The Beauty Myth (44 page)

18
A higher calling: John Kenneth Galbraith, quoted in Michael H. Minton with Jean Libman Block,
What Is a Wife Worth?
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), pp. 134–135.

18
Ugly Feminist: Marcia Cohen,
The Sisterhood: The Inside Story of the Women’s Movement and the Leaders Who Made It Happen
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), pp. 205, 206, 287, 290, 322, 332.

18
Swearing like a trooper: Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
(London: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 79, quoting Elinor Rice Hays,
Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy Stone
(New York: Harcourt, 1961), p. 83.

19
Unpleasant image: Friedan, op. cit., p. 87.

Page

21
U.S. women in work force: Ruth Sidel,
Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America
, (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 60.

21
British women in paid work: U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission,
Towards Equality: A Casebook of Decisions on Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay, 1976–1981
, pamphlet. See also: U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission,
Sex Discrimination and Employment: Equality at Work: A Guide to the Employment Provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
, pamphlet, p. 12.

22
Prehistory: Rosalind Miles,
The Women’s History of the World
(London: Paladin Grafton Books, 1988), p. 152.

22
Modern tribal societies: Ibid., p. 22.

23
Duchess of Newcastle: The entire quote is: “Women live like
bats
or
owls
, labour like
beasts
and die like
worms
,” ibid., p. 192.

23
No work too hard: Ibid., p. 155, quoting Viola Klein,
The Feminine Character: History of an Ideology
, 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).

23
Fatigue: Ibid., p. 188.

23
Humphrey Institute: Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota,
Looking to the Future: Equal Partnership Between Women and Men in the 21st Century
, quoted in Debbie Taylor et al.,
Women: A World Report
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 82.

23
Twice as many hours as men:
Report of the World Conference for the United Nations Decade for Women
, Copenhagen, 1980, A/Conf. 94/35.

23
Pakistani women: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 3.

23
Nonwork: Ann Oakley,
Housewife: High Value/Low Cost
(London: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 53.

23
Rise by 60 percent: Sidel, op. cit., p. 26.

23
France’s labor power: Sylvia Ann Hewlett,
A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women’s Liberation in America
(New York: Warner Books, 1987).

23
Volunteer work: Yvonne Roberts, “Standing Up to Be Counted,”
The Guardian
(London) 1989 interview with Marilyn Waring, author of
If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). See also Waring, p. 69.

23
Gross national product: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 4.

23
Nancy Barrett: “Obstacles to Economic Parity for Women,”
The American Economic Review
, vol. 72 (May 1982), pp. 160–165.

24
Thirty-six minutes more: Arlie Hochschild with Anne Machung,
The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home
(New York: Viking Penguin, 1989).

24
Household chores: Michael H. Minton with Jean Libman Block,
What Is a Wife Worth?
(New York: McGraw-Hill), p. 19.

24
75 percent of household work: Hochschild and Machung, op. cit., p. 4. See also Sarah E. Rix, ed.,
The American Woman, 1988–89: A Status Report
, Chapter 3: Rebecca M. Blank, “Women’s Paid Work, Household Income and Household Well-Being,” pp. 123–161 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1988).

24
U.S. married men: Claudia Wallis, “Onward Women!,”
Time International
, December 4, 1989.

24
Demand eight hours more: Heidi Hartmann, “The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework,” in
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
, vol. 6 (1981), pp. 366–394.

24
Italy: Hewlett, op. cit.

24
Less leisure: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 4.

24
Kenya: Ibid.

24
Chase Manhattan Bank: Minton and Block, op. cit., pp. 59–60.

24
U.S. college undergraduates: Wallis, op. cit.

24
Undergraduates in the United Kingdom: U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission,
The Fact About Women Is
 . . ., pamphlet, 1986.

25
American women in work force: Sidel, op. cit., p. 60.

25
Marilyn Waring: Quoted in Roberts, op. cit.

25
Patricia Ireland: Quoted in Wallis, op. cit.

26
Women with children in the American work force: Ibid.

26
United Kingdom mothers: U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission, op. cit.

26
Sole economic support: Sidel, op. cit.

26
Marvin Harris: quoted in Minton and Block, op. cit.

28
Title VII: See Rosemarie Tong,
Women, Sex and the Law
(Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984), pp. 65–89.

28
1975 Sex Discrimination Act/Great Britain: See U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission,
Sex Discrimination and Employment
, especially pp. 12–13: “Sex discrimination where sex is a ‘genuine occupational qualification’ for the job, or for part of the job, because of: (a) Physical form or authenticity—for example, a model or an actor.” See also
Sex Discrimination: A Guide to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
, U.K. Home Office pamphlet (2775) Dd8829821 G3371, p. 10.

The Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 in Australia does not cover discrimination on the basis of appearance; as of 1990, the federal attorney general will extend the jurisdiction of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act to cover discrimination on the ground of “age, medical record, criminal record, impairment, marital status, mental, intellectual or psychiatric disability, nationality, physical disability, sexual preference and trade union activity,” but discrimination on the basis of appearance will not be addressed. See also Australia, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,
The Sex Discrimination Act 1984: A Guide to the Law
, pamphlet, August 1989.

28
American Dream: Sidel, op. cit., p. 22.

31
Helen Gurley Brown: See
Sex and the Single Girl
(New York: Bernard Geis, 1962).

31
Firing of stewardesses: See Marcia Cohen, op. cit., p. 394. One flight attendant explains that the sexualized cabin atmosphere is expressly designed to diminish male passengers’ fear of flying: “They figure mild sexual arousal will be helpful in getting people’s minds off” the danger (Hochschild, 1983, cited in Albert J. Mills, “Gender, Sexuality and the Labour Process,” in Jeff Hearn et al.,
The Sexuality of Organization
(London: Sage Publications, 1989), p. 94.

32
Or go to prison:
Time
, June 7, 1971, cited in Roberta Pollack Seid,
Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with Their Bodies
(New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988).

32
Bunny Image:
Weber
v.
Playboy Club of New York, Playboy Clubs International, Inc., Hugh Hefner
, App. No. 774, Case No. CSF22619–70, Human Rights Appeal Board, New York, New York, December 17, 1971; see also
St. Cross
v.
Playboy Club of New York
, CSF222618–70.

33
“All women are Bunnies”: Gloria Steinem,
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1983), p. 69.

33
20 percent of management: Hewlett, op. cit.

33
Xerox Corporation: Catherine McDermott won her suit only after an eleven-year battle in New York courts; Seid, op. cit., p. 22, citing “Dieting: The Losing Game,”
Time
, January 20, 1986, p. 54.

33
One sixth of U.S. MBAs: Hewlett, op. cit.

33
Appearance standards: Christine Craft,
Too Old, Too Ugly and Not Deferential to Men
(New York: Dell, 1988).

34
“Male Anchors: 40 to 50”: Ibid., p. 37.

35
“Fortyish women”: Ibid., p. 204.

36
IS SHE WORTH IT
?: Richard Zoglin, “Star Power,”
Time
, August 7, 1989, pp. 46–51. The opening sentence of the article reads: “First there are the blond-haired good looks, striking but somehow wholesome, more high school prom queen than Hollywood glamour puss.” Then it continues: “It pains [Sawyer] that her journalistic accomplishments are overshadowed by questions about her looks. . . .” See also the obsession with Jessica Savitch’s appearance described in Gwenda Blair,
Almost Golden: Jessica Savitch and the Selling of Television News
(New York: Avon Books, 1988). (The jacket copy reads, “She was the Marilyn Monroe of TV News.”)

36
Crippling point of view: Ibid., p. 77.

37
Physical characteristics:
Miller
v.
Bank of America
, 600 F.2d 211 9th Circuit, 1979, cited in Tong, op. cit., pp. 78.

38
Barnes
v.
Costle
, 561 F.2d 983 (D.C. Circuit 1977), cited in Tong, op. cit., p. 81.

38
Mechelle Vinson:
Mentor Savings Bank, FSB
v.
Vinson
, 106 S. Circuit 2399 (1986).

39
Hopkins
v.
Price-Waterhouse:
741 F.2d 1163; S. Ct., 1775. See also Laura Mansuerus, “Unwelcome Partner,”
The New York Times
, May 20, 1990.

39
Nancy Fadhl
v.
Police Department of City and County of San Francisco:
741 F.2d 1163, cited in Suzanne Levitt, “Rethinking Harm: A Feminist Perspective,” unpublished doctoral thesis, Yale University Law School, 1989.

39
Tamini
v.
Howard Johnson Company, Inc.:
cited in ibid.

39
Andre
v.
Bendix Corporation:
841 F.2d 7th Circuit, 1988, cited in ibid.

39
Buren
v.
City of East Chicago, Indiana:
799 F.2d 1180 7th Circuit, 1986, cited in ibid.

39
Diaz
v.
Coleman:
Conversation with counsel Ursula Werner, Yale University Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, April 15, 1989.

39
M. Schmidt
v.
Austicks Bookshops, Ltd.:
U.K. Industrial Relations Law Reports (IRLR), 1977, pp. 360–361.

40
Jeremiah
v.
Ministry of Defense:
1 Queen’s Bench (QB) 1979, p. 87; see also
Strathclyde Regional Council
v.
Porcelli
, IRLR, 1986, p. 134.

40
Dan Air: See U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission, “Formal Investigation Report: Dan Air,” January 1987. Dan Air lost the case.

40
Costumes:
Maureen Murphy and Eileen Davidson
v.
Stakis Leisure, Ltd
., The Industrial Tribunals, Scotland 1989.

40
Sisley
v.
Britannia Security Systems, Ltd.:
Industrial Court Reports, 1983, pp. 628–636.

41
Snowball
v.
Gardner Merchant, Ltd:
IRLR, 1987, p. 397; see also
Balgobin and Francis
v.
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
, IRLR, 1987, p. 401.

41
Wileman
v.
Minilec Engineering, Ltd.:
IRLR, 1988, p. 145.

41
200 London models: British Association of Model Agencies.

42
Fifty-four-year-old woman: Hearn et al., op. cit., p. 82.

42
Informal rules: Ibid., p. 149.

42
Contradiction: Ibid., p. 143.

43
Violations: Ibid., p. 148.

43
Sexual harassment: In a survey of nine thousand
Redbook
readers, 88 percent reported sexual harassment in the workplace. Hearn et al., op. cit., p. 80.

In the United Kingdom, where there is no specific law against it, 86 percent of managers and 66 percent of employees “had seen” sexual harassment, according to an Alfred Marks Bureau survey; a British Civil Service study found that 70 percent of women employees had been subjected to it. See British Society of Civil and Public Servants,
Sexual Harassment: A Trade Union Issue
, pamphlet, p. 14. For more information on sexual harassment, see Constance Backhouse and Leah Cohen,
Sexual Harassment on the Job
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982), and Catharine A. MacKinnon,
Sexual Harassment of Working Women
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), especially Chapter 3, “Sexual Harassment: The Experience,” pp. 25–55. See also p. 17: “How many thousands of employers hire women for their ‘aesthetic’ appeal?”

Since 1981, the number of sexual-harassment complaints filed has nearly doubled, 94 percent of them brought by women, most of them serious charges, i.e., sexual assault, physical contact, or threats of job loss. Only 31 percent of the decisions favored the plaintiff. See David Terpstra, University of Idaho, and Douglas Baker, Washington State University, cited in “Harassment Charges: Who Wins?,”
Psychology Today
, May 1989.

43
Provoked the comments: Nancy DiTomaso, “Sexuality in the Workplace: Discrimination and Harassment,” in Hearn et al., op. cit., p. 78. Catharine A. MacKinnon cites a study by the Working Women United Institute in which respondents who had been harassed “tend to feel the incident is their fault, that they must have done something, individually, to elicit or encourage the behavior, that it is ‘my problem.’ . . . Almost a quarter of the women in one study reported feeling ‘guilty.’” MacKinnon,
Sexual Harassment of Working Women
, p. 47. Rape defendants’ lawyers can legally cite a woman’s “sexually provocative” clothing as evidence in rape cases in every state except Florida: “Nature of Clothing Isn’t Evidence in Rape Cases, Florida Law Says,”
The New York Times
, June 3, 1990.