overall message of the book as I recall it and as discussed in the community that prompted this, the activities that comprise beauty ritual are not the problem.  It is the compulsion to participate in those rituals whether women want to or not, whether we do so even to our detriment because we feel our place in society depends on them, whether the ideals of a beautiful exterior take the place of loving who we are, instead of highlighting the best of what we love about ourselves.   I expect I will be returning to this

I still have the copy I read for class and I want to re-read it.  Susan Faludi’s Backlash, too.  There’s a lot out there that I need to refresh my memory on. 

* Edited belatedly to correct my misconception that “womanist” was a general term used to replace feminism. I was woefully ignorant of the origins and actual use of “Womanist” as a term to describe the experiences of women of color which are often at odds with the privileged position of mainstream feminism. Which I neatly illustrated there.

Have any of us felt like natural women in a long, long time? Today, over on beaut, the ladies discussed the merkin – the down-there hair for the lady whose down-there hair, well, isn’t quite there. According to the guardian, it was borne of a desire [by prostitutes, natch] to cover up unseemly sights down below: pubic lice, herpes, and so on. A valiant cause, therefore.

Today, the merkin is apparently only acceptable in fetishist circles or, one presumes, if you want to have a really good laugh. Or – if you want to have the Union Jack emblazoned on your pubic area. The whole Spencer Tunick experience did, however, make me see the benefits of the merkin; although when I suggested that it may have helped to Ciara, she responded with a definitive “if they did a knee merkin I may have taken up that offer – my crotch wasn’t the area concerning me most”.

But… I digress. The thing that bothers me most about the whole merkin affair, is that there’s no merkin for men. Much as there’s no lipstick, no Brazilian wax (back, sack and crack doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, it has to be said), no tights, no high heels, no Double Wear, no silk-satin lingerie sets. We have it all wrong, kids – and the way things are going, we’re never going to make it right again.

Naomi Wolfe, in her book, The Beauty Myth, maintains that female beauty – the modern idea of female beauty, replete with waxing, self-maintenance and more make-up than you’d find in the whole of Mount Anville, was not created, but encouraged at the same time as the female sufferage movement as a way of keeping the good ladies down: they may want equal pay and, fine, they’ll get it eventually, but by God we’ll find other ways of keeping them on their knees (Michael O’Leary would know all about that).

And, though some of her views might be a bit too far-fetched for the less cynical among us (for the record, when it comes to cynicism, I’m right there with her), Wolfe has a point. If – and only if – a woman makes it to become a manager in her place of employ, you can guarantee that her management technique will not be the same as that of a male manager. This is a generalisation, but they are useful, in their place, and it’s not entirely beyond the realms of possibility to state that most female managers have a more difficult job: if they wear suits, they are bitches; if they wear skirts, they slept their way to the top; if they reprimand in a straightforward way, they’re bitches; if they’re sickly sweet, they’re, well, undercover bitches.

If a woman chooses not to shave her legs, she’s probably a lesbian (and therefore a feminist, and most likely a bitch, in the bargain); if she doesn’t wear make-up, she’s unattractive; if she lets herself get fat, she’s over the hill, and she’ll probably turn into a bitch out of resentment. Most of the qualities – relaxation, a bit of slovenliness, some over-indulgence – that signify that a man is successful, signify that a woman has lost it. Who saw Indiana Jones and didn’t think “no way, Indie wouldn’t go for that old hag, what about a bit of Cate? He could bring her around!”?

The battle of the sexes is not going to be over until us women start thinking of ourselves as equal. Distinguishing ourselves as women often serves only to exacerbate the myths that surround us, as a sex and as an anomaly, a non-understandable entity that is here for several functions, none of which should involve power, success or, heaven forbid ambition (again: lesbian). We need to get off our chairs and back onto our high horses, and stop saying things like “I’m not a feminist, but…”. Because if you’re not, then you should be. If you’re not, then, please, half your paycheck and give the other half to your partner. He deserves it: he’s a man, after all.

Women getting cosmetic surgery is so ubiquitous today that it seems to have become a competition.  It’s like the answer to the question of why every single pro bodybuilder uses steroids.  Because they have to.  Because as soon as one bodybuilder does it, he or she is going to look better (in the eyes of the judges, at least) than everyone else, so if they want to stay competitive, they have to follow suit.  It doesn’t matter if the thought of steroids disgusts them, it doesn’t matter if they swore they’d never use them – since their physique is being rated by others, they have little choice.

We live in a free society, so women can shove bags of saline into their bodies to make their breasts look bigger if that’s their wish.  They can carve up their faces, stuff adipose tissue in their lips, an inject poison to erase wrinkles.  They can even burn their labia with a laser to make their vagina look “pretty.”  And of course there are perfectly legitimate reasons for getting cosmetic surgery that don’t include turning what is already beautiful into an artificial caricature of beauty.

But why does the focus have to be on physical appearance?  Why must people incest so much time, effort, money, and pain into fitting a social stereotype?  They’re not in pursuit of beauty; they’re in pursuit of people to look at them and think they’re beautiful.  There’s a distinction.  It’s like the difference between feeling good about yourself because you’ve studied hard, or feeling good about yourself because someone tells you that you’re smart.  The former is indicative of self-value; the latter is indicative of nothing.

But I think this is about more than the pathetic (and doomed) tactic of trying to find self-worth solely in one’s sexuality.  It’s the fact that beauty has become sexuality.  “Sexy” has come to mean promiscuous.  A young woman is defined as “hot” only if she’s willing to lift her shirt for a camera and make out with another young woman.  Modern culture has become the two teenage boys in the movie Weird Science, creating the “perfect” woman by totaling up the components they like.  We’ve turned female beauty into a rating scale: the number of drunken frat boys who get an erection from looking at the woman.  And how does she score high on this scale?  By investing thousands of dollars into her body.

To continue the bodybuilder analogy, suppose every bodybuilder made a pact that none of them would use steroids.  Suppose it was collaborative effort with the judges, photographers, and fans.  Suppose all the muscle magazines would only print photos of natural bodybuilders.  Suppose a natural physique was celebrated and admired rather than being relegated to a second-tier “also-ran” with potential.  Suppose a steroid-built physique was viewed as too extreme and thus consigned to the fringe.  Suppose it was even viewed as grotesque, a distorted parody of what is aesthetic about a figure.

I’m not saying that all cosmetic surgery is bad, or that every woman who gets it is misguided or harming herself.  It just sickens me that we should emphasize such a need for it.  It sickens me that mothers are taking their daughters in for breast augmentation as a high school graduation present (what a welcome into the adult world!).  It sickens me that so many women seem to think that they need inflated breasts to be attractive.  Honestly, would they even want a partner whose deal-breaker for a girlfriend is cup size?  That’s what it comes down to, the tragedy behind it, at least in my opinion: Cosmetic surgery demotes a woman to the mere concept of a woman, a collection of extraneous components, rather than a person in their entirety.