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I recently finished reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, which was a pretty fascinating read. Although I have some issues with the book, its overwhelming focus on middle-class white women being one of them, it make me rethink some of my preconceptions about the connections between women, our issues with our bodies, and the economic institutions that can only gain through perpetuating those issues.
Two of my favourite quotes:
"The threat of sexual danger makes the [adolescent] girl's body a landscape on which she must project the outer world that now closes in. [...]Where her male peers go On the Road, she and the golden shackle of her "beauty" have to turn off of it. [...]Anorexia, bulemia and exercise fixations work off and numb the frustration of the claustrophobia that accompanies the girl's grieving realization that the wide world she had imagined, and just inherited, is shut down to her by the threat of sexual violence.
What if she doesn't worry about her body and eats enough for all the growing she has to do? She might rip her stockings and slam-dance on a forged ID to the Pogues, and walk home bare-foot, holding her shoes, alone at dawn; she might baby-sit in a battered-women's shelter one night a month; she might skateboard down Lombard Street with its seven hairpin turns, or fall in love with her best friend and do something about it, or lose herself for hours gazing into test tubes with her hair a mess, or sit down when the Pledge of Allegiance says stand, or hop a freight train, or take lovers without telling her last name, or run away to sea. She might revel in all the freedoms that seem so trivial to those who could take them for granted; she might dream seriously the dreams that seem so obvious to those who grew up with them readily available.
[...]But if she is not careful she will end up: raped, pregnant, impossible to control, or merely what is now called fat. The teenage girl knows this. Everyone is telling her to be careful. She learns that making her body into her landscape to tame is preferable to any kind of wildness."
"When a modern woman is blessed with a body that can move, run, dance, play, and bring her to orgasm; with breasts free of cancer, a healthy uterus, a life twice as long as that of the average Victorian woman, long enough to let her express her character on her face; with enough to eat and a metabolism that protects her by laying down flesh where and when she needs it; now that hers is the gift of health and well-being beyond that which any generation of women could have hoped for before - the Age of Surgery undoes her immense good fortune. It breaks down into defective components the gift of her sentient, vital body and the individuality of her face, teaching her to experience her lifelong blessing as a lifelong curse."
Two of my favourite quotes:
"The threat of sexual danger makes the [adolescent] girl's body a landscape on which she must project the outer world that now closes in. [...]Where her male peers go On the Road, she and the golden shackle of her "beauty" have to turn off of it. [...]Anorexia, bulemia and exercise fixations work off and numb the frustration of the claustrophobia that accompanies the girl's grieving realization that the wide world she had imagined, and just inherited, is shut down to her by the threat of sexual violence.
What if she doesn't worry about her body and eats enough for all the growing she has to do? She might rip her stockings and slam-dance on a forged ID to the Pogues, and walk home bare-foot, holding her shoes, alone at dawn; she might baby-sit in a battered-women's shelter one night a month; she might skateboard down Lombard Street with its seven hairpin turns, or fall in love with her best friend and do something about it, or lose herself for hours gazing into test tubes with her hair a mess, or sit down when the Pledge of Allegiance says stand, or hop a freight train, or take lovers without telling her last name, or run away to sea. She might revel in all the freedoms that seem so trivial to those who could take them for granted; she might dream seriously the dreams that seem so obvious to those who grew up with them readily available.
[...]But if she is not careful she will end up: raped, pregnant, impossible to control, or merely what is now called fat. The teenage girl knows this. Everyone is telling her to be careful. She learns that making her body into her landscape to tame is preferable to any kind of wildness."
"When a modern woman is blessed with a body that can move, run, dance, play, and bring her to orgasm; with breasts free of cancer, a healthy uterus, a life twice as long as that of the average Victorian woman, long enough to let her express her character on her face; with enough to eat and a metabolism that protects her by laying down flesh where and when she needs it; now that hers is the gift of health and well-being beyond that which any generation of women could have hoped for before - the Age of Surgery undoes her immense good fortune. It breaks down into defective components the gift of her sentient, vital body and the individuality of her face, teaching her to experience her lifelong blessing as a lifelong curse."
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(This is K.L., right?)
From: (Anonymous)
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It might be kinda late to plan lunch now, considering it's Wednesday, but, next week? Seriously, call me more. Or email me more. Email is good. I check my email a lot. Messages, not so much.
(I really have to stop reading SPN RPS. But, it just...gyah. I'm so screwed.)