The Beauty Myth (50 page)

243
Footbinding: Andrea Dworkin,
Woman Hating
(New York: Dutton, 1974), pp. 95–116.

244
Dr. Symington-Brown: Sarah Stage,
Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women’s Medicine
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), p. 77.

245
Weldon: Fay Weldon,
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
(London: Coronet Books, 1983): “One day, we vaguely know, a knight in shining armour will gallop by, and see through to the beauty of the soul, and gather the damsel up and set a crown on her head, and she will be queen. But there is no beauty in my soul . . . so I must make my own, and since I cannot change the world, I will change myself” (p. 56). Weldon wrote a pro-surgery article for
New Woman
, November 1989.

245
Ovariotomies: Stage, op. cit.; also Ehrenreich and English, op. cit., p. 35.

250
Electroshock:
Newsweek
, July 23, 1956, reports that a behavior-modification program used electric shock when subjects ate their favorite foods; cited in Seid, op. cit., p. 171.

250
Electric shock: Showalter, op. cit., p. 217, citing Sylvia Plath,
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
, Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough, eds. (New York: Dial Press, 1982), p. 318.

254
Harm: Suzanne Levitt, “Rethinking Harm: A Feminist Perspective,” Yale Law School, unpublished doctoral thesis, 1989.

255
Right to life: Andrea Dworkin, op. cit., p. 140.

255
Rich: Adrienne Rich,
Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
(London: Virago Press, 1977).

255
Dissociate: Lynda Birke et al., “Technology in the Lying-In Room,” in
Alice Through the Microscope
, op. cit., p. 172.

256
Trivialization: See Lewis M. Feder and Jane Maclean Craig,
About Face
(New York: Warner Books, 1989): “Just as a seamstress can reshape a garment by taking necessary ‘nips and tucks,’ so the cosmetic surgeon can alter the contours of the facial skin” [p. 161].

258
Health at work: Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, United States Code, Title 29, Sections 651–658.

260
Facelifts: “What a shock!,” quoted in Jeanne Brown, “How Much Younger My Short Haircut Made Me Look!,”
Lear’s
, July/August 1988. See also Saville Jackson, “Fat Suction—Trying It for Thighs,”
Vogue
, October 1988: “The insides of my thighs are
black
. I am aghast but the surgeon seems quite pleased.”

There are several “feminist” readings of cosmetic surgery: Surgeon Michele Copeland, in “Let’s Not Discourage the Pursuit of Beauty,”
The New York Times
, September 29, 1988, urges women to “burn their bras” with breast surgery. Carolyn J. Cline, M.D., in “The Best Revenge: Who’s Afraid of Plastic Surgery?,”
Lear’s
, July/August 1988, urges women to have facelifts with the exhortation, “Voilà! You’ve been led to freedom.”

260
Moral insanity: The term is attributed to asylum innovator John Conolly, cited in Showalter, op. cit., p. 48. See also Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D.,
Women and Madness
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972).

261
Stomach stapling: See Paul Ernsberger, “The Unkindest Cut of All,” op. cit.

261
200,000 pounds of fat: Harper’s Index,
Harper’s
, January 1989.

263
Neimark: Jill Neimark, “Slaves of the Scalpel,”
Mademoiselle
, November 1988, pp. 194–195.

265
Lifton: Robert Jay Lifton,
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
(New York: Basic Books, 1986), p. 31.

266
Any kind of experiment: Ibid., p. 294.

266
“The doctor . . .”: Relevant to the discussion, the reader is reminded of the Oath of Hippocrates. It reads:

I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Health, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture. . . . I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury or wrongdoing. . . . I will keep pure and holy both in my life and my art. In whatsoever house I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm. . . . now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.

265
“These people are already dead”: Attributed to Nazi doctor Karl Bunding, quoted in ibid., p. 47.

265
The Reich Committee: Ibid., p. 70.

265
Liberating therapy for the race: Ibid., p. 26.

265
Trivialization: Ibid., p. 57.

265
Expansion of categories: Ibid., p. 56. “Excessive zeal” was widespread, excused as a product of “the idealism of the time.”

265
Life unworthy of life: Ibid., p. 302.

266
The doctor . . . very dangerous: Ibid., p. 430.

266
Cosmopolitan:
Catherine Houck, “The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Bosom,”
Cosmopolitan
, June 1989.

266
Every popular model: Dr. Steven Herman, quoted in
Glamour
, September 1987.

267
Miss America: Ellen Goodman, “Misled America: The Pageant Gets Phonier,”
Stockton
(Calif.)
Record
, September 19, 1989.

267
Artificial placenta: Jalna Hammer and Pat Allen, “Reproductive Engineering: The Final Solution?,” in
Alice Through the Microscope
, op. cit., p. 221. Also being researched are an artificial skin, and a pill that manipulates the pituitary gland to promote height.

267
Grossman: Edward Grossman, quoted in Hammer and Allen, op. cit., p. 210, lists the “benefits” that will accrue from an artificial placenta. Grossman reports that the Chinese and Russians are both interested in the artificial placenta.

267
Moving into an era: Hammer and Allen, op. cit., p. 211.

267
Gestate their white babies: Lecture, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Yale University Law School, April 1989. In 1990, a custody suit was brought for an infant carried to term in a genetically unrelated “rented” uterus.

268
To predetermine sex: Hammer and Allen, op. cit., p. 215.

268
Passivity and beauty: Ibid., p. 213.

268
Psychotropic drugs: Oakley, op. cit., p. 232.

268
Valium: Ruth Sidel,
Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America
(New York: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 144.

268
Tranquilizers: Debbie Taylor et al.,
Women: A World Report
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 46.

268
Amphetamines first appeared in 1938, their dangers unknown. By 1952, 60,000 pounds of them were produced in the United States annually, with doctors prescribing them regularly for weight loss: Roberta Pollack Seid,
Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with Their Bodies
(New York: Prentice Hall, 1989) p. 106.

268
Sedated slimness: John Allman, “The Incredible Shrinking Pill,”
The Guardian
, September 22, 1989.

I own this book to the support of my family: Leonard and Deborah and Aaron Wolfe, Daniel Goleman, Tara Bennet-Goleman, Anasuya Weil and Tom Weil. I’m expecially grateful to my grandmother, Fay Goleman, on whose unflagging encouragement I depended and whose life—as family services pioneer, professor, wife, mother, and early feminist—gives continual inspiration. I’m grateful to Ruth Sullivan, Esther Boner, Lily Rivlin, Michele Landsberg, Joanne Stewart, Florence Lewis, Patricia Pierce, Alan Shoaf, Polly Shulman, Elizabeth Alexander, Rhonda Garelick, Amruta Slee, and Barbara Browning for their vital contributions to my work. Jane Meara and Jim Landis gave their thoughtful editorial attention very generously. Colin Troup was a ready source of comfort, contentiousness, and amusement. And I am indebted to the theorists of femininity of the second wave, without whose struggles with these issues I could not have begun my own.

de Beauvoir, Simone.
The Second Sex
. New York: Penguin, 1986. (1949)

Greer, Germaine.
The Female Eunuch
. London: Paladin Grafton Books, 1985.

Reed, Evelyn.
Sexism and Science
. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978.

——.
Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family
. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975.

Russett, Cynthia Eagle.
Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Stone, Merlin.
When God Was a Woman
. San Diego: Harvest, 1976.

Walker, Barbara G.
The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power
. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Anderson, Bonnie S., and Judith P. Zinsser.
A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present
. Vols. I and II. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Cava, Anita. “Taking Judicial Notice of Sexual Stereotyping (
Price Waterhouse
v.
Hopkins
, 109 S. Ct. 1775),” in
Arkansas Law Review
. Vol. 43 (1990), pp. 27–56.

Cohen, Marcia.
The Sisterhood: The Inside Story of the Women’s Movement and the Leaders Who Made It Happen
. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988.

Craft, Christine.
Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men
. New York: Dell, 1988.

Eisenstein, Hester.
Contemporary Feminist Thought
. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1985.

Eisenstein, Zillah R.
The Female Body and the Law
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Hearn, Jeff; Deborah L. Sheppard; Peta Tancred-Sheriff; and Gibson Burrell, eds.
The Sexuality of Organization
. London: Sage Publications, 1989.

Hewlett, Sylvia Ann.
A Lesser Life
. New York: Warner Books, 1986.

Hochschild, Arlie, with Anne Machung.
The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home
. New York: Viking, 1989.

Kanowitz, Leo.
Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution
. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975.

Lefkowitz, Rochelle, and Ann Withorn, eds.
For Crying Out Loud: Women and Poverty in the United States
. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1986.

MacKinnon, Catharine A.
Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.

——.
Sexual Harassment of Working Women
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

——.
Toward a Feminist Theory of the State
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Miles, Rosalind.
The Women’s History of the World
. London: Paladin, 1989.

Millett, Kate.
Sexual Politics
. London: Virago, 1985.

Minton, Michael, with Jean Libman Block.
What Is a Wife Worth?
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

Molloy, John T.
The Woman’s Dress for Success Book
. New York: Warner Books, 1977.

Oakley, Ann.
Housewife; High Value/Low Cost
. London: Penguin, 1987.

Richards, Janet Radcliffe. “The Unadorned Feminist” in
The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry
. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1980.

Radford, Mary F. “Beyond
Price Waterhouse
v.
Hopkins
(109 S. Ct. 1775): A New Approach to Mixed Motive Discrimination” in
North Carolina Law Review
. Vol. 68 (March 1990), pp. 495–539.

——. “Sex Stereotyping and the Promotion of Women to Positions of Power,” in
The Hastings Law Journal
. Vol. 41 (March 1990), pp. 471–535.

Rix, Sarah E., ed.
The American Woman, 1988–89: A Status Report
. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988.

Rowbotham, Sheila.
Woman’s Consciousness, Man’s World
. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1983.

Sidel, Ruth.
Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America
. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Swan, Peter N. “Subjective Hiring and Promotion Decisions in the Wake of Ft.
Worth (
Watson
v.
Fort Worth Bank & Trust
, 108 S. Ct. 2777), Antonio (
Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc.
v.
Antonio
, 109 S. Ct. 2115) and Price Waterhouse (
Price Waterhouse
v.
Hopkins
, 109 S. Ct. 1775),” in
The Journal of College and University Law
. Vol. 16 (Spring 1990), pp. 553–72.

Taylor, Debbie et. al.
Women: A World Report
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Tong, Rosemary.
Women, Sex, and the Law
. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984.

Steinem, Gloria.
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983.

Waring, Marilyn.
If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Appel, Willa.
Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise
. New York: Henry Holt, 1983.

Cott, Nancy F.
The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.

——.
Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women
. New York: Dutton, 1972.

Galanter, Marc, ed.
Cults and Religious Movements: A Report of the American Psychiatric Association
. Washington, D.C.: The American Psychiatric Association, 1989.

Halperin, David A., ed.
Psychodynamic Perspectives on Religion, Sect and Cult
. Boston: J. Wright, PSG, Inc., 1983.