The Competition of the Beauty Myth and Why You Should Burn Your Magazines

When I was thirteen I was allowed a subscription to Seventeen Magazine. I was nerdy and without a boyfriend, and the articles in Seveneteen were my guide on how to conceal acne, dress for my "body shape," be nice to other girls without coming off as conceited or stuck up, and talk to boys without sounding too desperate.

Then in high school, far too old for Seventeen, I requested a subscription to Cosmopolitan. My mother forbade it, claiming that the writing was shit and I should read higher caliber literature, but I would pay a fiver for the issue on stands every month and sneak it into the house. I didn't care about the writing quality; I needed to know which shoes to buy and how to make eyes at Sean in my English class so that maybe he would ask me to junior prom.

I stopped reading magazines once I had enough interactions with adult men that I realized no one gave a shit about what I wore and that the flirting tacts I had once thought clever were beyond banal, but reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth had me reminiscing. To start with a clarification, the beauty myth as defined by Wolf is the idea that as women's accomplishments in the public sphere have grown, so have the rigid standards for women's appearance and the punishments for women when they break these rules.

Wolf contends that the power of women's magazines is in their singularity to women: they are the only form of media that is for women. Thus they have the power to discuss domestic issues and international affairs from a women's point of view, while at the same time they act as mentors to women by providing them with rules on how to dress and act appropriately. This was clearly true in my own experiences. Even as women's magazines are friendly godmothers, they are harsh critics of those who step outside of what is deemed acceptable - appropriately feminine but not vain or too confident. Magazines are beholden to their advertisers and thus magazine articles act to make women more aware of their physicality so that they are vulnerable to advertisements. Wolf states:

Somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that [women] will by more things if they are kept in the self-hating, ever-failing, hungry, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring "beauties."

That's the point of women's magazines: to keep you unhappy so that you're a good little consumer. Think I'm being cynical? Check out this video

This is sweet and uplifting and cool and Queen Latifah runs her own business(!) and Sofia Vergara is speaking Spanish(!) Janelle Monae's music is about defying labels(!) and it's so great to see videos challenging stereotypes and empowering young women.

Except something here seems less than pure...

That's because this is a FUCKING ADVERTISEMENT.

A fucking advertisement for Covergirl makeup. Covergirl is the next company (after Dove) to commodify feminism as a marketing tool. This video doesn't say "Pink is so cool," it says "Pink is so cool and look how good she looks with our product!"

Because as women in this current cultural climate we can never forget that if we want to be successful, we first have to look perfect. Before we apply to a job or make a creative attempt or even go out in fucking public, we first have to buy $7.99 Covergirl Mascara Lash Blash Enhancer so that no one forgets we have eyelashes and we have to spend $14.99 on off-tone greasy drugstore foundation lest we not contour our cheeks correctly.

I read the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman when I was nine and I found it in my mother's room. It's the parenting guide book for mothers of young girls that was later adapted into the movie Mean Girls. In elementary school very few of the things that Wiseman predicted for my middle and high school years seemed likely, especially the scenarios with boys and alcohol. But the way Wiseman talked about beauty culture seemed very real.

Adolescence is a beauty pageant. Even if your daughter doesn't want to be a contestant, others will look at her as if she is... Girls are also constantly comparing themselves to each other and rarely do they feel they measure up... Although we have told that they're smart and as competent as boys, they still get conscious and unconscious messages that they need a man to validate their self-worth and that, to get the man in the first place, they have to present themselves in a nonthreatening (read feminine) manner.

We are in a beauty pageant that we can never win, pitted against our friends for the attention of men, held back from our true accomplishments. Back to Naomi Wolf:

No woman or group of women, whether housewives, prostitutes, astronauts, politicians or feminists, can survive unscathed the no-win scrutiny of the beauty myth... 

Women can tend to resent each other if they look too "good" and dismiss one another if they look too "bad." So women too rarely benefit from the experience that makes men's clubs and organizations hold together: the solidarity of belonging to a group whose members might not be personal friends outside, but who are united in an interest, agenda, or worldview.

We spend so much time analyzing our appearance that we don't have enough mental energy to focus on academic and work success without getting anxiety. We spend so much time talking about men that we don't pay attention to our own behavior. We spend so much time putting down other women that we don't love and uplift other women and we don't allow ourselves to be loved and uplifted.

And on some level we know this. We know we buy too many things and that we are a market and that the level of perfection asked of us is absurd and somehow we still play the game. How do we even begin to break out of this?

Burn your magazines. 

Compliment other women without putting down yourself.

Compliment other women on something other than their appearance.

Compliment yourself without putting down other women.

Compliment yourself on something other than your appearance.

Don't wear makeup. When someone says you look tired tell them to go fuck themselves. Wear makeup. Wear so much makeup you look like an alien. When someone says you look weird tell them to go fuck themselves. 

Wear every article of clothing you have. Wear no clothing. Wear all your jewelry and pretend you are Cleopatra. Throw all your jewelry out the window because it is heavy and you don't care.

Do whatever the fuck you want. Don't give a shit with what other people think. Terrify people with how little you need their approval. 

call
your
grandmother.
mother.
a
bitch.
hoe.
slut.
dumb cunt. in that order.
to
her face.
watch her spirit leave her body.
watch her fall into herself.
take pride in your aim. your precision.
stay.
grab a plate.
eat what remains of her.
that is what you do
to
women
who are not yours everyday.

i am speaking to men and women, nayyirah waheed (via nayyirahwaheed)

 

This is my girlfriend Ellen Page, whom I share with my best friend for life. Ellen just came out at the Human Rights Campaign Time to Thrive Conference.

And this is our boyfriend, lawyer and diplomat Ronan Farrow. He's rumored to have been in a relationship with former presidential speechwriter Jon Lovett. He's a genius, and sometimes he tweets us back.

#everyoneyouknowisqueer #queertakover2014

Sorry I didn't blog this weekend, guys. My brother was in town and I was busy explaining to him how patriarchal beliefs about masculine and feminine roles can strangle relationships, especially when it comes to jealousies regarding partners' behavior. I considered talking about how sexual jealousy is a learned behavior and monogamy is not the same as fidelity because I think he and his girlfriend are having some issues, but I didn't want to confuse his worldview too much. Baby steps.

Source: Ithaca College's African Student's Association

Getting you read for our next post, which is about international relations and feminism

Source

Some comics to entertain you while I write my next post lalalala

The Patriarchy

For this first full blog post we're going to explain the idea of female privilege, which is more appropriately termed benevolent sexism, as this is something we find often in the social life of the university setting.

A few examples of stories that may seem as though they are instances of female privilege:

- Women frequently receive free drinks and dinners while men are expected to pay for alcohol and food.
- Men are expected to hold doors for women and display other acts of courtesy.

- Women are allowed into all frat parties. Men must be a member of the frat in order to enter the party.

- Women are socially allowed to wear make up and expose skin. If men were to do these things, they would be called derogatory terms.

These are not examples of female privilege because being a woman is not the base marker for receiving attention or privileges; a woman receives free drinks when she flirts with a man, she is allowed into a party when she is dressed provocatively, she has the door held for her when she smiles and is charming. Are you noticing the connection between how and why she is rewarded? That's right. She is rewarded when her actions make her more sexually available.

Where do these rules come from? The patriarchy, of course! In case you're slipping into lazy idiot mode, I'll explain that the patriarchy is not a panel of old white men sitting around and deciding what is allowed and what is not. That would be far too easy to destroy. The patriarchy is a set of standards and rules that are upheld by society that favor the masculine and degrade the feminine. Men who adhere to masculine norms are rewarded while those who deviate are punished. Women who can navigate the tricky difficulties of femininity are rewarded, and those who go too far masculine are punished. Here's a fun comic!

(courtesy Sinfest)

What makes benevolent sexism so evil is that it's not rewarding to all women: it's rewarding to women who behave in a certain way, and that way upholds the patriarchal standards of what is appropriate behavior.

Not only is in rewarding to women who behave in a certain way, but it is rewarding specifically to white women who behave in a certain way. Women of color are far too sexualized to frequently benefit from benevolent sexism. Under the rules of the patriarchy, white women are the most prized possession. Look around the campus and see how Asian women are fetishized, or how black women are rejected. Dare me to tell you about the time my roommate wasn't let into a party because she's black, or the time two white guys yelled slurs at my Asian friends as we were walking. Ask me about it because I'd love to tell you.

The last point I'll make about benevolent sexism is that there is still a power dynamic structure at play here. Men offer to pay for dinner, they offer to buy drinks, some of them even offer additional cash for dates, because they think a woman is something that can be purchased, or at least rented. Men think a woman's company is for sale. It are not. Our company has an infinite value, and being payed for it cheapens the quality of living.

Those men, and anyone who complains that feminism isn't real because women don't need to pay for dinners? Those men can go fuck themselves.

Feminism Introduction

Perusing my kindle before going to sleep, I search for "feminism," hoping to be inspired for a blog post. I am not disappointed. Amongst my old friends "Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti and "Feminism is for Everybody" by bell hooks and "How to Be A Woman" by Caitlin Moran are little slime pockets of trash with titles like "The War on Men" by Suzanne Venker, "Women First, Men Last: Feminism's War on Men and Its Devastating Effects" by Steven Adams, and "Feminism: The Ugly Truth" by Mike Buchanan. That last one is my favorite, mostly because the cover is of a deranged looking woman baring sharp teeth. I browse a few of these, looking at excerpts and descriptions. I'm delighted to learn a few fun new facts, such as:

Feminism has made women unhappy.
Feminists are deluded and ugly and stupid.
Feminists are taking away men's rights.

If you even remotely agree with any of those statements, you are a fucking idiot and I never want to hear you speak to or around me. The idea of a family unit led by a strong man and a docile woman is a fucking joke; a myth perpetuated by the privileged and deluded. The idea that men are having rights taken away by feminism is ludacris, because being incredibly over privileged and allowed another group to enjoy things which you've always enjoyed is not losing a right. Here's a cartoon of what you look like when you argue with me:

(Credit to Scott Benson)

One of the jokes a Jewish uncle of mine tells is that whenever he feels bad about being Jewish he looks at the anti-Semitic media. According to them, Jews run the banks, the news, the schools, ect. This is a bit how I feel looking at these anti-Feminism books. One thing they can all agree on is that feminism has gone too far, and in a strange sense that comforts me. Someone is threatened by feminism. Good. I want people to feel threatened. 

In this blog we will discuss many forms of feminism and the ways in which feminism is present in our every day lives, as well as shedding light on kinds of feminism you may not be familiar with. We'll discuss queer theory, harassment, capitalism, marxism, rape culture, international feminism, racism, womanism, trans issues, and a whole slew of topics. Many of these posts will relate to current events. But at no point will we entertain the notion that feminism is somehow not necessary.

Frequently I am challenged in my views, and my responses to those who question feminism vary based on my relation to the person and the level of respect that they show me when speaking. I'll explain the three ones now so we never have to have this conversation again.

The high road: Feminism is necessary in this patriarchal world because the state of affairs is such that an active enhancement of women's rights is the only way to come close to equality, which has many different faces and needs

The middle road: I believe in the rights of all women to be treated as people, and practice that in my everyday life

The low road: I don't give a fuck what you think.