Word: selfe
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Feminism is a frustratingly ambivalent movement, unclear as to exactly what it requires from those who self-identify as members. Its relationship with femininity—those mysterious qualities that characterize the female sex—is even more ambivalent. Apologetic qualifications (“I’m a feminist, but…”) are frequently invoked by young women, who associate the doctrine with the overly serious, overly desexualized, and inadequately shaven activists of the ’60s and ’70s. Even those girded with feminist theory, and fully aware of the dangers...
...example, Naomi Wolf, author of “The Beauty Myth.” The phrase describes the idealized standard of beauty whose realization is upheld in Western culture as the end-all task of being female. Yet, despite the myth’s devastating implications—self-loathing, eating disorders, bodily mutilation via plastic surgery—no woman wants to be patronized into giving up eyeliner and lipstick. Nor does she want to be told that her low-cut blouse shows that she’s been hoodwinked into a patriarchal conspiracy intended to keep her perpetually...
...thus appear to stand dogmatically opposed. As women, the line between doing things to feel better about ourselves and doing them to become more sexually attractive to men is tenuous. Using the rationale “I did it for myself” to justify breast augmentation rings of self-deception, yet for more subtle procedures and regimens, who can be the judge...
...Questioning your intentions every time you shave your armpits is exhausting. But “girlie” feminism does not advance a viable solution, nor does it assuage females’ anxieties about the authenticity of their efforts at self-improvement. Voluntarily choosing to objectify oneself may feel like empowerment. Yet such empowerment is ephemeral, given the inability of the female subject to control others’ interpretations of her choices. Brashly assuming traditional feminine tropes is no more productive than brashly assuming masculine ones: the taboo of the hairy-legged, power-suit-wearing, man-hating feminist from which...
...refusal to paper over her colorful past and insistence on taking on ambitious social projects in the present have made her the scandal du jour around many a wine cooler. Yet poll results suggest the tides are turning. Bruni’s insistence on maintaining her self-identity has grudgingly won over the nation’s citizens—90 percent now deem her “elegant and modern...