beauty

6

Beauty Within and Without

Challenging sexist thinking ab out the female body was one of the

most powerful interventions made by contemporary feminist move­

ment. Before women's liberation all females young and old were so­

cialized by sexist thinking to believe that our value rested solely on

appearance and whether or not we were perceived to be good look­

ing, especially by men. Understanding that females could never be

liberated if we did not develop healthy self-esteem and self-Iove

feminist thinkers went directly to the heart of the matter - critically

examining how we feel and think about our bodies and offering con­

structive strategies for change. Looking back after years of feeling

comfortabie choosingwhether ornot to wear a bra, I can remember

what a momentous decision this was 30 years ago. Women stripping

their badies of unhealthy and uncomfortable, restrictive clothing­

bras, girdles, corsets, garter beIts, etc. - was a ritualistic, radical re­

claiming of the health and glory of the female body. Females today

who have never known such restrictions can only trust us when we

say that this reclaiming was momentous.

On a deeper level this ritual validated women wearing comfort­

abie clothing on all levels in our lives. J ust to be ab Ie to wear pants to

work was awesome to many wo men, whose jobs had required them

to be constantly bending and stooping over. For women who had

31 DOI: 10.4324/9781315743189-6

2 0 1 4 . R o u t l e d g e .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

EBSCO Publishing: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE 864857; bell hooks; Feminism Is for Everybody : Passionate Politics Account:ehost.

32 FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY

never been comfortabIe in dresses and skirts all these changes were

exciting. Today they can appear trivial to females who have been

able to freely choose what they want to wear from childhood on.

Many adult women embracing feminism stopped wearing crippling,

uncomfortable high-heeled shoes. These changes led the shoe­

making industry to design comfortable low shoes for women. No

longer forced by sexist tradition to wear make-up, women looked in

the mirror and learned to face ourselves just the way we are.

Thc clothing and body rcvolution crcated by feminist intcrvcntions let females know that our flesh was worthy oflove and adoration in its

natural state; nothing had to be added unless a woman chose further

adornment. Initially, capitalist investors in the cosmetic and fashion

industry feared th at feminism would destroy their business. They

put their money behind mass-media campaigns which trivialized

women's liberation by portraying images which suggested feminists

we re big, hypermasculine, and just plain old ugly. In reality, women

involved in feminist movement came in all shapes and sizes. We

we re utterly diverse. And how thrilling to be free to appreciate our

differences without judgment or competition.

There was a period in the eady days of feminism when many ac­

tÎvists abdicated all interest in fashion and appearance. These indi­

viduals often harshly critiqued any woman who showed an interest

in frilly feminine attire or make-up. Most of us were excited to have

options. And given choice, we usually decided in the direction of

comfort and ease. It has never been a simple matter for women to

unite a love of beauty and style with comfort and ease. Women had

to de mand that the fashion industry (which was totally

male-dominated in those days) create diverse styles of clothing. Maga­

zines changed (feminist activists called for more women writers and

articles on serious subjects). For the first time in our nation's history

women were compelled to acknowledge the strength of our con­

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.

33 BEAUTY WITHIN AND WITHOUT

sumer dollars, using that power to create positive change.

Challenging the industry of sexist-defined fashion opened up

the space for females to examine for the first time in our lives the

pathologieal, life-threatening aspects of appearance obsession.

Compulsive eating and compulsive starvation were highlighted.

While they created different "looks," these life-threateni"'ng addic­

tions had the same root. Feminist movement compelled the sexist

medical establishment to payattention to these issues. lnitially this

establishment ignored feminist critique. But when feminists began

to create health centers, providing a space for female-centered, posi­

tive health care, the medical industry realized that, as with fashion,

masses of women would take their consumer dollars and move in

the direction of those health care facilities which provided the

greater care, ease, and respect for women's bodies. All the positive

changes in the medical establishment's attitudes towards the female

body, towards female health care, are the direct outcome of feminist

struggle. When it comes to the issue of medical care, of taking our

bodies seriously, women continue to challenge and confront the

medical industry. This is one of the few places where feminist strug­

gle garners mass support from women, whether they are or are not

committed to feminist polities. We see thecollective power of

women when it comes to gynecological matters, to those forms of

cancer (especially breast cancer) that threaten females mNe than

males, and more recently in the area of heart disease.

Feminist struggle to end eating disorders has been an ongoing

battle because our nation's obsession with judging females of all

ages on the basis of how we look was never completely eliminated.

It continues to grip our cultural imagination. By the early '80s many

women were moving away from feminism. While all females reaped

the benefits of feminist interventions, more and more females

were embracing anew sexist-defined notions of beauty. Individual

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.

34 FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY

women who had been in their early 20s when contemporary femi­

nist move ment began were moving into their late 40s and 50s. Even

though feminist changes in the way we see female boelies have made

aging a more positive experience for women, facing the reality ofag­

ing in patriarchal society, particularly the reality of na longer being

able biologically to bear children, led many women to adopt anew

the old sexist notions of feminine beauty.

Nowadays, more than ever before in our nation's history, a huge

number of heterosexual wamen past 40 were and are still single.

Finding themselves in competition with younger women (many of

whom are not and will never be feminist) for male attention they of­

ten emulate sexist representations of female beauty. Certainly it was

in the interest of a white supremacist capitalist patriarchal fashion

and cosmetic industry to re-glamorize sexist-defined notions of

beauty. Mass media has followed suit. In movies, on television, and

in public advertisements images of reed-thin, dyed-blonde women

looking as though they would kill for a good meal have become the

norm. Back with a vengeance, sexist images of female beauty

abound and threaten to undo much of the progress gained by femi­

nist interventions.

Tragically, even though females are more aware than ever be­

fore of the widespread problem of life-threatening eating elisorders

in our nation's history, a large group of females from the very young

to the very old are still starving themselves to be thin. The elisease of

anorexia has become a commonplace theme, a subject in books,

movies, ete. But no elire warnings work to de ter females who believe

their worth, beauty, and intrinsic value will be determined by

whether or not they are thin. Today's fashion magazines may carry

an article about the dangers of anorexia while bombarding its read­

ers with images of emaciated young boelies representing the height

of beauty and desirability. The confusing message is most damaging

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.

35 BEAUTY WITHIN AND WITHOUT

to those females who have never claimed a feminist politics. Yet

there are recent feminist interventions aimed at renewing our efforts

to affirm the natural beauty of female bodies.

Gids today are often just as self-hating when it comes to their

bodies as their pre-feminist counterparts were. While feminist move­

ment produced many types of pro-female magazines, no feminist­

oriented fashion magazine appeared to offer all females alternative

visions of beauty. To critigue sexist images without offering alterna­

tives is an incomplete intervention. Critique in and of itself does not

lead to change. Indeed, much feminist critigue of beauty has merely

left females confused about what a healthy choice is. As a middle-aged

woman gaining more weight than ever before in my life, I want to

work at shedding pounds without deploying sexist body self-hatred

to do so. Nowa:days, in a fashion world, especially on the consumer

side, where clothing that looks like it has been designed simply for

reed-thin adolescent girl bodies is the norm, all females no matter

their age are being socialized either consciously or unconsciously to

have anxiety about their body, to see flesh as problematic. While we

are fortunate that some stores carry beautiful clothing for women of

all sizes and shapes, often this clothing is far more pricey than the

cheaper clothing the fashion industry markets towards the general

public. Increasingly today's fashion magazines look like the maga­

zines of the past. More and more bylines are by males. Seldom do ar­

ticles have a feminist perspective or feminist content. And the

fashions portrayed tend to reflect sexist sensibility.

These changes have been unacknowledged publicly because so

many of the feminist wo men who have come to mature adulthood

exercise their freedom of choice and seek healthy alternative models

of beauty. However, if we abandon the struggle to eliminate sexist

defined notions of beauty altogether, we risk undermining all the

marvelous feminist interventions which allowed us to embrace our

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.

36 FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY

bodies and ourselves and love them. Although all females are more

aware of the pitfalls and dangers of embracing sexist notions of fe­

male beauty, we are not doing enough to eliminate those dangers ­

to create alternatives.

Young gids and adolescents wiU not know that feminist think­

ers acknowledge both the value ofbeauty and adornment ifwe con­

tinue to allow patriarchal sensibilities to inform the beauty industry

in all spheres. Rigid feminist dismissal of female longings for beauty

has undermined feminist polities. While trus sensibility is more un­

common, it is often presented by mass media as the way feminists

think. Until feminists go back to the beauty industry, go back to

fashion, and create an ongoing, sustained revolution, we will not be

free. We wil! not know how to love our bodies as'ourselves.

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 5/19/2025 8:25:01 PM UTC via CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.