Guilt

After reading both A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Beauty Myth, there were parts that made me feel guilty.
To begin with, in Wollstonecraft’s book she advocates that it is time for women to change their mannerisms in order to better society. She says that women need to be more educated in order to have more things to think about in their daily lives rather than just housework. She says, “girls marry merely to better themselves” (79). Wollstonecraft clearly states that she does not approve of these actions but would prefer that women spend their time doing something more productively. This makes me feel guilty because I feel that I too am a part of what she disagrees with. I have dreamed about getting married and having kids. Not because I don’t want to have a job or be educate, but instead just because it makes me happy. Wollstonecraft says, “women have seldom sufficient serious employment to silence their feelings” (78). I sort of disagree with this and I will use my mom as an example. She told me that she had many opportunities to work, but she refused them because she felt like spending time with us was more important. She didn’t mind spending all of her time with us, nor did she feel like that didn’t satisfy her needs.
In The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, she explains that putting on make up and looking nice, can objectify a woman. She describes how a woman walks down the street, “she painted her face for an hour, blending and shading, and now she holds her head as if it were a work of art” (249). Well firstly, reading that line made me think of a confident executive woman maybe in a business suit and how she feels confident about herself. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I feel like by saying she held her face up like a ‘work of art’ we would be judging her. I understand that women should not only care about their looks, but I personally feel that it should be ok to want to dress up and look nice just because it makes one feel good.
Both these books have very valuable and important messages that have definitely helped shape society. While it is important to be aware of these issues, we should also focus on getting rid of the guilt and judgments. At the end of the day, isn’t that what makes us feel the worst?

Pornography- Men and Women

Naomi Wolf writes in The Beauty Myth that “such imagery [beauty pornography] represses female sexuality and lowers self-esteem by casting sex as locked in a chastity belt in which beauty is the only key” (146). In other words she means that pornography can make women feel ugly. In my opinion this is true in many cases, as we see men falling for women with a certain figure. That in a way can allow other women to think that they can only be beautiful if their bodies are similar to the women in pornography. Pornography is giving a false image of how women are meant to look like during sex and also how they’re meant to act. I feel that a lot of people in our society forget that pornography isn’t real and that most of those women were not born with bodies like that.
Another example where you see that pornography is not reality, Wolf describes a situation with a friend of hers. “A friend, a model, at fifteen, showed me the prints from her first lingerie shoot…I could hardly recognize her (151). Her friend, Sasha had scoliosis and had to wear a back brace, yet it was hidden and she was still posing in a provocative way for the camera. At the end of the story Wolf says, “like me, Sasha was a virgin” (151). This passage made me realize that nothing is even real in these advertisements. For example Sasha didn’t really have breasts that big, as she was only fifteen at the time. Also the whole scene was made to look like something made up and it didn’t represent Sasha’s real life as a high school teenager.
Wolf acknowledges the fact that pornography also can effect men negatively. While women are afraid of being ugly, the men say, “we’re afraid they’ll laugh at us” (153). I think what Wolf is trying to convey is that even though women are judged a lot by men, men are also judged by women. “The fact is that women are able to view men just as men view women, as subjects for sexual and aesthetic evaluation” (153). I like how Naomi Wolf always made sure to point out both sides for men and women. That way, her book reaches out to more viewers and avoids having a one-sided biased view. It shows that men can also feel uncomfortable with their bodies and that may pressure them into doing unordinary things.

Chapter’s I Didn’t Want To Talk About

As I’m writing this I am trying to cover the screen because there is a random boy sitting behind me and I really would rather him not know what I am writing about.

The Woman Who Loved To Make Vagina’s Happy
This chapter was about sexual acts and orgasms, but it also goes into a woman figuring out that she is a lesbian. The chapter goes on to discuss how this woman felt while watching romantic movies and seeing women moan on the screen. She says, “I longed to moan. I practiced in front of my mirror, on a tape recorder, moaning in various keys, various tones…”(107). I thought that was so weird. Who does that? She didn’t even mention how old she was while doing this. The only thing I’ve practiced for in front of a mirror was singing or a speech. I guess the other thing I had a problem in this chapter was when she describes the different types of moans in the last paragraph. The one that stood out to me the most was the “semireligious moan (a Muslim chanting sound)” (110). I guess it’s because when I hear this chanting sound I never never ever connected it to sex. It’s always been in a sacred place like a Mosque or even the Holy City of Mecca. To me this was a little bit offensive.

“As a lesbian” pg. 115 – 118

This chapter is about a woman describing sex and foreplay, all kinds of things and it makes Eve Ensler feel uncomfortable. This is surprising to me she came up with the idea of this book and yet still she wasn’t feeling very comfortable hearing this woman describe her vagina. Ensler says, “I realize I am embarrassed, listening to her…her love for vaginas and comfort with them and my distancing, terror of saying all this in front of you, the audience” (116). I think it was in this place where she realizes that she is pushing boundaries. There were certain words and phrases in this chapter that I just find too uncomfortable to discuss. Even though I understand her motivations and reasons for writing it, I have my own limits. Part of me thinks she was trying to shock people, but maybe that is for the better because it is true that we do not use these words or talk about these things openly. Maybe Eve Ensler did not intend for this book to be vulgar, but I think speaking these things aloud can provoke that reaction.

Too Much Information- The Flood

In Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, she interviews a lady for Queens who intimately describes an embarrassing moment of her teenage years. In the beginning I understood why this piece was included in The Vagina Monologues because the interviewee was so hesitant to talk about her experience openly. She says, “What’s a smart girl like you going around talking to old ladies about their down-theres for? We didn’t do this kind of thing when I was a girl” (26). Notice how she isn’t even able to say the word ‘vagina’ probably because of her age and how she was brought up.

            The lady then talks about meeting a handsome boy and him coming onto her in the car. That excited her and so she had what is considered as an embarrassing situation. He said to her that, “it smelled like sour milk and it was staining his car seat” (27). My first reaction to reading this was that I probably shouldn’t continue reading this book because things might get weirder. I also found this a bit graphic just the description of the wet car seats and stained leather. Afterwards I thought about it and came to the conclusion that if that had happened to me I would have been just as embarrassed maybe even more. Andy, the boy she was with at the time, didn’t help the situation at all. He made it worse by calling her a “stinky weird girl” (27).

            After this was all over, the woman tells Eve Ensler that she could never have sex again because she was afraid it would happen again. She says, “I closed the whole store. Locked it. Never opened for business again” (28). I thought it was sad that something like this would stop a person from having future relationships and even a family. I’m sure at that time during the baby boom of the 1950’s all women were expected to do was to have kids. I think it’s good that she ended up content with other things that she had going on in her life. She says, “Who needs it anyway? Right? Highly overrated. I’ve done other things. I love the dog shows. I sell antiques” (29).

            I think that Eve Ensler had a good point in starting these interviews because every person should be able to talk about something that has changed their life forever. I was surprised that this woman had never had therapy about this incident before and instead let it control her life. This chapter for me, was significant in that it showed that Eve Ensler had a good point in making these interviews because as the lady says, “You know actually, you’re the first person I ever talked to about this, and I feel a little better” (30).

Dad's Reaction

     Just the title of this book gives such a strong reaction to people, from what I know. When I began reading alone in my room, my dad walked in and saw the title straight away. He said in a straight face, "I'm glad you're getting your work done." He knew it was for school... I'm glad he didn't ask. But instead of letting him leave it at that, I asked if he would sit next to me and allow me to explain what it's actually about. "The Vagina Monologues," I said, "are about much more than vaginas." I stopped there and corrected myself. "Well, actually they are mostly about vaginas...but the meaning behind it is about the women." He nodded and so I proceeded. "Eve Ensler interviewed over 200 women and didn't even plan to have this book be about vaginas. [while typing it told me that the plural form of 'vagina' is 'vaginae,' funny I never heard of that].
   Thinking about how Eve Ensler had no idea she was going to write The Vagina Monologues, reminded me of how impossible it is to predict the future or tell what results are caused by your actions. Like the anonymous women who were interviewed in this book, telling their stories. The women for the most part had no idea how much they were going to tell Ensler in the interview. Ensler writes that her interviews with the older women in their sixties were the "most poignant of all, possibly because many had never had a vagina interview before" (23). Which to me is not that surprising. I would not have expected any of these women to have had vagina interviews before especially considering they were from the 'down there generation' which in the Foreword Gloria Steinem writes, "those were the words spoken rarely and in a hushed voice" (ix).

'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.