Written by Daisy Gillam, the first entry in the column #5 Things you Should Read this Week.
This week includes pieces from Sontag and Federici, two of the most influential and successful feminist writers; an interview from a smaller writer on her first, and yet brilliant, book and an ever relevant piece on the image of female celebrities in the MeToo era. Each essay each give a sharp and unique insight into the culture surrounding women’s bodies, their image in the public eye, beauty standards, the politics of sexuality and how all these intersect together; each is a must read. Enjoy!
A Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power by Susan Sontag
Starting off strong with Sontag’s seminal essay, initially published in a 1975 edition of Vogue; the piece is considered an influential text in the cultural criticism of gendered beauty standards. It’s often difficult to pinpoint the multiple layers of issues that exist around the imbalance between women and men’s beauty standards because of how ingrained it is in everyday language, media and behaviour. The beauty of Sontag’s piece is that it posits the female beauty standard as one not just as something that stems from a misogynistic worldview, but as something considered a social and moral obligation; a ‘duty’, tied unavoidably into power, morality and public perception. Almost fifty years since its publication, Sontag’s piece remains a crucially worthwhile read as it stands in relevance to shaping of beauty culture on the internet, the growth of the make-up industry and the continuing inability of women to separate their identities from the history of female bodies in relation to beauty- as she writes with the timeless statement of ‘nothing less than perfection will do’.
On Heteropessimism by Asa Seresin
‘Heterosexuality always embarrasses me’ states Maggie Nelson in the opening line of the piece. Seresin describes how she initially believed Nelson’s statement to be disingenuous because of the almost cultural meme-ification of heterosexuality but though its often difficult to find pieces that aren’t cruel with their criticism, Seresin is sympathetic; she traces the history of and supports the normalisation of heteropessimist behaviours. The piece explains the concept of heteropessimism as a cultural attitude of often performative embarrassment or hopelessness towards one’s own heterosexuality or the straight experience in general. She does, ultimately, conclude ‘heteropessimism reveals something about the way we can remain secretly attached to the continuity of the very things we (sincerely) decry as toxic boring, broken’. Referring to as something that is mostly performative and ultimately damaging, she makes the case against heteropessimist attitudes and argues that earnestness towards sexuality is in fact a far more progressive and productive attitude.
Who’s Afraid of Amber Heard? by Rayne Fisher-Quann
This essay dives into the cultural response to the highly publicized Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial, and explores how regardless of the trial’s conclusion, it holds unfortunate relevance with the continuing of society’s collective refusal to believe women. Writing of Depp’s strategic attempt to portray Heard as a ‘neat, uncomplicated example of an evil woman publicly conspiring to bring a good man down’ she unpicks the failing of the Me-Too movement and references several articles that explore and criticizes the trial. An example includes Michael Hobbes’ article The bleak spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial, which delves into a factual exploration of the trial. The essay is sharp and clear in its message; the trial and the cultural wave following speaks to the ritualistic pattern suffered by women in the public eye, both in the enjoyment of women’s spectacle and the model of the perfect victim women in the public eye are expected to slot into to receive public support or even sympathy for being victims of abuse. It is an absolute must-read both in understanding and unlearning the subconscious bias to avoid harm to women both in and out of the public eye in the future.
The Body is Not A Metaphor; An Interview with Emmeline Clein by Emma Glenn Baker
The interview follows the release of Clein’s debut book, Dead Weight: On Hunger and Harm (which I would also encourage every person regardless of gender to read!). The book consists of a series of critical, semi-autobiographical, heavily researched and deeply empathetic essays exploring and dissecting the intersection between gender, womanhood and the culture of food; eating disorders, class structures, mental illness and all in between. The interview is a great starting point to the kind of ideas Clein discusses in her book, and on a deeper level about her personal experience with writing about her own body. Clein discusses the history of pathologizing women’s pain, the concept of dissociative feminism (a term coined by her) and how the culture surrounding the health and wellness industry is linked to the capitalist machine disguised as self-wellness. The interview exemplifies a key part of the novel and of the general; Clein offers an argument of restructuring blame and argues that our understanding of eating disorders should be viewed not as an individual problem, but as one that ties to a larger problem of capitalist and patriarchal profit.
Wages Against Housework by Silvia Federici
‘Demanding wages for housework is a revolutionary demand not because it will destroy capital but because it forces capital to acknowledge this invisible labour and to restructure social relations in better terms for women’ writes Federici in her 1974 essay, where she makes the still fairly radical case that the domestic work of women is and should be viewed as unpaid labour. She ties the feminist movement into the anti-capitalist movement; intersecting women’s exploitation, housework as disproportionately effecting the middle class, the institution of marriage as sexual and emotional labour. The message of the essay is still one that receives criticism and whether or not you agree with the conclusion, it is a uniquely thought-provoking and fascinating read about the ever-changing complexity of women’s positions in the domestic sphere.
*note: in this article I use ‘women’ as a loose term to refer to those who present as ‘feminine’, have been socially conditioned as women, or anyone who identifies as such regardless of presentation but it’s important to mention that the cultural criticism in each of these pieces does apply to those who don’t necessarily present or identity of women, and trans/gender non-conforming people are just as included in these conversations.
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