Reddit reviews The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

I'm glad you posted.

For me, a pivotal moment was deciding that I was going to see if my breasts brought me - not anyone else - pleasure. And I found that they did. I write a little bit about it here in the link to Forming a strong female bodily identity. I realized that my breasts only enhanced my life. They looked fine to fantastic in clothes. They never caused me pain or limited my activity. I could flaunt so much more easily without negativity directed at me. And I loved how they responded in sexual contexts.

I also started to question the sources that peddled images of stereotypical large breasts. Behind all of those sources wasn't a message of beauty and wholeness, it was a message of inferiority and incompleteness. Ads, media, products aren't selling contentment; They are selling inadequacy and their product as the temporary cure. To speak bluntly, screw that. (For extra reading, Naomi Wolf's book, The Beauty Myth, is a great empowering resource that I highly recommend to anyone interested on the subject).

After that, I surrounded myself with positive media about small breasts wherever I could find it. The same stuff that peddles a negative message and be cultivated, usually, to feed you better things. I found images of small breasted women of all types. Their beauty and sexiness was obvious and I began to recognize that in myself. I turned off media that subtracted from this positive message. I skip shows, ads, even products that show the usual, and usually exploited, image of a porn-star figured woman. It's a good feeling to do this. They are trying to sell me something or buy my attention with their images and they fail when they only show the same old physique.

I hope you will stick around. I hope you won't delete in 24 hours because so many can relate to your thoughts. I hope you are at the beginning of a really positive journey to seeing how great your breasts are.

Have you read The Beauty Myth? I felt like I was pretty informed about the issues with the beauty industry but it blew my mind.

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolfe: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060512180/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_jegWDb3AJSN0Q

Basically the premise is that stricter and more unattainable beauty standards have been placed on women as their power and legal status increases. This explains the rise in eating disorders and cosmetic surgery.

Two that I think are great without going back too far are Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, and Female Chauvinist Pigs.

I'm looking at amazon.com and thinking of ordering a new one from bell hooks, who I've always liked. As an African-American woman, hooks has always had a broader perspective.

I'd also recommend Susan Faludi's Backlash.

Amanda Marcotte's recent It's a Jungle Out There was a quick read and good.

I'm currently looking at Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism and by Siegel and Baumgardner's Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, but they're about 4th and 5th on my current reading list and I can't yet say how I'd rate them.

Also on my reading list is Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?: A Debate (Point/Counterpoint) by Warren Farrell, Steven Svoboda, and James P. Sterba on my list. Looking forward to that one. Warren Farrell is a former feminist and the father of the men's liberation movement. The movement had progressive roots, but I think Farrell's moved more center, and certainly the men's movement has some very conservative branches. I think it will be interesting splitting apart any anti-feminism from the pro-men's liberation stuff.

I personally don't think there's any conflict between men and women's liberation, but I want to be more informed as to the current arguments.

Because more value is placed on womens looks due to our historically patriarchal society in The West. It's all over the place, from r/pics to lyrics like "now you dont need that money
when you look like that, do ya honey." Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl. So much value in fact is placed on it that it's viewed as currency, as in a hot young girl and and older/ugly/fat woman both have flat tires on the side of the road, guess which one is helped by the kindness of strangers, and not just men either? If straight women only judged initial attractiveness on appearance alone, you guys would be getting dolled up every day. See Survival of the Prettiest by Nancy Etcoff, then wash your brain out with The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

If you haven't read The Beauty Myth... http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Myth-Images-Against-Women/dp/0060512180

I've been told that feminist men like this book http://www.amazon.com/Room-Ones-Own-Virginia-Woolf/dp/1614272778/flavorpill0e-20

This one is far more modern though: http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Myth-Images-Against-Women/dp/0060512180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374884463&sr=1-1&keywords=beauty+myth

Here are three books. I linked to Amazon to help you find them easier.

We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which offers a 21st century definition of feminism while exploring what it means to be a woman today.

The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf Naomi Wolf's bestselling book looks at the every day pressure on women to conform physically is a constant and all-pervading ideal of what 'beauty' is, touching on the potential oppressive and tyrannical impact it can have.

How To Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran Caitlin Moran's part memoir/part rant is full of titbits and tales from her own life as well as advice for your own, while asking all the questions we want to know the answers to. Examples include, 'Why are we supposed to get Brazilians?' 'Do men secretly hate us?' 'And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby?'

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The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

I didn't say there was anything wrong with being hot, though (even in the removed bit). It was a chuckle at what first appeared to be the Beavis and Butthead-like propensity on Reddit to sometimes be like "Heh heh, nothing wrong with being hot! fap." When I realized I'd jumped to hasty conclusions, I removed the remark.

Now as for the beauty issue, that's a big one. The main issue is with how the beauty industry sells women a very narrow standard of beauty, one that is largely one skin color — white — and one body type: tall, slender, and angular. Interestingly, the essay "The Mosaic Imagination" in Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography notes that many of the models and actresses who embody the modern-day vision of perfect beauty have androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).

>The physical specifics of AIS women provide a delicious counterweight to the arguments put forth by some evolutionary psychologists, who claim that a woman's sexual appeal lies in her possession of traits that tell a man, I am fertile and will make you many babies. They have shining skin and thick hair - the signs of health and youth; and youth, youth, youth, we are told, is the measure of a woman's market value. And those generous breasts are supposed to be the emblem of an estrogenic woman, a reliably fecund cycler. Oh, yes, to each body part on a pinup girl a Darwinian tag can be fastened. But these AIS superwomen, these amply endowed icons of fantasy and autoerotic spasm, just aren't Honest Signalers, as the evolutionary jargon puts it. They are, in fact, Cheaters, luring men into the foaming waters of carnality without even the vaguest possibility of conception.

Anyway, sorry, this was about beauty. The other problem is how uncontrollable the goal of "being beautiful" is. The beauty industry makes money by making women feel inferior, and any small imperfection can mean that no matter how hard a woman tries, or how many products she applies, she will still not measure up.

No one lives in a vacuum. If someone's number one goal in life is to be beautiful, that's because they've gotten the message that that is an important and worthy goal. And I would confidently argue that if a person's life's goal is to be a decorative object, then yes, something is fucked up. The person themselves is innocent of any crime by wanting to be beautiful as their primary or major (i.e. time- and money-consuming) goals, but they also aren't doing themselves or anyone else any favors.

There's a book that's an oldie but a goodie on this topic. It's called The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.

Well then you are either lying about your political leanings or your education about feminism comes from reddit.

Check out these books:

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Sex-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/030727778X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418317549&sr=8-1&keywords=the+second+sex

http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Myth-Images-Against-Women/dp/0060512180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418317639&sr=8-1&keywords=the+beauty+myth

There are plenty of others too but this feels like an ok pair of books, something old and something newer.