'Dis-Ease' Disease

     We live in an era where women feel more discomfort with their bodies than ever before. They are willing to do anything in order to maintain a ‘better’ more ‘beautiful’ image. The category that women strive to be in is part of what Naomi Wolf refers to as “The Beauty Myth.” In her novel The Beauty Myth, Wolf talks about exactly that. She says that the whole essence of beauty portrayed by society in our world today is just a myth; it is a lie.
     Women of all ages are willing to undergo surgery, like actually let a doctor cut up their bodies and risk death just to get a facelift or a breast enhancement, you name it. They allow beauty physicians to rip off hairs that apparently make them look ugly and so shouldn’t be there. If it wasn’t supposed to be there why did God create women with body hair?
     Smoking, taking drugs, or throwing up on purpose are all things women do just to be what society perceives as beautiful. It is a fact that young women are subject to the uprising in smoking globally.

     “39 percent of all women who smoke say they smoke to maintain their weight; one quarter of those will die of disease caused by cigarette smoking–though, to be fair, the dead women’s corpses will weigh on average four pounds less than will the bodies of the living nonsmokers,” (229).

    Are you kidding me? It’s insane to think that those women are actually more willing to die and weigh less than live and weigh more. I got upset reading that passage for the first time. You know what, it still upsets me. I don’t think it will ever stop upsetting me.
     It’s sad that they don’t value themselves for who they are instead of what they look like. And it should not matter what they look like anyway. Who is to say I’m not beautiful? I would only consider myself ugly if I were to compare myself to someone else that I thought fit better into the ‘beautiful’ image.
     Naomi Wolf states that, “The myth is not only making women physically ill, but mentally ill,” (229). Directly following, she goes on to say, “Stress is one of the most serious medical risk factors.” This is because it lowers the immune system and contributes to high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. So no wonder women smoke; they are stressed! It still doesn’t justify the reasons behind it, but Wolf is clear to note that we shouldn’t blame those women for their actions because they are victims of the beauty myth just like the rest of us. “Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty “fixes” that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth,” (230).

Not The Humble Dependant

Penguin Book’s edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman has an interesting quote on the cover that in my opinion accurately brings up the main points of our readings so far. “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners– time to restore them to their lost dignity– and make them, as a part of the human species” (49). So the first point is that there should be a change in the manners of women. Wollstonecraft touches base on these ideas by saying, “the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will…become the friend and not the humble dependant of her husband (25).

Wollstonecraft acknowledges that women are indeed inferior to men when it comes to physical aspects, but she carefully adds that if given the chance, women could be intellectually superior to men. The women who ‘strengthens her mind and exercises her body’ will become the friend in a sense that other women will look up to her, admire her, and follow in her footsteps. They will not become what men want them to become that is ‘slaves of their own desires’ (56).

Wollstonecraft states that, “it will also require some time to convince women that they act contrary to their real interest” (49). I believe that women need to think of themselves as their own bosses; that nobody is holding reigns to them controlling which path they take. I believe that the only way for women to be treated equally in our society and in our planet is if women see themselves as equals.

In this generation a book with as many generalizations about gender roles and opinions as this one does would probably be criticized. However, it is important to understand that in the 1700s if someone could make a general statement about anything, it meant that they had enough knowledge to do so. It meant that that person had enough time on their hands and enough intelligence to read novels and comprehend them. So for Mary Wollstonecraft, and many people at the time, this book is groundbreaking. It not only opens up whole new ideas of what women are capable of, but it also allows for women to not blame themselves that society has corrupted them in such a way to fight against one another over who is more beautiful. Women, in my opinion, must befriend one another and act together in order to gain back the strength and power that they so rightfully own.